*taps heels together* "There's no place like home, there's no place like home"
Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore.
The real deal:
*takes step after step after block after block* "There's no place like a bench, there's no place like a bench"
Brian, this is definitely not Portland.
We are in New York City! My legs hurt too from all the walking. It makes me feel lazy. That is, it makes my life at home look lazy. When was the last time I walked even a mile, much less…. well, things are measured in blocks here. Nevermind. I don't know what time it really is. I don't know, I don'nt know. I'm pppppooopled. Neal's laptop keys annoy me. Sometimes they don't type and sometimes they type the letter twice. I don't know why. Sometimes it doesn't. Both he and Hollye think I'm crazy for thinking that. I think maybe their laptop is an alien.
Yesterday we arrived at 8. The plane touched down. The walkway refused to move and attach. We sat and sweltered and I got pretty … tight. Then they took us to a new door and we unloaded, got on a cab and showed up at the apartment. We walked to see the largest cathedral in the world. (not largest church or chapel, cathedral) It was big. The columns inside were probably about 6 feet in diameter and about four stories high or so. I wanted to make all the tourists leave and just sit and pray for a year – it seemed very magnificent and holy.
Then we went to brunch around 11 – yummy! Eggs benedict, eggs florentine, croque madame, croque monsieur. Then we took a nap – for a little more than 2 hours! NICE!! I like that part. It was cozy. Ahh – I am tired. After our nap we decided to walk through Grand Central Park since it was so beautiful out. We went and walked and it was beautiful – the place is a big well-kept park with nice trails and it's huge! Ummm… I didn't make it through the whole thing. But we walked a LONG way according to me and had a very nice time! We got back and got some Big Apple sized slices of pizza, a couple bottles of wine and Pepsi. Rearranged the apartment so that it was a dining room. Was very nice.
This morning we woke up refreshed… I thought it was about 8 but it was 11. 🙂 Very nice. We got up and ready to go… had a delicious breakfast at a diner where the employees whipped around at about 110 miles an hour. Then we went and had our first ride on the subway. Subways are cool. They are underground. I know you know that, but that doesn't mean it's not cool. The trains go fast. Much faster than I expected. They rattle. They are dangerous, I mean if you did something stupid like stick your hand out over the tracks… such a simple little thing, but it would hurt like heck when the train came and whacked it. It's just kind of impressive how close you can get to something flying by that fast.
We paid our 11.50 a person and took the ferry out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis island. We walked around on the island with the Statue of Liberty but didn't get off at Ellis Island. It was neat to see and imagine being there in 1876, when it was being built… or even more sobering, being there as an immigrant, counting on a new home here. Pretty cool. That's where my ancestors probably came from! No wonder we're such a great group of people. Lots of people here don't speak English.
There are lots of cathedrals and temples and parishes here. My favorite is probably an old church downtown… with a cemetary next to it that is from 1750's. That's before the War of Independence, right? That's AWESOME. I could have sat there and just drifted back in time.
Where did we go from there… We sat in a park for half an hour cuz my poor feet hurt so bad. Oh yeah, after we got off the ferry back in NYC, we stopped to watch two black guys put on a funny show that included backflips, handstands, and joks… I gave them a tip. They werre pretty cool. We walked to wall street… looked a the New York Stock Exchange. You know, there is a fortune in NYC just in building materials. There is a lot of beautiful granite and marble and … I don't know – it is impressive, though!!! I like to look at it and just love it like a builder might – feeling rich in supplies – think of the possibilities of what you could do with all this! Not only that, but so much architecture is actually realized here – it is beautiful and impressive. I would like to just sit and enjoy so much craftsmanship and engineering feats.
We also stopped to play pool for a couple hours to pass the time before dinner. Dinner was yummy – moroccon/mediterranian type food. It was delicoius and it was really enjoyable to sit and pass the time with Neal and Hollye and my dear husband Brian, just enjoying the food and the company, no hurry, and… no walking! Yay! My poor little feetsies. Brian has been really wonderful all this time – always looking out for me and holding my hand and making sure I'm keeping up and getting rests when I need them. He really is wonderful!
I love you Brian.
Goodnight world. We go to a museum tomorrow and maybe the Empire State Building if we're ambitious. We go home tomorrow night. Should get home around 11 pm. Dang work. Not looking forward to that. Shucks. Well, umm… at least… umm… well, nope, not looking forward to work. I know, at least I don't have to walk much there!!!!!