New York Trip Post 3: Stories and Adventures part 1

If you haven't been following my posts on our New York trip, you can find them here, and here. If you have been following along, I hope it's been interesting. There is just way too much information for one post.

Like I said in earlier posts, it is so overwhelming, there is just no way to see and do everything and you feel like you barely scratch the surface. This is why I strongly suggest you have some lists of places you want to see and things you want to do. Below is a collage of my daughter's lists and to be honest, we probably didn't hit them all, definitely didn't hit all the food places. In the next few posts I'll share what we did each day with photos. Maybe if you ever take a trip, the tips will help. 

When we arrived to our hotel at about 9:45 (after traveling 8 hours, riding the air train, then another train to NYC to catch a taxi to our hotel) we discovered that there wasn't a room ready. Okay, HOW do you NOT have a room ready when you know people can check in after 3:00?! We weren't thrilled. All we wanted to do was go to our room, put our stuff down and find food. They said it would be about 45 minutes before one was available but they would store our bags while we waited for $2 a bag, (fine, I just want food..lol) They gave us breakfast tokens for the next day and a late checkout. On our way out one of the employees didn't feel it was right that we have to pay to store our bags when it wasn't our fault so he stored them at no charge. Thank you kind sir. Off we went to find food. In NYC. At 10:00 at night with no clue where to go. We ended up finding a place called The Diner, but when you walked in, it was pretty nice. Food was great and when we made it back to the hotel, our room was ready. I'm pretty sure every hotel room in NYC is teeny. Ours was only about 180sq. ft., but it worked and really we were only there to sleep. The girls shared a queen bed and I took the bunk...their bed was comfortable, mine, not so much. I don't think I took pics of our room. 

 We had already decided our first day we would hit the Central park area, however, we had a bit of a medical emergency after breakfast. My girls tend to get bloody noses when the weather gets warmer and drier, but we are used to it so not really a HUGE deal. A few days before we left for our trip Kristianna had gotten a couple bloody noses in the morning. Well that first morning, our room was a bit warmer than usual and she felt like she needed to blow her nose. Well, that set into motion one of the worst bloody noses she'd ever had. I was running around the hotel trying to find a stupid plastic bag to put ice in (there may have been some next to the ice machine but I just wasn't thinking clearly). One worker said "do I need to call an ambulance?" I was like "NO. I. JUST. NEED. A. BAG. FOR. ICE"!  Finally I got one about the same time my daughters friend came down and said "she thinks we need to go to a doctor, there's blood coming out the corner of her eye". WHAT! So I ask the concierge for the nearest Urgent Care, run upstairs have the girls gather their purses and we head out the door. What a sight. She's got a bag of ice on her neck and a washcloth with blood on it over her nose. We grab a cab and off we go. He lets us off on the other side of the street so we have to walk down half a NYC block, cross the street and up the other side. I wonder what people thought. As soon as we walk in the clinic, they see the rag and immediately take her back while I fill out information. They were so great with her. Long story short, the doctor cauterized her nose because he said the blood vessels in her nose are pretty weak. Once we were able to leave we decided to just walk back to the hotel, making a pitstop to H&M store first. What an experience, but thankfully no more bloody noses the entire trip. 

With that excitement behind us we headed by transit to Central Park for the days adventures. Here's where my not so fun experience commenced. I had purchased a pair of Skechers and a pair of Birkenstocks to wear. The latter at the suggestion of many and I've always wanted a pair. I wore them for about 2 weeks straight before our trip. HOWEVER, it clearly wasn't enough time. I decided to wear them that day and was actually doing really good. I have a jammed toe that just hasn't completely healed and in these shoes it wasn't bothering me at all. About halfway through the day and who knows how many steps of walking, my feet started getting sore, but I chalked it up to doing more walking than usual. Well, as the day progresses they just get more sore and painful. We finally sat down at one point to decide what we would do for dinner and I looked at my feet. There's a blister forming on the side. Bummer. But I didn't really look much further. So we keep going. By the time we were walking back my feet hurt so bad I felt like I could barely walk. Remember I said to take transit if possible....yes, do that, and make sure you KNOW your shoes are comfy. I had blisters on both feet, literally all the way around. I sent the girls to the store for bandaids and a pack of needles so I could pop them. I knew I wouldn't be wearing the Birks anymore because the hardness of the shoe was too painful. Ugghh! Not smart on my part. You might think "oh, this place is only 10 minutes away, etc, but those 10 minutes, 15 minutes add up". TAKE. TRANSIT! For the remaining 4 1/2 days I had to wear my Skechers with my feet loaded in bandaids and in pain the whole time. But we're in NYC for a once in a lifetime experience and there was no way I was going to wimp out or put a damper on things for my girl and her friend so I just plugged along. I kept telling myself "there are people who live with chronic pain all the time and they function, you can too". 

On our last day traveling home, I decided to wear my Birks since I could comfortably get them on and I didn't want to mess with having to wrestle with my tennis shoes AND blisters. But my feet swelled, so even they weren't the most comfortable. It took about a week before I could wear something other than tennis shoes, and I still, after a month being home, still have spots that aren't completely healed up. 

Other than those two "uggh" moments, the rest of our trip was pretty smooth. We went non-stop so we could see all we wanted to see. We were able to laugh at our not so great moments and keep plugging along even with the heat. I'll leave with you those stories today and in the next few posts I'll share more pictures and each days adventures.  

With Joy Unquenchable,