New York – a grate city!

No, that’s not a misspelling in the title, more about that later. Off to the big city we went, Mollie, Nick and I. I don’t like flying, well that’s not true, flying doesn’t really bother me. However, getting to the airport on time, parking, making sure you get the bags checked, getting through security, getting to the right gate, hoping your bags go with you… all that makes me tense. But we country bumpkins made it and we had a ball!

LJ looked so good. I think he really loves his adopted city and loved showing it to us too. He seems to be an expert on the subways. They weren’t nearly as scary as I was expecting them to be. I was lost most of the time but I just followed him or Collin. I enjoyed seeing their apartment – sooooooo tiny! I liked seeing where they worked, the parks they love, the area they hope to move to eventually (the village), the harbor area and my very favorite place in the city – the Skyline. This is an old raised railroad platform. When it was no longer used they eventually made a walking park out of it. Google it – it’s really great, beautiful flowers, water features, large wooden lounge chairs scattered about. At one point on it you can even see the Statue of Liberty.

Now for one thing you may not know about this famous city. Well first something you may not know about me – I have one great fear/phobia. Spiders, snakes and rats don’t bother me particularly. I don’t fear flying itself, I’m not even afraid of the dentist. Nope my fear is grates – I can’t walk over a grate, it freaks me out! And I believe New York City has more grates than it has true sidewalks! I probably walked twice as far as everyone else just going back and forth avoiding them. What do all those women wearing spike heels do? – and there were tons of them. So not only is it a great city it is a grate city too. I could have done without that second part.



In addition to seeing the city and visiting with the boys, Nick and I had some fun on our own too. Mollie stayed at LJ’s apartment so we had the hotel to ourselves! More about that soon. Our last night there I got a text from Mollie saying “I guess we can go now – I’ve seen my first prostitute and my first subway rat.” Yep, this trip had a little of everything.