New York: Days 1-2

Guest Post by Elaine

Prologue:
Thursday, I worked until noon. All of my classes helped clean up the art room so that we'd be ready to go with our papermaking project in the spring. It's amazing how much the students like cleaning up! At the beginning of my last (and typically the most difficult) class, I announced that I would be leaving early and that N would be with them for the last 15 minutes. One of the girls was a bit panicked that I would not be coming back, oops! I assured her that I would be back on the first day of school in January, lol.

My friend/neighbor drove me to the airport on Thursday. We were running a bit behind and I had just barely enough time to get through security and hop onto the plane! On FB on Friday, after thanking her again for taking me to the airport, she replied that there had been a major accident on the I-15 north where a tractor-trailer tipped over , blocking all but the carpool lane, pinning a car underneath, and causing a fatality only 10-15 minutes after we passed that section! Good thing for blessings!

Day 1:
Day one was a lazy day. We made it back to the house at 1:01 AM from the airport. Originally, I had thought to go to bed right away. After all, I had been exhausted on the last flight (three all together). However, that hardly ever happens as I prefer to wander/relax for awhile first. In this case that ended up taking four hours! I haven't gone to bed that late for quite a while. Needless to say, I slept until 1:30 pm. Of course my body was still on Utah time which is two hours behind NY.

Once I was up and ready to go, I cut my mom's hair (so much cuter now and she loves it!). Then we went to the store to pick up a present for my brother and his family. Finally, we picked up my dad and headed to his SBE Christmas dinner.

At dinner, the men sat on one end of the table and the women sat on the other end of the table separated by about three sits in between. Of course these seats would hopefully be filled as well, but they weren't. It was funny to have adult men and women separating themselves so, lol.

Day 2: NYC!
On Saturday, my mom and I had a full day of NYC activities scheduled! We left the house at 6:45 AM and headed south. The drive was quite pleasant and even when we got to the city, the traffic was reasonable and the drivers were quite polite. I kept wondering where the edgy New Yorkers were hiding (we eventually found a few, but they were definitely the minority)!

After leaving the car at a parking garage (did you know that the city charges over 18% tax on parking garages?!), we headed across town to Serendipity to meet Sarah and family. The address we had was wrong and after trying three different sets of directions, finally managed to find the place an hour after we had planned to meet. Unfortunately, we didn't find Sarah* and my cell doesn't work out here :(

Serendipity had a two to three hour wait! Given the circumstances, my mom and I decided to find somewhere else to have lunch. As we wandered down the street, I spotted a street stand. When in NYC, street stands are just the thing! Although the food was not amazing, it was still a fun experience. Plus, we happened to be standing right outside of Dylan's Candy Bar! What great luck! Lots of people were coming out of the candy shop with large bags. I thought these people were crazy!** Once we were done eating our chicken kabobs, we wandered into the store.

The store itself is quite the set up! There were ever so many types of candies, although mostly the kind of candy you can buy anywhere. After wandering around the first floor, I wasn't feeling all that impressed with the store, but after looking closely, they had more and more specialty items, especially on the bottom level. Santa was also there and the children were invited to visit with him for free!



Off to the Guggenheim we went. The Guggenheim was great and I wondered if I could keep up my spending spree, lol! I think it ended up being close to the same amount as the candy store which is crazy! Oh well, at least I stuck pretty close to my budget.

Again, I bought an amazing book to use in my classroom (am I on vacation?). I also bought many postcards and took some pictures of some of the other items the gift shop had to offer. There were ever so many items that I would have loved to add to my basket, but I refrained (aren't you proud?).

After the museum, we hurried back to the parking garage and re-parked the car at the Lincoln Center! Then we went to the temple, which is so crisp and simply beautiful. Our full day of activities ended with a great performance of Handel's Messiah at the Lincoln Center. The choir and orchestra were the best performers and received very, very loud applause at the end! I loved that we were able to give them the praise they deserved!

The drive home proved to be quite adventurous as the directions were over detailed and ended up leading us to go north instead of south, thus creating a 45 minute detour of the Bronx and a small town by the name of Pelham! Eventually, after several silent prayers, we were able to find a main road which led us to the on ramp of the south bound traffic, then another lovely trip through the Bronx and finally home at 4 AM! I ended up being awake for 23 hours between Saturday morning and Sunday morning, something I haven't done since my early college years!



*Sarah had sent a message, but I didn't get it until last night, oops! Someday we will manage to get together!

**After initially finding one small item to add to my basket and contemplating leaving it behind, we went downstairs where I found way too many things to buy! Apparently I jinxed myself when I thought the people coming out with the large bags were crazy because I ended up being one of those people, lol! I bought several items for my nephews and niece along with the store's exclusive book which will make a great addition to my classroom art library. I'm even thinking about having my younger students design their own candy during one of our element and principle lessons!