The Big Apple - Short Notice (Day 1)

One of my duties at my new job is to provide site support whenever any of our clients has an election (primary, general, school board, etc) and requests our presence. Well, the 5 main burroughs of New York City had a primary on Sept 9th that people were needed for and, originally, I wasn't slated to go but a colleague had a family emergency so they asked me on a Thursday afternoon if I could go in that person's place - to depart on Saturday morning of that same week!!! It's like winning a free trip but you have to pack and be ready in 24 hrs or you lose the trip - but so NOT like that! LOL Luckily, our flight was direct, which is a rare thing in these here parts, so we got there relatively early in the day and got to our hotel - half the battle of all travel in my book. I was assigned to Staten Island, which was great because it was definitely somewhere I hadn't been before! After getting into our rooms and freshening up, my travel companions and I grabbed a cab and headed for the S.I. Ferry to go over to Manhattan. Now, before I go any further, let me remind you all that at this point in time nationally, our eyes were peeled to a little gal named Hanna the Hurricane, who happened to be traversing her way up the East Coast; so naturally, there was rain in the forecast. Me, being the seasoned traveller that I am, I packed an umbrella..so, rain = no problem! It was overcast but not raining as we boarded the Ferry and had a nice foggy ride over to the dock in Manhattan - it was still really beautiful...the fog added a mystique & intimacy to the whole area which I was sure wasn't their otherwise.

Once we got off the Ferry, we grabbed a Metro Card for the subway (I was feeling like a real New Yawka then!) and grabbed the #1 red line to head to 42nd St & Times Square! We stopped at a little place and grabbed a slice and a beer first, then started to walk around and it also started to sprinkle; then, it proceeded to rain. I got out my trusty umbrella and I was good to go (or so I thought!). We kept walking and I was taking pictures and just taking in the atmosphere of Times Square...but for some reason, I still seemed to be getting wet. We decided to duck into a bar and have a martini to possibly wait out the rain (or get to a point where we really didn't care about it). After a yummy Tropical Martini, we grabbed our umbrellas (my companions bought one from a street vendor as they were everywhere) and headed back out. We walked some more over near Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall, doing a little light shopping and looking around in stores as we went. Each time we went into a store, I'd notice that I seemed to be wetter than before...I could not figure what the deal was and then I felt a drip on my face - while UNDER the umbrella. I reached up to touch the umbrella's underside that should have been nice & dry & it was soaked; water was seeping right through it and onto me! I went to the next umbrella vendor I saw and bought a $5 umbrella, and trashed the crappy one I had brought. I opened up my new purchase with pride...I would now be one of the elite, dry pedestrians! As I resume walking, I feel even more rain on my face...I look up inside this new improved umbrella and there is a fist-sized hole in the seem and water is just coming on in! Curses! I turned right back around and showed the hole to the vendor who promptly gave me a different umbrella, which we both checked out and I finally had a decent umbrella - I was beyond drenched and could wring water out of my clothes, but, hey, I had an umbrella! At that point, I was tired of being wet and I couldn't afford to shop where my companions were going (Kenneth Cole, etc.) so I told them I was going to catch the subway back to the Ferry terminal, get across the water and go back to the hotel for a hot shower. I had no trouble navigating the different trains in the subway and had fun looking around and people watching in the nether regions of the city. There were people preforming music and dancing...one especially moving performance of Ben E. King's "Stand by Me" by a robust African-American woman reminiscent of the ones who bring down the church singing in their gospel choir. I should have gotten a photo of her but being as wet as I was and the demise of my last camera being due to water, I was shutter-shy! I continued on my way to the Ferry stop...and was entertained by another gentleman jumping onto our car and giving a story like you might see in a movie about the life & times of Jackie Robinson and then adding an eerily accurate sounding soundtrack of "She Was Just 16." He then wandered through the car collecting offerings of appreciation from listeners in the car.

I got to the Ferry terminal and was very glad to be heading back to a hot shower, dry clothes and a comfy bed. Coincidentally, I ended up running into my companions again at the Ferry...my side-trips in the subway took up any head-start I had on them, but that was fine since we were able to share a cab back to the hotel. When we did get back to the hotel and I got in my room, I took the longest shower I've taken in recent memory...it was almost magical! After that, we had a nice, quiet, relaxed dinner with a wonderful glass of wine and I slept wonderfully!!

This is me, soggy on the subway:



The rest of the trip and more photos to follow in a subsequent post...