Wednesday, May 16, 2012

A Whirlwind Weekend to New York City

Start spreading the news, I'm leaving today!
I want to be a part of it NewYork, New York!


And so we did. Me, Heather and Hope. The timing would be God's timing as I would be in New York City with my daughter and granddaughter and not sitting home missing my mom on my 1st Mothers Day without her.

Rick dropped us off at ATL at 6:30 am. He was spending the weekend in Florida with his mom. After checking in and being scanned by the big new machines, we grabbed some Starbucks and awaited the flight. It was a fairly good flight to begin with but the landing had a bit of turbulence...when we arrived at Laguardia we were met by a man holding a sign with my name on it.

We followed him out to a Lincoln Town Car that took us straight to The Alex Hotel. Room 409. We didn't waste much time in walking to Grand Central station which ended up being aprox 4 blocks from our hotel. That's where you catch the subway. We figured out with some help how to get a card loaded with money to be able to ride to see Battery Park and The Statue of Liberty and The World Trade Center.


Both were highlights although we did not take the boat out to Ellis Island. It was very windy and a 4-5 hour trip. We did pick up some souvenirs from some street vendors and bought double decker bus tours for Hope and I to do tomorrow while Heather was doing her shoot with Prevention Magazine. After much walking to ground Zero I was feeling the pain.... Alot. But it was so worth it. We took a cab back to the subway and at this point walking was out of the question for me. At our return to Grand Central Station Heather hailed a cab and when we told him we were going to The Alex he said you can walk there!! It's just around the corner!!!( everything is "just around the corner" to these people!) I said I can't walk..He said I can't drive you there! After Heather mentioning again I could not walk that I am in pain. I said I have Lupus...I can't walk....He took us just around the corner with the meter off and charged $5.00....I knew at this point I had to be more proactive with my meds and do less walking and more cabs if I was gonna see this town!!

After getting back to the hotel I took an emergency dosage of Prednesone which my Dr had me keep on hand for times like these. Heather and Hope went to TIme Square and I went to bed. The next morning I felt much better and at 7:00 am we were in a cab headed for Rockerfeller Plaza with our signs in hands to be on The Today Show with Lester and Amy. And yes we were on and had fun doing it.



It was time then for Heather to meet her group and do her shoot and us to get on the double decker buses and do our first tour but before we did I had to run in a pharmacy to get some icy hot and some heat patches for my back as standing the 1 1/2 hours at The Today Show I was having back pains. We got all set with that and off we went on the tour bus. It was a 90 minute tour of Time Square, The Theatre District, Time Warner Center, Lincoln Center, Central Park, many Cathedrals, Apollo Theatre, Grant's Tomb, many museums, we saw where John Lennon was killed, where Brad and Angelina stay when they come to NYC, Carnegie Hall and lots more. We both had dead camera / cell phone batteries and were ready for lunch so we split a meal at Planet Hollywood and went back to the hotel to charge our batteries.


Once we caught our breath we started our 2nd tour this ended up being 2 hours long and not as interesting but we saw soooo much. Again Time square which is where we ate and shopped. Macy's , The Empire State building, Union Square, Madison Ave., Broadway, Greenwich Village,Soho, Chinatown, World Trade center (from a different view) its now taller than the Empire State Building this week! We saw the South Street Sea Port, lower east side, United Nations,Waldorf Astoria, and back to Rockefeller Plaza and taxied back to The Alex Hotel. Arriving 2 minutes after Heather. Great timing.

Heather was exhausted from her interview and shoot. I cant wait to see the pictures and article about her success on The Couch to 5 K Program. I know she said they took tons of pictures and her face hurt from smiling so much and they were jumping on a orange couch in a park in South Brooklyn near the ocean. Can't wait to see that!!!

We were all hungry so on the advice of some of the people she was with that day we went to a diner right across the street (yeah!) and had a great meal and then took a little walk to a bakery called crumbs and celebrated our trip with a delicious cupcake. Mine was specifically for mothers and it was yummy!

Back to the hotel and beddy bye. At 7:00 am we are up and packed and pulling our carry ons we catch a cab to Grand Central Station, got on a subway headed to Brooklyn, NY to my dream trip highlight to hear the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir SING in person!! We ended up having to shuttle between 2 subways due to construction around WTC and then caught another cab and arrived just as we had planned at 8:30 am we were dropped off at the front door. Some quick pics, check our bags at the door and we are on time to hear the choir practice.

It was a wonderful experience, the choir was awesome the spirit was there, Jim Cymbala honored his 97 yr old mother, the oldest in the church. Then we grabbed our luggage, grabbed a cab and off to Laguardia. I was pulled aside at baggage claim and had my hands swabbed to be sure I was not carrying explosives and then we had time to sit at the IPad tables (they were everywhere and FREE) and eat a quick lunch (we built our own burger on a computer and they brought it out), put some pics on Facebook and pass the time till our return flight to Atlanta. That flight was a little bumpy too and although I ripped the armrest off my seat we managed to get home safe and sound...

Matt, Bella and Ben picked us up at the curb and took us home. Now that is what you called a whirlwind trip to New York City!!!

Thank you Heather what a great Mothers Day. One I will never forget.

1 comment:

  1. So glad you had a good time! You certainly packed in a lot of activity =)

    ReplyDelete