Musicals and monuments

Our last day in New York had crept up on us. We were sad as we didn't get to do half the things we had intended, like find Harvey's building,(Suits) or go to the Statue of Liberty-I wanted to get adalia and Lacey those foam crowns that Jess and I got from Aunty Noelene so we could re-stage a photo from our childhoods, torch in one hand, bible in the other! But I was also slightly relieved. I had found New York to be much dirtier than last time, and the people so much ruder! One example was yesterday at Woodbury common I had asked a shop assistant for help. She rudely replied "wait a minute" then turned to her friend and continued chatting about her boyfriend and never helped me, even though I was standing next to her. People shove you out of the way, don't hold doors for you, they are just not nice. there was one exception, the man who worked at our breakfast buffet. He was so helpful and friendly, so I won't make out that everyone was rude.
We spent the morning packing, as the sky had decided to shed some tears for our departure. It was bucketing down! The concierge even offered to delay our check out, but we had raincoats and umbrellas and were ready to spend our last day exploring.
We visited a near empty wall street, stared down the bull, tried to keep the kids quiet at the 9/11 memorial site ("but I want a turn of the umbrella" screamed an angry Adalia") then tried to find a PJ recommended diner for lunch. We were running out of time and had been walking in the wrong direction, so we gave up on our diner dreams and tried to get a table at counter burger, but once we were seated we realised that we only had half an hour before we needed to be at "The Lion King" so we had to leave. Tom found a great sandwich place across from the theatre and we had a "picnic" at the theatre doors.
After nearly losing one ticket and luckily finding it in time, we took our seats and waited to be amazed.
I never saw the show when it was in Sydney, I was never that into it. But we thought it would be a good one for the kids. And it was visually spectacular. The animal costumes were unimaginably amazing. Every time I looked across at Adalia she had the biggest grin on her face. And she loved that there were kids in the show. Sammy was still quite sick, so I'm hoping that's why he kept asking when it would be finished.
After the show I wanted to go straight to the airport, but Tom likes to milk every single moment out of a trip, so instead we strolled past shops, went to "the pie factory" for a milkshake (tom had purchased pies yesterday and they were amazing), had some fries from "sticky fingers" THEN went back to collect our luggage.
We were tossing up between at taxi to the airport (about $100) or the bus ($45) and opted for the bus even though it would require us lugging our bags through heavy pedestrian traffic. The doors of the 6pm bus closed right as we got there, and the next bus was apparently 15 minutes away however, for the ten minutes we stood in the line the 6pm bus moved exactly one metre in the heavy traffic. We decided the best option was the train. We hauled kids and bags through thousands of tourists and car park traffic to Pens station, crammed ourselves in a lift that stank of urine, slowly lowering us to the subway, then tried to work out where to go. We asked two staff members, and thankfully when asking the second (who didn't really know the answer) a pilot happened to be walking past and offered to lead us to the right platform. It was quite a walk, I'm not sure we would have made it on our own, and it would have been interesting to know where in NY we ended up! Thankfully for all the effort it was even cheaper than the bus!
As with all NY public transport, the train terminal was a shimozel! Everyone stood at a waiting area until the train was announced at which point everyone crammed through a small door (that needed to be held open, there are no automatic doors in all of America or seems!) We wanted to wait for the next train but we/I was getting nervous about the time, so we walked through the mysterious doors and onto an underground tunnel which had the longest train I have ever seen waiting. It was full, barely standing room only but we squeezed in.
After the train was a monorail, then finally at the airport we discovered the plane was delayed. It was a 9:30pm flight, so by the time we were boarding the kids were hysterical, thankfully with laughter and not tears. And once on the plane they quickly fell asleep which was lucky as we were delayed a further two hours on the Tarmac.
It would have been lovely had they stayed asleep the entire overnight flight, but that would have been too easy. I ended up giving Adalia phenergan at about 2am, which made getting her off the plane difficult, but that's another story for another day.Read more