NYC Trip part 1

Despite an inauspicious start to our trip, the fam had a great time in the Big Apple. Just a few of the highlights from the trip:

Pigeons
Grafiti
Playing with Harper

Okay, there were a lot more highlights than that, but if you ask the kids thats probably the first thing they will mention. As for that inauspicious start, we left our house at 0 dark thirty Wednesday morning and pulled into the terminal on the parking shuttle at 6:27am for a 7:25am flight. After waiting in the checkin line for 15 minutes I swiped my card to start the process and was greeted with a message that check-in for our flight had closed. Check-in closed 45 minutes before take-off. We missed it by 2 minutes. Thanks for the warning United. So, we stood in another line for 20+minutes to be told that if we wanted to get confirmed tickets we could book a flight out on a Monday night red-eye. That would be less than 24hours before our return ticket thank you very not. Crystal was more than a little worried that I might have an unpleasant encounter with airport security. I still think I would have been justified. Our other option was to fly standby. So we did that. Crystal and I agreed that we would be able to split up so that we could increase our chances to get out of Portland. After three hours of waiting Crystal and Gabby made it out and basically were home free on their trip. Cade, Kellen and me? Well, not so much. We waited for one flight after another, we explored flying through Seattle, Denver, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles - even explored flying myself on another airline to those points, but were told that we still wouldn't get a ticket to New York. Bunch of damned liars. Towards evening time Kellen starting crying when he saw airplanes taking off without us and Cade was himself on the verge of tears. Finally at 11pm, after the final flight out of Portland for the night, I was on the verge of tears myself when one of the two helpful agents we had encountered all day took pity on us and finally finally finally booked us through on confirmed tickets the next morning. We had to fly through San Francisco and Chicago, but still we were on our way.

While Cade, Kellen and I were winging our way across the country, Crystal and Gabby had a lovely girls outing in the city going shopping, eating a place called Alice's Teacup and then wrapping up the day with The Lion King on Broadway. I'd provide more color to the day, but I was on an airplane at the time.

Friday morning or more accurately Friday early afternoon we all headed downtown to take a tour of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and wrap up with a tour of the New York Fire Museum. Cade did not think it was a funny joke when I told him while waiting in line for the ferry to Liberty Island that we had standby tickets. Despite that we had a good tour of both Liberty and Ellis Island. I personally learned that Liberty Island used to be known as Bedloe's Island (and a few other names too) and that Lady Liberty's copper skin is approximately as thick as two coins together. She is an impressive and moving symbol of the real American Dream - hope for a better future and freedom to pursue it however one pleases. The Emma Lazarus poem - written to help raise funds for the pedestal to put the statue on - is also somehow more powerful at her feet.

Ellis Island was also a good tour - the kids really liked the statistics room where they could see how many people immigrated to the United States by decade and whether they were men or women, where they originated from - what words we have incorporated into our language that are of foreign origin - my personal favorite was "gung ho" which is Chinese in origin.

After returning to Manhattan we ate some really stale and nasty pretzels and took the subway up to TriBeCa to see the New York Fire museum - there were some really interesting old fire engines and a lot of fancy fire hats and from over the years, but by far the best part for me was the room dedicated to the heroes of the 9/11 tragedy. The museum had photos from the days surrounding the event, artifacts from the Twin Towers - including - morbidly - a piece of the plane wreckage; dust coated fire helmets and breathing apparatus; and more. It was also emotional to sit there and look at the very tangible effects of the attack and the impact it had on the firefighters who rushed in and their families too.

We wrapped up our day by meeting Sunny, Marc, and Harper for dinner at Bubby's Pie Company where we had some good food and better dessert.

In Part 2 tomorrow we'll explore the American Natural History Museum, Central Park, the Whitney, Les Enfants Terribles, Patsy's Pizza, FAO Schwarz, Nintendo World, Toys R Us, the NBA Store, Times Square, Madison Square Garden and the Knicks, Serendipty 3, Amy Ruth's, the Met and getting to the airport ON TIME (aka really early)!! and why Marc and Sunny are really happy that we left when we did.