I went to New York City this past weekend for the very first time. I went to celebrate with my uncle for his 25th anniversary of being in the priesthood. 4 of my aunts came from Milwaukee as well as my grandparents from Florida.
My travel plans WERE to leave Brattleboro by train at 12:31 pm on Friday (I had purchased my Amtrak tickets months in advance). So I get to the train station (and when I say train station I mean little room with lawn chairs in it) about a half hour early (what it said to do on my ticket). It is getting to be about 12:30 and I hear a loud phone call going on in the employee 'office'. After the guy gets off the phone he comes out to the waiting room area to tell me and others waiting that there has been a slight issue ... the train has engine problems and turned back around to go back to White River Junction, VT. Okay, I take a deep breath and think this is not the worst, it will just be delayed a little bit. The guy tells us he is going to call back in about 15 minutes to get an update.
15 minutes later we get the next announcement: that the train has severe engine problems and they will not be able to get another train. Great. The train is NOT coming. Okay, more deep breaths and waiting. They will be sending a bus to get people that might take up to an hour or two to get to Brattleboro, to take people to Springfield, VT, to get on a train there to get to New York City eventually. I got up at this point and made the decision to just get out of there and start driving. I would figure out the rest later.
So I ended up driving to New Haven, CT, about 2 hours away from Brattleboro. I found a parking garage to park my car (so expensive...there went my spending money) and found the train station. I went up to the ticket window to explain my situation and ended up switching my ticket over to a different train (which I had to pay $15 more for, not sure why when I was going a shorter distance...but at that point I just wanted to get to New York). That train was supposed to be leaving New Haven at 4:15 (I had gotten to New Haven at about 3:15) but was running 45 minutes late. On a positive note, it was a good thing that I drove to New Haven because in the train station there it had a posting about my train I was supposed to take and that it wasn't getting to New Haven until 9:45 pm - so who knows what time those people made it to New York by...?
So after waiting, I FINALLY got on my train. I sat down and started to feel a little better, I was on my way again. That wasn't until I started to panic again when we kept stopping (and not at designated stops either). The conductor came onto the loud speaker and said that we were stopping due to 'activity' ahead. I was getting so stressed out and just wanted to get there. I was supposed to have arrived in New York City at 6:40 and then grab a cab to my uncle's party which was starting at 7...
I finally got into Penn Station (at Madison Square Garden) and found my way through all the people to get into the line for a taxi. I only had to wait about 5 minutes for a taxi and then got in and gave the driver the address. I was going to the D&D (Decoration and Design) building on 3rd Ave at 59th Street. The driving in NYC is crazy - cabs zip in and out of traffic, honking at everyone (even though there are signs posted saying 'Don't Honk, $250 fine') and the start/stop/start/stop and pumping of the breaks is enough to make anyone car sick. I took the cab for $8.80 worth and got out on the corner of 3rd Ave. and 59th Street and finally made it into the building. The party was on the 14th floor so I had to wait for someone to come down and get me to go up, there was a man at the front desk that told me to wait. I get up to the party - around 8ish - just in time for the dinner to start. I changed and then could finally sit down and relax - and the glass of wine helped as well.
Saturday - day 2! I was up at 7:30 and got ready for the day. We went to Central Park in the morning and then to the Cloisters (a MoMA museum of Medievel European art/religious relics) along the Hudson River. Check it out at:
www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/the_cloisters. I had an interesting experience of going to church where my uncle said mass - in Spanish. I took Spanish about 5 years ago for 4 years so I could catch a few words here and there but luckily we had a book with the order of the mass in it with English on one side and Spanish on the other side so we could kind of follow along!
The last thing we did Saturday night was to go out to dinner at a small Mexican Restaurant in the Bronx. I had chicken fajitas - but of course the drive back to where I was staying made me feel car sick...a combination of just eating, my uncle's driving ;) and just driving in NYC in general.
My traveling back on Sunday was uneventful - of course when I have no set time I need to be back or time crunch! Overall it was a nice trip, but not long enough! Luckily, I am going back for Thanksgiving and will get to see more and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!! :)
