Sunday, March 07, 2004

California Dreamin'

New York was fun. I had a great time but it is a GOOD feeling to be back in my home state! I appreciate the space I have. The lawn I get to walk on. The car I get to drive. We stayed in midtown Manhattan on the fifth floor in a TINY hotel room. My brother and I arrived at JFK within 20 minutes of each other early Friday morning. It was COLD. I was so glad for my wool coat and scarf. After we met up we took the Airtrain to the Long Island Rail Road to a station near our hotel where we dragged our luggage the last few blocks. We thought we'd be OK after a few hours of sleep and planned to have lunch with my great uncle who lives in Brooklyn. We thought wrong. My parents met him for lunch and delivered the three huge oranges my grandpa sent. While we slept on, they stood in line to get discount tickets for "Fiddler on the Roof" on Broadway. It was SO very well done. I loved it. When I was in high school my brother and I were part of our school's production of the play. All of us noticed MANY similar details/interpretations to our high school's play. That's a huge compliment to our director. On Saturday we took the subway down to Battery Park and then took the ferry to Ellis Island. I had never been before and it was educational. There's a computer that lets you look up your last name or other surnames from your past to see who came through Ellis Island. I've confirmed that my heritage is largely Scottish and Irish. Saturday night my lovely and talented siblings performed with the National Youth Choir in Carnegie Hall. They were wonderful as I knew they would be!! We had a box seat and the acoustics were impressive. We met up with them briefly after the performance to take pictures and congratulate while they celebrated with the others at a local TGI Fridays. That was it! Today we got up and went to the airport and here I am back at home... with work tomorrow at 7:30 am and a midterm. My dumb cat knocked over all the trashcans and either ate a spider or something in the trash that made her puke. My welcome home present... Also the cool Mexican guy across the street who is always friendly and wants me to practice my Spanish whenever we talk... he passed away. He's been around for a long time and knew my mom and my aunts and uncles as they grew up here. He always smiled and waved at me as he worked on his yard or car as I came and went. He's a bright spot in the neighborhood that I'll miss. I don't know the details of his death, but my grandma said something about cancer. It was certainly unexpected. So. It was a wonderful 88 degrees Fahrenheit today which is far better than NYC's bitter cold wind. I've been to NYC a couple times before and saw a lot of the tourist stuff those times. This time we walked around a LOT and saw things like Times Square, Trump Tower (The Apprentice!!), the Empire State Building (a few minutes walk from the hotel), Grand Central Station, etc.. It's currently 9:13 pm CA time but I'm at 12:13 am NYC time. Goodnight!

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