Five years ago for my 40th birthday, I decided a bucket list item needed to be checked off. Here is the story of my adventures in New York City! Come along on our trip.
I’m leaving on a jet plane…. (sadly I know when I’ll be back again)…. Start spreading the news… I’m leaving today… I’m gonna be a part of it, what’s that you ask? Let me tell you…. NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!!! Can you tell I am a WEE bit excited?!?!
OK…here is my version of the days events….
We drove through to Calgary last night and the roads were bare! It was lovely. I had my nails done for my trip by Kari J McQuitty…and they are fabulous! We then picked up Josie Dahl and headed up to Cross Iron Mills for a little bit of shopping to deck me out for NYE in NYC. My two fashion consultants, Josie and Joni Romans-Turton, give me sage and wise feedback about my purchases, and several dollars lighter, my wallet and I left the mall.
We then headed into Calgary to meet up with my in laws that were there. Carole Nielsen Anderson was unfortunate enough to have her car break down that morning, so like a knight in shining armour, I don’t take the answer that “there are no cars available till Tuesday” as the truth and moments later, had a rental lined up for an hour later. Unbeknownst to me, the damned City of Calgary decided to do road remapping and never got my approval, nor even notified me of same, so when we went to go to the airport up Barlow Trail, we ended up in a construction zone and suffice to say another 30 minutes and 18km of detouring was necessary to get us where we needed to be. Mayor Nenshi will be hearing from me when I get back!!!
Josie then lived up to her last name, and being the doll that she is, escorted my MIL through the rabbit warren of rental companies to finally get to the Enterprise desk. She then turned into a human navigator to deliver the two of them to meet us at the Olive Garden for a very late supper.
Our supper was delicious, however, both Josie’s and I’s sauce had separated and had become quite oily. Our meals were completely comped, as well as our replacement meals, and desserts for the whole table!!! We were all very happy campers then!
We parted ways with Carole, and headed back to Strathmore to spend the night before our awfully early departure time today. A raging blizzard forced me to drop to 70kmph at times, with a stop on the side of the highway to lick our headlights clean to improve our visibility as well. The debate of whether we would be better to turn around and get a hotel room in Calgary to ensure our departure wouldn’t be stopped by a road closure was cinched when we flopped on Josie and Ryan Dahl’s couch and a cup of tea was presented…. we would risk it and spend the night with friends.
This brings me to today.
Well, it started VEEERY early. 4:05am to be exact! Joni Romans-Turton couldn’t sleep, so apparently I wasn’t allowed to either…lol. We got up, started the car, and headed out after a hug with Josie Dahl who was on her way to work. After our mishaps driving yesterday, we zipped over to the airport lickety split and hopped on the shuttle to the aerodrome.
After being searched practically to the bone for contraband drugs, body cavities and all, we were cleared to go through the xray scanner. With my bionic heart and all however, I had another complete patdown before I was released through to our gate. I discovered that to my horror there was no first class lounge to wait in while in Calgary, so we had to join the unwashed masses in the line up for coffee and a bagel. 45 minutes later, we were able to go to our gate.
The wench at the gate apparently prejudged us as not worthy of first class, presumably due to a lack of Louis Vuitton purses, or not dripping in jewels, for when I asked her if we were boarding she said “No”. Seconds later she took the boarding pass of another first class passenger….We went back up, with our first class boarding passes, and she suddenly realized her error, and was saccharine sweet to us.
We boarded and immediately made friends with the others in our cabin with our rendition of Frank Sinatra’s song….playing on You tube. We all had a good laugh. Poor Joni was strung as tight as a fiddle and managed to knock her complete cup of orange juice all over the floor in her excitement of getting settled. We had a good laugh at that. Moments later, the last of the recovered juice was spilled a second time. I, errr…I mean we, laughed even harder that time. Fast forward an hour or so later, and my glass of water went flying into her lap and on her cell phone. Her coat and sleeve were drenched and I nearly peed myself…..how much of this could be attributed to our 8am drinking of mimosas….? Who knows….
One movie and breakfast later, our flight attendant was sweet and gift wrapped a bottle of wine in a napkin for us for NYC celebrations~yay us! We landed without further incident.
In Chicago at our connection, we bought lottery tickets, so if our trip is extended a few days, you will know why!
We then made our way to the first class lounge where I was able to load my pockets with cheese, crackers, shortbread cookies and slurp free cappachinos! Sadly Joni lost her camera somewhere along the way, so it will be phone pics shared to record this bucket list event.
We arrived in NYC without any further wetting of clothes, or wearing of juice. United Airlines however has lost one of our pieces of luggage…the one with all our NYE party clothes, and Joni’s weekly wardrobe. Fortunately we have insurance, but hopefully we don’t need to use it, and while we slumber our bag should be delivered.
Once we checked into the hotel, we were very happy with our room. It has a mini kitchenette (and most importantly, a wine corker!) with a moderate view, and all the amenities we could want. We did a quick tour around Times Square tonight and even though the temperature says -3, it is freaky cold with the wind!!! We have already supplemented our wardrobe with extra scarves and mitts from what we already bought into double layers. Brrr….
So far, the excitement level here is through the roof, and we have met people from Liverpool, Spain, Brazil and Scotland. It is everything I have wanted it to be and the pics we have are awesome!!!! Stay tuned for an upload and another update tomorrow or the next day!
Here is Joni’s version of the trip so far.
So it is 10:30 pm in New York City and there is 1000’s of people walking everywhere in Times Square, (all tourists). So far we have met people from Spain, Liverpool, Brazil, and Scotland.
Only issues so far:
- Because we are young and having fun too early in the morning, we “randomly” got selected to have our hands, belts, and shoes “wiped” for traces of drugs”
- We learned from the locals that walking in Times Square is safer than the airport.
- We then learned that there is a 2 block line up for a taxi’s and that it was faster for us to walk to our hotel with suitcases in tow. (so we did)
- United air has kindly “Misplaced” one of my suitcases and it was supposed to be delivered to the hotel tonight. Of course this was my luggage bag, and it also contained ALL of Annies new purchased clothes from Calgary including receipt.
- And it is WAY colder here then we thought. We already bought a scarf to go with our mitts.
- Oh Yeah, and Annie Marchi Anderson is trying her hardest to get on TV and I am sure she is going to be successful.
P.S. Thanks mom Randy-Cindy Romans for teaching me to have a spare set of clothes packed in my carry one bag.