New York, New York

I forgot to blog about New York. New York was awesome. Initially, I was frustrated because we had to fly roundabout from Calgary to Dallas and then to New York (I was flying airmiles and the only airline I could get on was American Airlines. Their hub is Dallas, hence the long commute). However, when I think back, that was one of my favorite parts. We had clear sailing from Dallas to New York and could see the ground the entire way. I got a birds eye tour of the entire Eastern United States. I also finished Ed's sock, slept and had one on one time with my husband which I hardly ever get. On the way home, I read a book and slept some more. There's just nothing wrong with that.
We stayed in Stamford, CT which is 45 minutes out of New York City. We flew into LaGuardia where we rented a car and drove to Stamford. We had a lovely supper at the hotel dining room. The Holiday Inn was a very quiet hotel.
I got up the next morning determined to exercise , but my gym shoes somehow did not make it in the suitcase. So I went walking. It was hot and muggy.
That night we had tickets to Wicked. Plucking up all our courage, we braved New York traffic. The population of Canada is 33,390,141 (as of July 2007) That means that the equivalent of over half the population of Canada is in New York on a daily basis. (I might mention that all those people are talking on cell phones and driving as fast as their car will go.) To further illustrate my point, let me remind you that Canada is the second largest country in the world measuring some 9,976,140 km2 (6 198 874 sq mi) and New York's urban square footage is only something like 8,683 km² (3,353 sq mi). So Canada is 1150 times bigger than New York City while the population is only 2 times bigger. (This may explain how when I was a Canadian at BYU I did not know so and so from Toronto.) But I digress, fact: New York is big and busy. It truly is the city that never sleeps; maybe they stay up all night doing all that grafitti...

Friday night we went out to dinner with some dear friends who live in Darien, CT. (Rhymes with Mary-Ann, not Marion) We had a scrumptious Italian dinner and enjoyed each others company immensely. Apparently The Stepford Wives and Cannonball Run II were filmed in Darien, CT. (A bit of trivia never hurt anyone.)
Friday I went down to the "coast". I love the ocean, but the only sea water I could find was a little park about a half hour walk from the hotel. Long Island Sound separated me from the real ocean. How anti-climactic. It rained most of Friday so I finished a scarf I had been working on. Saturday we went back into the city, went to the temple, then to Lion King. I had trouble staying awake. The human puppets were really neat, but I found the acting and singing mediocore at best. I've seen small town productions that were better (and cheaper!) than Lion King on Broadway. Ed and I then walked and walked and walked. We saw Staten Island, the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, the American Stock Exchange and Times Square.That was all we had time for. We went back to our hotel and had another amazing meal at the hotel dining room and slept a few hours before flying home.
Overall, New York was an quite an experience. I found the people less than polite (we bought a pretzel from a street vendor who talked on his cell phone the entire time, as did the toll booth lady - actually everyone in New York had cell phones surgically attached to their ear). I watched, helpless, while an irate New Yorker yelled obscenites at a poor Canadian crossing the road. I learned to not complain about Calgary traffic. I saw these cool camouflage trees. I felt somebody watching me in the subway.I had a fabulous time with my dear sweet husband. And I was gone from my kids long enough to miss and appreciate them. Thanks to my mom for taking care of them. They had some good grandma time.