An Apple a Day

 Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

I liked to consider myself a world traveler, saving up my precious two-weeks-of-vacation-a-year to bum about Europe, but this year we had a wedding to go to, and that wedding was in Toronto. So, I figured this was the perfect excuse to do some touristing closer to home. First stop? New York City!

New York City is many things, The Big Apple, The City So Nice They Named It Twice, The Empire City, and of course, The City That Never Sleeps. Now I don’t know about apples and empires, but that last one I learned all too well.

Our plane landed at La Guardia at 5:47 PM. We skipped baggage claim thanks to our awesome travel-light powers honed from our backpacking trips in Europe. We were in an impossibly long line for a taxi by 6:00 PM, which moved amazingly fast. By 7:30 we had checked into our hotel and were back out on the street to scrounge up some dinner. After dinner we made our way back to our hotel, but even though it was nearly 10 PM, we were still on West Coast time, so we decided to have a little night cap, or two, or three.

It was an Irish Pub. It was on the same block as our hotel. There was a group of guys dressed as super heroes sidled up to the long wooden bar. There was a second story balcony with a couple of awesome tables overlooking the street below. It was people watching paradise.

Do you know how late bars in New York City stay open? I’m not really sure either, but the bar was still going strong by the time we stumbled back to our hotel. I don’t know what we were thinking, but by the end of the night, I really wasn’t thinking anything at all.

My alarm went off at 7 AM. I wanted nothing more than to down an entire bottle of ice-cold water, turn the pillow to the cold side, and pull the duvet over my head. Unfortunately, we had to be on the 8:30 AM ferry to Liberty Island.  I was really starting to hate the me that planned this vacation.

Somehow, we made it into clothes and out the door. We rushed down the quite sidewalk and into the stairwell into the Subway. I saw the ticket machine across the platform and made a beeline for it, completely ignoring the neon pink pile of puke? Yup, it was puke, and I stepped right in it. This was the last thing my already angry tummy needed.

I’m still not sure how I made it through the subway ride, but the fresh sea air and morning sun on the top deck of the ferry started to clear my head. It was only 8:41 am, and that evil vacation planner (me) had packed the day full of activities, but right at that moment the view of that iconic skyline put a pause on the imminent upheaval brewing in my stomach.