I didn’t take any real pictures in New York because I decided I didn’t feel like lugging a Canon 10D around. I would buy a point and shoot but I’ve broken/lost three of them since 2005. The last one was a Christmas present I took early and dropped before Christmas.
Anyway,
The trip started late. I didn’t leave work until about 7 p.m. Thursday and I was pretty angry when I left because I was still there at 7 p.m. As I said once before, we have a small staff so anyone leaving is a little rough. I stopped scheduling things and I had something lined up to write but the story fell through and me not scheduling things lead to a minor problem. I wish we had more people so we had people to back us up but Steve Jobs had to fight for a day off in the first days of Apple, right?
That’s all I’ll say about work because this is neither the time nor the place beyond noting that my newsroom is amazing at what it can do given what it has and I really need to think of a way to show them how awesome I think they are. I wish I made enough money to schedule a private event for them or something. Perhaps if I can get my novel published. I should start round two of researching agents. It hasn’t been six weeks yet but I’m assuming the last query that went out (the one that also has the first two chapters) isn’t going to respond.
But I digress.
We got to Norfolk in enough time to watch “Jersey Shore,” which was awesome. Bill and I are obsessed with it because 1) we have spent far to much time in New Jersey (although we both hate the state) 2) We know someone who knows someone on the show and 3) We enjoy commenting on how awful they are.
The following day, we set out. We made decent time and, after we got settled, went to the hotel bar for happy hour then caught a cab to the PATH station in Newark. You see, we were planned to be in Brooklyn but that also fell through and I had to book a hotel room at the last second. We later found out that Karen could have gotten us a free room at the Marriott.
I picked the hotel because I thought it was one I stayed at before. I was at the one next to it. The one were we didn’t have to pay for parking.
The cab ride to the PATH was about $25 one way. The station was three miles away. The hotel was situated in a way that it would have been impossible to walk to it.
When we got into the city, we went to McSorley’s, which has a strong connection to my fraternity. Afterward, my grand little brother Matt, who lives in Brooklyn, showed up and he took us bar hopping. I spent too much and had too much. But I was on vacation, damn it. I hadn’t had any real days off since Mardi Gras. Sure, this was only a four-day weekend and one of the days was a comp day and not a vacation but I left the state purely for pleasure for the first time in a a bit.
The next day, I saw Renée for the first time in a while and we had brunch while Bill, Karen, Brandon and Dan supposedly went sightseeing. Dan arrived via the Chinatown bus the night before and I drove into the city that day because I figured it would be cheaper than the cab + PATH (it was). After I ate something, my body realized that I partied the night before but I had to rally. I had to rally.
I met up with the group in Central Park near Strawberry Fields. They had seen next to nothing because Bill wasn’t as good as getting around the city as he thought. We then went to a couple nearby landmarks, including Times Square and then headed close to my car for dinner. I was still trying to hold it together and it was a good thing that we sat down and ate and drank (water in my case) when we did. After that, I felt better, although I was a bit tired, and I drove them through Manhattan some more.
I love driving in Manhattan. Seriously. It is my favorite thing to do. I think I love the anarchy the most. It’s like every traffic rule is suspended and the name of the game is don’t hit anyone else because then you can’t get to your destination on time. Anyone driving in Manhattan is obviously very important and has somewhere to go so, if you cut off that limo, that limo isn’t going to hit you and vice versa. To be perfectly honest, I feel traffic runs smoother there than Mercury Boulevard in Hampton some late nights when you almost can hit cruise control. Everyone in my car noted how I go in a completely different driving mode and I sometimes wish I could bring that to Richmond but I’d probably get eight tickets. Also, I can’t blast a Spanish-language radio station playing the most ludicrously festive-sounding music ever in the middle of Richmond either.
I started that as we came in through the Holland Tunnel and rode up the West Side till upper Riverside Drive because I always park up there due to the lack of parking meters and the ample parking. (Also, my car tends to be where I left it and intact.) I think it was Karen who asked why we had to play Latin music and my response was to turn it up more.
On the way back, I switched to a DJ mix of the top 40 Billboard songs this week (which made some of them tolerable) as I cut down 125th so Brandon could see the Apollo then took Park down to Grand Central. There was construction inside the Helmsley Building so I couldn’t drive through it and had to cut over to Lexington to 21th then worked our way back into the Holland Tunnel.
The next day, yesterday, was a doozy. We left early and dropped Dan off at Newark Penn Station. As soon as we got back on the Turnpike, he called because the PATH wasn’t running till 6 p.m. Instead of telling him of all the options he had to get back, I turned around and got him. It’s not easy to get back into the Holland Tunnel from Penn Station so I took the Lincoln Tunnel. I fought my way over to Park and then cut over to Third at Union Square so I could stay on the Bowery, since Dan’s bus dropped him off at Bowery and Canal.
At this point, Karen wanted coffee and we all wanted food. I figured it would be impossible to park in downtown so I hopped on the Brooklyn Bridge and hoped we’d find parking. We did not. Three hours later, we were finally back on Route 1 heading back toward Virginia. In a binding rainstorm. I finally stopped in Rahway, N.J. and then we booked it from there. I took Route 1 to 95 in Trenton and then got on 13 in Wilmington, Del. I did this partially because of our $50+ cab rides Friday night.
“New Jersey got enough of our money” I said when someone wondered why we were in Philadelphia.
Eleven hours later, we got back to Norfolk. I had hoped to be in my bed last night and putter around Richmond today. Instead, I got back in the afternoon and I’ve been sitting in my room in the dark for the past three hours or so after making spaghetti for dinner because that was quick.
I enjoyed myself but I’m not ready to go back to work tomorrow. I’m considering showing up around noon or so and just going to the council meeting. Katy suggested that so I think I will.
Actually, I am ready to go back to work. I needed the break. I didn’t fully get away. I got a call from a city official and a few texts from a city resident and a couple from the newsroom. I’m a little pissed about that but I’ve come to the realization that I can’t fully go on vacation while I am here. I can’t afford it. Like I said before, our staff is small and being plugged into work 24-hours a day sometimes is a sacrifice we’ll have to make if we want, at some point, there to be a larger staff so we can take a breather.
Speaking of breathers, I still have vacation days left. I think, especially since Bill will be off to the Army next month, I’m going to have at least one staycation in Richmond. If I get a nice book advance (or, suddenly, I get paid $10,000 or so more a year because corporate is feeling generous), in the next two years, Bill and I are going to Norway on an extended vacation. Yes, Norway. Longyearbyen to be exact. We’re going in summer and who knows what will happen. I hope whatever it is involves Norwegian girls. Or tourist girls. We feel it will be an awful trip but that’s why we want to go. I don’t know how Bill exactly came up with the northernmost town of over 1,000 people, which should still have snow on the ground in July as, if we’re lucky, it will get up to 47. But I’m all for it. Now that will be the blog entry to wait for when we get back. Even if something happens to me or him before 2013, one of us still has to go. This has to happen. I mean, it’s fucking Longyearbyen, Norway during the midnight sun. Ha, I wrote “midnight suck” the first time around. I am anticipating this even more now. I hope I remember to title the opening entry of that voyage as “midnight suck.”
I’ll be able to drive a snowmobile there. I wonder if that will top driving in Manhattan. Probably not..
