Wednesday, August 10, 2011

From Vacay to Sick Days, Part One

Last week Mr. Lock and I took off for a week of vacation fun.  He took the week off from work, and I took the week off from the family I nanny for this summer four days a week.  On the Saturday (July 30th) we had a wedding to go to for one of my co-workers, and then on the Sunday morning we flew Porter Airlines to New York City.

The first thing I need to mention is how AWESOME flying Porter was out of Toronto.  We got there way too early, we had my dad drive us in the end since I became nervous about trusting the three forms of public transit we would need to make it in time for our flight, and we underestimated how much faster it would be in the car.  However, getting there early wasn't too bad.  It's true what they say -- the lounge at the Toronto Island airport (hmm Billy Bishop Airport is I think what it's actually called) is great.  Free Starbucks Coffee machines, we made lattes and cappuccinos during our wait, and a few snack foods for free too.  A comfortable lounge space, and not many people at all so no crowded feeling.  It was actually lovely.  The flights were inexpensive compared to other airlines (we also bought ours on a seat sale), and the flight was very enjoyable -- we even got a free snack and drinks on the one and a half hour flight!

It was a chicken wrap, a small cucumber and tomato salad, and a little Lindor chocolate square.  Adorable, and yummy!

Anyway, Porter is not in any way paying me to say a single thing about their service, I just really enjoyed the experience and wanted to share that with you.  I'd fly Porter again in an instant.

New York City was incredible!  Neither one of us had ever been there before, so we enjoyed wandering the city and stopping at various tourist attractions.  We walked around Central Park after we checked into our hotel, and that night after the early arrival to the airport and the HUGE walk around the park, we actually ended up in bed by 9:30 pm, and I was asleep by just after 10 pm. 


On our second day, we did one of those hop on, hop off bus tours.  This was great, because it took us on a big loop around the downtown area of Manhattan, and we got to go by many of the tourist sites we might not have found as easily on our own.  We could choose when we wanted to stay on the double-decker bus and see the sights from there and listen to the tour guide, or when we wanted to hop off and walk around the area a bit and then catch the next bus that came by the stop (they came every ten to fifteen minutes, so it was easy to hop back on a bus).  We went to Macy's, we walked around Greenwich Village and SoHo, and around Rockefeller Centre, but otherwise we stayed on the bus to see other sites like the Empire State Building, Ground Zero, and the Lower East Side.


That night we went to Caroline's Comedy Club on Broadway, and while we were told the show wasn't a traditonal stand up comedy program, we decided to watch the performance anyway.  We ended up seeing this performance called "If It Only Even Runs A Minute", the seventh installment which highlights some of the underappreciated Broadway shows of the past.  We felt like we were listening in on a New York "inside joke" that we weren't a part of, but it was still pretty cool.  The best we could figure, it was made up by theatre majors and they were filming it for YouTube.  They would highlight six or seven little-known Broadway musicals, and for each they'd have a special guest -- sometimes a Tony Award winner for a different play, haha -- come up and tell a story about their experience on the show, and then perform a song.  The audience was made up of Broadway lovers and Tony Award winners, and Broadway directors... it was kind of neat, but totally different experience.  I'm glad we were a part of it, it felt very "NYC".

We then walked a little closer into Times Square to see it lit up a night, what a sight!


It was then back to the hotel.  We couldn't handle night life after the BUSY days we were having, waking up early and walking blocks and blocks in the sun. We were so happy for the gorgeous weather, and for locating all the sights we had that day throughout Manhattan, but it was also exhausting! 

Day Three of NYC, and more about this past week and a half, is coming up in another post tomorrow.

1 comment:

  1. Sounds like a fun (but exhausting trip). Welcome back.

    ReplyDelete

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