Welcome to the Big Apple

Curling Man (who isn't curling this year by the way so I should probably change his name) and I went to NYC with my Mom. We left the evening of Oct. 30th for Minneapolis because our flight left from there at 7 a.m.. We got a very decent Stay and Park rate at an Embassy Suites right by the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport. It was exactly what one would expect from an Embassy Suites (which is a fine thing). We left the hotel about 5:30 p.m. for the airport. We were flying Air Tran which meant that we got to leave from the H.H.Humphrey Terminal - a nice small terminal. Everything went very smoothly. Because we were flying Air Tran we had to take the scenic route to Newark - through Atlanta. All flights were on time - actually a little early. We landed in New Jersey and took a taxi to our hotel in Seacacus/Meadowlands, NJ - another Embassy Suites. Our room was laid out exactly like the one we had just left in Minnesota. We unpacked and tried to call Ulla to let her know we were there.

Ulla was my exchange sister during the 1985-86 school year. She is from Finland. She and her husband Antti and her brother Olli and his wife Mari all were in New York for the marathon. All of them except Mari were running and she was cheering. They were staying with a group at a hotel near Central Park. We had exchanged cell phone numbers, but I couldn't figure out how to dial hers (because of the country code issue). I left a message on the hotel room phone, but we did not connect. We decided that we would just go to their hotel and see if we could find them as it would be nearing 5 p.m. by the time we got there. Transportation to Manhattan was so incredibly easy. NJTransit had a bus with a stop directly across the street from the front door of the hotel. The bus comes every 10 - 20 minutes depending on the time of day. It is a commuter line so it only made a couple of stops before going into the City to the Port Authority Bus Terminal which is conveniently located in Times Square. We got off the bus and made our way to the hotel which was no more than a mile away. We thought about getting something to eat, but we were on a mission. We found their hotel without any problem. We went in and it was clear that it was NYC Marathon European Headquarters. There were lots of foreigners there and a lot of information about the marathon in many different languages. I found a house phone and called the rooms again. Just as I was getting ready to leave a message in Olli ad Mari's room - who should walk in the door but the Finns - how great!! We had a warm reunion and we let them go to their hotel room while we ran across the street to the Carnegie Deli. I always need to have Matzoh Ball soup when I'm in NYC and Kevin loves the REALLY BIG sandwiches.

After our "snack" we met up with the Finns to head downtown to watch the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. We had the parade route figured out and we decided to try to catch it at 14th Street. We took the Subway to Union Square, walked a bit towards the route and when we got there, we promptly realized that the crowds were going to make actually seeing the parade very difficult. It was a Friday night and the weather was beautiful. We found a spot down the block and settled in to watch the crowd - they were almost as entertaining as the parade I am sure. The NYPD was out in full force, so we never felt unsafe, but there were definitely some characters out for the holiday. We were able to catch some of the parade - the really tall puppets that went above the crowd, but we definitely had a restricted view. After about an hour of the parade we decided to head back to Times Square to eat dinner. We went to Bubba Gump Shrimp Company for the first of my many shrimp meals.