Heading Home

Well this is it, the last few days in the USA. Twenty-two days shy of 365, but near enough to the year.

Yasmin and I amused ourselves in LA until Ahmed returned from Vegas by hanging about at the in-laws and spending a day (and the last few dollars) at the local mall. Ahmed arrived back for Friday but had to work from home, so I made good on the promise of a day at Disneyland for grandchildren that behave when staying with their grandparents. We had to wait for the young aunt and her gaggle of teenage friends to finish primping themselves for the day out so didn’t get to the park until just after 10am, of course by which point every parent in the region had arrived with their toddlers in tow. Fantasyland was a boiling sea of short people being marshalled by their taller supervisors. And it was hot, and the queues were too long for the short rides at the end of them, and finding Princesses was harder than we imagined (only got two out of six), and it was hot, and there were queue jumpers and pushy crowds and too much heat…but I did the good parent thing and endured it until Yasmin had had enough at which point we called for a ride home. That’s it for Disneyland for this trip, too.

So now we wait for our flights later this week, repack the suitcases a few more times, relax and watch TV, play in the park and take Yasmin for bike rides. It’s only days until we smell the eucalyptus, and I can hardly wait.

Viva Las Begas

Or as the first street hawker we ran into said, “Bin long Las Begas?” Long enough to know better than to buy your crap, I can assure you.

The urge for just one last road trip before we go home led us to Vegas for a few days of never-ending night life – or at least a feeble attempt to join in with those more hardy types. But even with Yasmin safely in the hands of her grandparents for a few days, we weren’t really up to much. I think the days of party-all-night are long over for us.

We flew out of the east coast, Yasmin and I for the last time, on Friday morning and we all arrived in LA in time for lunch. After a nap and a bit of time for the sun to go down and the desert heat to dissipate, Ahmed and I borrowed the Mustang and drove off through the Mojave Desert to gambler’s mecca. It was much quicker to travel at night and a hell of a lot cooler – it’s been as high as 115 degrees F in that part of the US lately. Ahmed drove, racing a Corvette all the way, while I alternately dozed and watched the lightning strikes off to the southeast.

We arrived at Caesar’s Palace by 12.30am and wasted about 20 minutes in the gridlocked valet parking queue, eventually giving up and parking the car ourselves before checking in to find no room available. But the benefit of a decent hotel is that they can sort out alternatives easily enough – we were upgraded to a suite for the night. Huge! Entrance hall, bar, guests bathroom, lounge, dining area, media room, king bed with hanging curtains, huge bathroom with spa, marble shower and the best in complimentary toiletries. It was a pity we only got to stay there for a little less than 12 hours. By the time we’d had breakfast, mooched around and tried to make use of all the facilities, the front desk called to prompt us to make our way out to our other room. Still, it was nice to get a taste of the good life while it lasted. I think I need to come home for a reality check – the bar just keeps getting raised…

Late that afternoon we went for a walk along the strip, found somewhere to eat, checked out the excesses of Las Vegas and decided we’d try a show that night. With so much to choose from it was a difficult decision to make, but we went for a Vegas tradition: feather boas and headdresses, rhinestones and high kicks, good old Vegas showgirls displaying their finest. Stupidly we got suckered into buying seats up the front but to really get a sense of spectacle we’d have been better off in the cheap seats further up the back. Still, it was pretty impressive, especially the massive sets and staging requirements. However we didn’t have much energy for a big night out – too tired for much more after the show so we called it a night.

The next day was Sunday, a perfect day for lying about, eating and not doing too much: a bit of a stroll along the strip again, a ride on the monorail, a look at some of the extensive shopping all over the place, more eating, a night-time stroll to view the free stuff – the water show at the Bellagio; the pirate show at Treasure Island; the volcano. Another early night needed as we’d booked a trip to the Grand Canyon the next day.

At 5am the alarm went off and, ugh, it was still dark. Breakfast arrived and we made it to the coach pick-up point on time – annoyingly, as they were late. And then by the time the shuttle had finished the hotel pick-ups we’d had to be up earlier than anyone else. Once at the depot, three coach loads of people were processed, each person charged a surprise fuel surcharge – gee, an easy way to get an extra $10 from every single person on board. (At my rough calculations, they were making a tidy profit from the surcharge – after all, gas has only gone up cents per gallon, not dollars.)

The coach pulled out about 8am and Louis gave an interesting commentary along the way, stopping at the Hoover Dam for a photo opp, then at a tiny store with a large parking lot that calls itself a truck stop. Lunch at least was at a nice buffet joint who's staff managed to feed and water every person from all three coach loads in an hour. Not much time for souvenir shopping – pity, I didn’t have time to buy those lovely Native American turquoise earrings, or the tequila lollipops with the worm in them.

Eventually we made it to the Grand Canyon’s south rim about 2pm. We were given three 45 min-1 hour stops to view the largest hole in the ground I’ve ever seen and take numerous pictures that all look like the same view from whichever angle you took them. Pretty good, worth seeing if you can. Louis says that in a few years you’ll have to walk in to the viewing area or take the new pollution-free monorail they’re talking of building. Not being much of a hiker I’m not sure I’d make the trip if I had to walk it. But if you were going to go on a big hike, it’s a pretty spectacular place to do it.

There wasn’t so much fun and revelry from Louis on the way back, just a lot of serious driving and a bus full of sleepy travellers. We didn’t get dropped in the vicinity of our hotel until 10.30pm and in spite of having dozed on the bus, were too knackered for anything else that night.

That was pretty much it, for me at least. The next day we checked out of the hotel, took a drive along the strip to take a bunch of silly photos – and made our requisite Elvis sighting – then checked Ahmed into another hotel for the second half of his conference. Yes, while I’d been lollygagging about, he’d been in and out of training and conference sessions. All the fun was scheduled around these demands. I’m so looking forward to a family holiday or any break without work in some way interjecting.

I flew back to LA that evening* to check on how well our wee one had managed her first parental absence to find her so intent on tagging along for the ride to the airport that she’d stayed up late and fought sleep until the last, but was snoring in the car when I got in.
*Note on domestic travel: Jet Blue – excellent rates on internet fares, Direct TV on every seat, and word from a New York limo driver, they are very good at keeping your luggage on the same flight as you are.

Leaving on a jetplane...(almost)

Well, I might not have reached 365, but it's time to pack up the toys and head home. For two-thirds of our family, this year away is completed. The last week has been a slightly disorganized sort through what goes when and where and what gets left behind, and a last minute chance to do the things not yet done.

I made the most of my opportunity last Wednesday while work and summer camp occupied everyone else and went into New York city for the day. Finally made it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art but only had time for a couple of hours - you could easily spend the whole day there. The Egyptian display is incredible, but I couldn’t help thinking that much of the stuff ought to be in Egypt. I also enjoyed the musical instruments and the modern art – there’s something for everyone.

Lunchtime had come and gone before I got peckish and there wasn’t much in the area that took my fancy so I decided to take the subway downtown to feast on a Katz's Deli special: pastrami on rye. This is the deli where Meg Ryan delivered the famous fake orgasm in ‘When Harry Met Sally’, if you didn’t know that before you got there, the sign declaring the exact table at which it happened would help you out. And they are as good as you've heard… the sandwiches, not the fake orgasms, silly! They cure/smoke or whatever the process is their own pastrami and it’s delicious. A bit steep at $12.40 per sandwich but hey, it’s New York, if you want to partake in its cultural traditions, you gotta pay.

There wasn’t a lot of time left to do much else as tourist venues tend to close around 5-6pm-ish. So I jumped off the subway at 34th street and thought as it was about 4 pm, I’d just pop up and have a look from the top of the Empire State building. Me and 2000 others. The queue is very deceiving. Up the escalator to the first queue: 10 minutes to get through the security search. Then join the next queue: 15 minutes to buy the tickets. Whew! But not done yet. Join the next queue to get onto the elevators: enough time to read the entire copy of the Village Voice paper I’d picked up earlier and to stare at the back of the fat boy’s neck in front of me. Still not there. Try and work out how many miles of bank rope they need for this queue to snake through. Give up, too much maths involved. Still not there. Queue shuffles forward and heads towards a corridor, good, I think, making progress. No, we’re just in a long corridor where the queue folds back on itself then snakes around another corner. Eventually get to the elevator bank. Wait a bit. Ah ha, an open elevator. Off we go, sardine cans have nothing on this experience. But only up to the 80th floor – we’re six floors short, got to join another queue, this time one where we’re ambushed by a cheesy photographic business with a totally disinterested staff who snap us standing next to a cardboard cutout of the building we’re currently enjoying so much of the inside of. I barely had time to stop moving before the picture was snapped. Too bad if I didn’t want it taken – like the security check, it’s part of the process.

Out through more roped walkways, into another elevator and finally we’re up at the 86th floor. Have to walk through the over-crowded gift shop to get to the viewing platform outside, which is no more than about two and a half metres wide and about ten metres long each side (it’s a square). Even on a hazy day, the view is pretty remarkable though. And as I’d forgotten to bring the camera, I ended up being suckered into buying one of the overpriced souvenir photographs of the four-sided view. (The pricing policy for tourist items exists here that extortionists could learn from.)

Once I’d made my way around all four sides and had my fill, it was time to think about heading home. There are still so many things I wish we’d had both time and funds for, but I guess that at least it leaves a few things for us to do if we ever get back this way again.

For the rest of the week it’s packing, cleaning and figuring out what to leave behind. The worker has to finish off a few things before he can join us back home, but before we go our separate ways, we’re all off to holiday in California and see the rellies.

Washington, D.C.: via Amish Country

Two little known facts about Washington D.C., which may be related, or not: eggs are not freely available, and it’s closed on Sundays.

The recent Independence Day weekend was our last chance for another of our mini-road trips so we (I) decided we should make the most of it and head south. Having recently read a Clinton biog (his), a Clinton “what’s-wrong-with-America” book (hers) and an “I survived the Clintons” book (George Stephanopolous), I was curious about the city where these three engaged in their subterfuge, scheming and spin to keep the Democrats in power, and especially interested in it now that the subterfuge, scheming and spin was coming from the Republicans in order to keep GW in a job. There just had to be some dirty little secrets to be found, some abject abuse of power to be uncovered, some Republican shenanigans to be exposed. Failing that there was likely to be plenty of tourism to engage in.

Ahmed’s plan was to leave at 7am like we did on the last trip which would get us through all the early morning traffic quickly and easily. However while he managed to get up in time to make it, he let Yasmin and I sleep in for a bit and that blew the ‘leaving early’ plan. We didn’t hit the road until 9am so that meant we joined all the Saturday morning traffic across the top of New York and onto the George Washington Bridge. Then we met up with all the holiday travelers heading south towards Philadelphia for the Live 8 Concert, and others just off in that general direction for a summer long weekend good time. Let’s just say it was a slow trip until we turned off the turnpike (why do they call it that?) and headed towards Amish country.

We stopped at Intercourse, PA for lunch – I just had to visit a town with a name like that – and hoped for some good ol’ Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine, but it turns out that the Intercourse Village Restaurant is not much more than a diner with a couple of Amish women on staff, Dutch-influenced décor and a bunch of apple desserts on the menu. Of course once we went a little further down the road we saw a heap of ‘authentic Dutch cuisine’ places. We did stop at Plain and Fancy Farm and have a buggy ride and tour of Amish farmland. The tour guide was a genuine Amish chap who ran a tour monologue explaining their culture, traditions and history. One of their fundamentals is that they don’t use electricity because power companies require people to work on a Sunday, so I gathered that working on Sunday was the issue. However one guy on the tour from Florida kept pushing this with his dopey questions – trying to argue for the possibilities of part-time electricity and why milk cows on a Sunday. Honestly, if people want to live without electricity, machinery and technology, except for that which they’ve made themselves, good luck to them. It was all very interesting. Even if the guy from Florida did want to push the ‘no electricity’ issue over and over again, looking for loopholes, our guide kept his relative cool. We respected the guide’s request not to photograph the people as we traveled around their farms, because he’d asked, and because it’s a bit creepy to go and look at humans as a tourist curiosity. We seemed to be the only ones who thought like this though – the Americans on our buggy had no issues with it, pointing out to their children a small boy sitting on the roadside watching us like he was a permanent part of the tour display, “Do you see the cows up there… and, oh, look at the little boy.”

The tour guide kept asking us if we had any questions and at the time I couldn’t think of a single one, but since then I’ve thought of plenty: such as (damn that guy from Florida) why not part-time electricity? If you don’t charge it up on a Sunday, could you use a laptop on batteries? They do have generators and they use propane gas in tanks for cooking etc. There is contact with the ‘outside world’ in so many ways that the reasons our guide gave for maintaining their position are easily argued against, but it doesn’t really matter why they do it their way, the fact is they want to live that way and America is a free country, or so they say, where you can do just that.

After our stop in the peace and quiet of the cornfields and buggies, we rejoined the traffic heading south to Washington. We have persisted with our laptop map system, fallible as it is, and true to form it directed us to the wrong location for the hotel. Its saving grace is that it is a map and therefore if you have the address of where you’re headed, you can look it up the old-fashioned way – using what is easily still the most advanced computing system developed: one’s noggin.

It was a few miles from the northern edge of Washington into the city itself and we got to see miles of Washington brownstones, a very different suburban architecture than in Connecticut. I’ve noticed that each state has its own distinct suburban landscape and I imagine that once you get to know them you could figure out where you are simply by the housing style.

The city almost immediately has the feel of Canberra, even on a weekend (or perhaps because it was a weekend). Not a suit to be seen as the government had closed for the Independence Day weekend and it seemed everyone was out of town except the tourists. We checked in to the hotel then took a walk to get dinner. By this time it was dark and getting late and I had completely lost my sense of direction. The doorman had directed us about four or five blocks up the street to find a restaurant but after three or so blocks with no signs of life, I suggested we quit and go back to the Thai place we’d seen three doors from the hotel. It was getting on in time and I knew it wouldn’t be long before Yasmin hit her limits, then the whingeing would start and the ‘carry me’ carry-ons and then she’d be too tired to eat and it would all disintegrate into a scrappy shambles. Good call as it turns out. The food was quite nice, not too much so we didn’t overeat, and we have been missing decent Asian cuisine. Yasmin ate her dinner and then got tired and whingey, but it was only a short walk so Daddy carried her (sucker).

The next morning I wanted to get up and get going early. There was a lot I planned on seeing and a fair bit of walking required to do it. The hotel deal didn’t include breakfast and as it was a four-star joint with a pricey restaurant on-site we decided to find a simpler breakfast place and conserve our pennies. After walking for a good half hour and finding nothing open, we came to our first conclusion: Washington is closed on Sundays. After a further zig-zag around the streets we noticed a few places beginning to open, but none that served breakfast, at which point we came to our second conclusion: there are no eggs in Washington. Of course by this time my family is fixated on an American breakfast: eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, coffee, and no amount of cajoling would get them to consider other options, most of which were lunch. Finally we walked past a place that had a breakfast special on the sign out front, eggs, bacon, homefries and toast for $8 or thereabouts. It was the only plate of breakfast available anywhere and there were no variations to the menu when we ordered. You got what the sign said: eggs, bacon, homefries and toast. So two plates of this (at three eggs per plate we shared our big meals with Yasmin) and several cups of coffee later we were restored and ready to hike the Washington streets for the rest of the day. Of course by this time the day is half over, but we had already seen a good deal of Washington in our search for breakfast. As chief tour coordinator my pick was to head to the National Mall and see what we could see.

We were, coincidentally, on the same street that connects to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum so we headed straight there to show Yasmin some real dinosaur bones. They’ve been studying dinosaurs at school all year so it was a good opportunity to give her a sense of scale and reinforce what she’s already been taught. After an hour or so in those ever-growing crowds we headed out into the Mall itself to see a mile of white tents under which was being held an alternative lifestyle festival. Here we are in Washington, at a major site of global power broking, expecting to see suits and briefcases and smell corporate money as it lobbies for government favour, and what do we get? Hippies and tree-huggers. It was one of those “what’s wrong with this picture” moments.

By this time it was mid-afternoon and the heat had started to make itself comfortable around us, making us rather less than comfortable. We stopped for an ice-cream and Yasmin enjoyed her red, white and blue Patriot Pop. Boy, they get ‘em young don’t they? Then Ahmed thought he’d like to go to the Air & Space Museum across the Mall. That’s boy heaven, all kinds of flying machines from Amelia Earhart and the Wright Brothers to jet engines and space capsules. The crowds were growing exponentially as the day wore on and eventually I gave up and took Yasmin to the café and let Ahmed finish his tour in peace.

The day was getting on and we had to pick up the car by 5pm but I hadn’t finished yet. I wanted to walk along the mall, past the Washington Monument to the reflecting pool then around past the White House and back to the hotel to pick up the car and head on to Philadelphia for the night. And we did this but not without plenty of whingeing about having to walk from the smallest member of our party. The hippie festival was packing up as we headed to the monument and garbage was piling up metres high from the food stalls – haven’t they heard of skips? The humidity made it feel hotter than it was, dust was rising from the path and it was generally getting uncomfortable (for those of us who have gotten used to the cushy life of air-conditioning and valet parking etc.)

Because of America’s unique paranoia about security we couldn’t stroll past the Washington Monument on the way to the reflecting pool but had to backtrack and walk around the south side, seeing nothing for a block. I heard one frustrated father (it might have been the one with me) say that he was ready to slap the next whingeing child he heard, voicing the thoughts of so many pedestrians that day. By the time we got to the reflecting pool time was against us so we didn’t stop but looked left as we walked on by, getting in a quick snapshot for the evidence folder (you know, the ‘we were here’ album). Yasmin is riding Ahmed’s shoulders at this point and I can see him beginning to wilt, she, of course, is as happy as a sandboy, all whingeing has ceased for the time being. He gives up at the corner where we have to turn to go past George and Laura’s place and the whingeing starts up again. We are no more than ten metres from seeing the front lawn of the White House when we have to reverse all the way back to the art gallery we passed on the corner because somebody has to go pee-pee (her words, not mine). Eventually we make it to the fence barricading the south lawn and squeeze in with all the other tourists to take the picture. We didn’t see any of the residents but I’ve always wondered about this kind of public housing – what’s it like to have a constant stream of visitors passing by taking photos, gawking in, cluttering up your footpath? Do you peep out behind the lace curtains to check out the tourist-geeks? Are you ever tempted to flash everyone? Being watched like that must make you a little nuts.

Given that there was nothing more to see than the façade of a building we kept walking back to the hotel to pick up the car and consider our dinner options. We were all getting tired by this time and Ahmed and I weren’t far from engaging in whinge-mode ourselves. To make dinner a simple decision I went along with the junk-food option. Someone had recommended Popeye’s fried chicken and biscuits (like salty scones) to us. We’d seen them in black neighbourhoods and learned that black folks like their fried chicken, so we figured that there might be a connection. Turns out it was pretty good fried chicken.

We left Washington the same route we came in, rejoining the highway to Philadelphia in time for Yasmin to fall asleep in the back seat. Ah, silence reigns, and it did so for quite some time.

That night we stayed at one of the famous (notorious?) Howard Johnson motels, a bit like our Niagara experience, a come-down to reality after the previous night’s high-roller accommodations. This one boasted an included continental breakfast, which I discovered the next morning consisted of a plastic dispenser of cornflakes, disposable bowls and spoons, a 3-gallon container of milk in a bar fridge and a self-serve coffee machine. Still once we’d found it (that map again!) we were glad of a bed and the rooms were big enough.

Next morning we encountered a similar breakfast problem, probably because we weren’t actually in Philadelphia but about 10 miles to the east of the city in the lower New Jersey suburbs. Eventually we found a diner and queued for a table. Large plates of eggs, omelettes and French toast with the requisite bottomless cups of coffee fortified us for the rest of the day and we headed south-west to take a look at Atlantic City.

The weather was fantastic, bright, sunny and very beachy weather. Turns out Atlantic City is on the beach. We parked at Donald’s first place (Trump Plaza was his first foray into casinos in Atlantic City where his name is now on at least a third of the real estate) and got lost trying to find our way through the casino out onto the boardwalk. More by luck than good management we found it and there it was, the boardwalk, right up against the beach. There’s beach on one side and casino doorways and stores right up against the other. This is a very developed strip of (ex-)nature. We took a walk, went down on to the beach, picking our way through the crowds of sunbathers (remember that scene in that John Candy movie?). Yasmin had a play in the sand and her and I had a paddle in the freezing cold Atlantic ocean. I’ve dipped my toes in quite a few of the world’s oceans now.

After an ice-cream on the boardwalk we took the lazy option and rode in a push-chair back to Trump’s place, stopping for a cool drink at the Rainforest Café. This place is a work of excess…sorry, art. The restaurant is done out like a rainforest with moving animals, jungle sounds, hanging vines, trees – the whole nine yards. Yasmin thought it was wonderful and it put Ahmed in a playful enough mood to order some ridiculous red/blue drink in a silly ‘you-get-t-keep-it’ cup. One sip and he wished he’d been a little less adventurous, while I, on the other hand, enjoyed a great frozen fruit juice.

After our brief Atlantic City sojourn we headed up the Garden State Parkway hoping to catch a better view of the coastline than if we’d taken the interstate. However what we got the best view of was toll booths. Here are my thoughts as we drove: “Melbourne, I do not want to hear you complain about CityLink ever again. You’ve no idea how good you’ve got it. We’re on the Garden State Parkway heading from Atlantic City to New Jersey as I write this, and we’ve stopped at I don’t know how many tool plazas and paid I don’t know how many 35c tolls…! Every 10 miles or so there’s another toll booth it seems and instead of enjoying a bit of a snooze while Ahmed drives, I’m constantly scrabbling around in the car for exact change. The tricky part is there’s no signage as to how much the toll is until you’re right up at the gate and then if you’re in an exact change lane and don’t have the exact change…CHAOS ensues! There is an E-Z Pass system for the whole highway system but we didn’t sign up for it because we didn’t think we’d use it. Hmmmm. But we have discovered that toll booth operators aren’t compelled to have poor temperaments and gruff exteriors; it turns out that outside of New York they are much more pleasant people to encounter on the road, cheery, chatty and good for directions if you need them. Maybe the rest of America is really different. I guess we’ll have to find out more at another time.”

This country really is set up well for road trips. Aside from the annoying toll booths, there are plenty of places you might actually want to pause en route if you’re in need of sustenance. The roadside stops are enormous and have huge numbers of people passing through. You can get a selection of fast foods, Starbucks’ coffee, crappy souvenirs, cash from the ATMs and make the requisite toilet stops all with relative ease. It’s a far cry from the days when I travelled as a child, when a roadside stop was Dad parking on the actual side of the road and we would get out to stretch our legs while our parents drank lukewarm tea from a thermos.

We made a few of these stops on the journey home, to swap drivers and to take a break from the relentless highway. It was my turn to drive at the point we rejoined the I-95 so I guess I got the good bit (not) – the New Jersey turnpike into New York, across the George Washington Bridge and back into Connecticut. All concrete views, traffic build-up and impatient horn-honkers. Being the 4th of July everyone everywhere was driving to someplace to see fireworks. Except us. We just got stuck in the middle of all those people. And as it was getting on to evening and the sky was darkening, the urgency of the fireworks seeker’s driving increased. This wasn’t the fun bit and it was all mine as everybody else dozed.

We made it home in time to see the first of the evening’s fireworks displays from our balcony. They were all miles away, but we’re up high enough to see a bit. Although you can buy fireworks at the supermarket, we didn’t bother as we had nowhere to let them off, but I did get a box of sparklers for Yasmin to swirl about. Once she’d done that and seen a few of the distant displays, the 4th of July was over for her and it was bedtime. The end of another quick look at a bit of America.

The Big Night Out

The story of my brush with fame, fortune and a limo ride to a big city night out….

A couple of weeks ago, Ahmed was offered tickets to this charity thing by his big, big boss, and for the first time, I was invited to come along too. So he accepted for us, but when he got home and we looked at dates there was a clash. The thing – a charity dinner to honour the fundraising efforts of several celebrity-headed foundations – was on the same week as a big work conference Ahmed had been waiting to go to. He was torn between staying behind to go out with me or go to the conference he’d been hoping to go to all year (he’d already missed it last year). Because of the baby-sitting difficulties we have, I was going to stay home if he went away. Then, in an effort to get me out of the house and enjoying something other than crappy TV, he said he would stay behind and miss the first two days of a four-day conference to make sure I went. Ain’t he sweet? But I knew how much he wanted to go and this is, after all, my year of martyrdom to his career, so in the end I said I would join his colleagues by myself and sort something out for Yasmin.

As it turned out, it all worked out ok. I arranged a Yasmin’s very first sleepover with her best buddy from school and given that school finished last week and we’re now in holidays, it was a good call. The sleepover went well, there were no dramas, except for the fact that the girls didn’t get to sleep until 11pm! This lovely Mom who has become a good friend of mine has said she regularly has trouble getting her kids to sleep, but when she called me at 9pm and said they were just going to bed then, I guessed there’d be some very tired kids around the next day. And I was right. Yasmin looked exhausted when I got there at lunchtime, but she kept going without too many cranky moments and meltdowns.

The thing I went to was to the SamSung Four Seasons of Hope charity dinner. Magic Johnson, Jon Bon Jovi, Arnold Palmer, Rudi Guiliani (ex-New York mayor), Wayne Gretzky (ice-hockey player), Boomer Esiason (ex-NFL quarterback), and Joe Torre (New York Yankees baseball coach) were there to accept awards for the fundraising and philanthropy of their various foundations and charities. Imagine, a Narre Warren housewife in amongst all these corporate heavy hitters and celebrities?! I made my mark by managing to walk into the background of official press photos of Kristi Yamaguchi (ice skater). But I don’t think they’re going to use the pics – they frowned at me and did them again. Regis Philburn and his wife Joy (he’s from morning television) were hosting, and some sportscaster I’m not familiar with (Bob ??) was doing introductions. I didn’t really have a clue who was going to be there until the folks I went with started name-dropping in the limo. The bit I was most surprised by was the video of Bill Clinton giving a short speech – last year he was at the dinner, this year he couldn’t make it – to think, he might have been there, but no … (bugger – I really would have liked to meet him).

The best bit was the performance by Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend of The Who at the end of the night. I wanted to get up and rage like a teenager at a rock concert, after all with flashpots, a lightshow and loud rock’n’roll like you’d get at a concert, it was hard to stay in the seats, but the place was full of suits (jackets off because it was so-o-o-o-o hot) and repressed money. So any raging was very subdued. I did boogie in my seat … and sing along. Most of the people at our table were so young, not only had they not heard of The Who, they didn’t know any of the songs until they got to one that had been recently covered by Coldplay (or someone like that). I have to say, it was pretty exciting to be pulling up to a posh gig like that in a limo, in New York City, something I never expected to be doing. It wasn’t quite the Oscars, but… it sure made you feel important.

So that’s my big brush with fame and fortune, brief – but fun. I didn’t meet any of the celebrities, but two of the women at our table got autographs from Bon Jovi, although they said he didn’t seem to too interested in that kind of thing on the night.

We had a great dinner, great entertainment, and multiple good causes were both recognised and added to ($800,000 raised). The limo ride home was much smoother than on the way in – we’d all turned various shades of green and had to take a walk to regain our land-legs when we arrived – and I got home to an empty house for the first time in seven years. What a peaceful night’s sleep… no-one coming in complaining of bad dreams or needing a middle-of-the-night cuddle, no blanket wrestling; I even slept in till really late with nary a moment of guilt.

By lunchtime I was at Dunkin’ Donuts enroute to pick up Yasmin and as soon as I arrived, I was right smack in amongst the stuff of reality – three little girls, all tired and cranky and a hot, frazzled Mom glad of the coffee I’d picked up on the way. That sure brought me back down to earth. As well as the sleepover, the Mom (…when in Rome…) had said yes to minding another girl from school because that mother had forgotten that last week was the end of school and hadn’t made any other arrangements for her work days; the place was, unsurprisingly, chaos. I ended up staying until four o’clock so the overnight Mom could go and pick up her eldest from school without having to drag all the others into the van. But soon after that I just had to get Yasmin home, fed, bathed and into bed. She was so tired there was little protest at my plans and she was washed, fed and asleep before 7pm.

That’s my exciting week so far. I’ve got a couple more days with no Ahmed then he gets back Friday night. The weather turned very hot, very quickly. Monday was wicked and yesterday was up in the 30s, which doesn’t sound much, but with all the trees and greenery about, it’s a bit like a rainforest – very humid to go with it. So we’ve been sleeping with air conditioners on as it’s the only way to get air circulating and feeling a bit fresh. If you go out and don’t leave one on, you come back to a stuffy apartment. I miss my house and big windows. But it has cooled down today and hopefully it’ll be gentle weather for the weekend. We might get out and do something...not too many opportunities left before we come home.

The Merry Month of May (III)

Travel Log Niagara
Surprise, surprise, we collectively managed an early exit from the apartment. Ahmed’s ambitious plan was to leave on the dot of 7am (or earlier) to avoid the morning rush hour into Manhattan. That was the direction we would be heading and taking three hours to get across to the New York State thruway wouldn’t have been a great start to the trip. So heaven only knows how we, the master procrastinators, managed it, but we did. Tires were on the tarmac on time and while not far ahead of it, we were in front of the Friday morning traffic.

After escaping that potential traffic jam, we made our first stop at Bradley’s Corner Diner. $20 all up, including tip, for breakfast. That’s a short stack for Yasmin; French toast, 2 eggs and bacon for me (diet be buggered, I’m on holiday); 2 eggs, bacon and homefries for Mum; 2 eggs, sausage, homefries for Ahmed (ditto the dieting) and unlimited coffee. Quick toilet stops all round, then we set Yasmin up with a movie (using a piece of rope to tie the laptop to the back of my seat) and off we go to Rochester.

Yasmin sits in the back watching a DVD. What happened across the generations? I remember just sitting and looking out the window at endless miles of farmland. Playing ‘I spy’ till we were absolutely sick of it. Spotting car number plates – that’s if there were any cars to spot (pretty quiet on those NZ roads pre-dawn – we were the only family who actually did leave at 4am to get to Taupo, 3 hours away by Ford Prefect) And what about the black dog/white horse game? If you see a black dog cross your fingers and then you can uncross them when you see a white horse. Who thought that one up? God I spent hours in the back of that Ford with cramped and aching fingers wishing for just one bloody white horse to appear. They’re not that common as it turns out. And if my brother happened to see it before I did, I had to wait until the next one.

We stopped at Taughannock Falls for a bit of a moment with nature and exquisite scenery, then drove up between Lake Seneca and Lake Cayuga, taking a detour off the highway in order to go through Ovid, Interlaken and Seneca Falls in the Finger Lakes region.

Once in Rochester, we checked into the Park Plaza. It looked a bit awful on the outside but was plenty fine inside. Made a couple of ridiculously expensive local calls from the room to Mike J, an old friend from NZ, arranging to meet the next day, then we drove around looking for a restaurant – of course MapPoint told us there were hundreds in the area but we couldn’t find them. Turns out they’ve built a highway overpass since the map was updated and there are no restaurants along that bit, which was what we thought the road was. Eventually we found the right road. After deciding against dinner at Red Lobster (fancy some seafood? No, not if we have to wait 50-55 minutes) we drove around and found a little Indian place, A Taste of India. Mum hasn’t had a lot of Indian cuisine so enjoyed trying something new. Great food too. Four full tummies and four good night’s sleep.

Next morning we met Mike J at LCD Char Pit at Ontario Lake beach where the ferry leaves from. Really pretty open space on reclaimed land with a beach, playground, several rotunda and picnic shelters. LCD was good, a solid American breakfast with no trimmings as far as service goes, but nice food. We also enjoyed, courtesy of Mike, an extremely interesting tour and commentary of the area. He’s certainly learned his Rochester history. His wife and daughter were ill, unfortunately, so we weren’t able to meet them and he did have to get home to hand-hold and do the Dad thing.

After breakfast and our stroll along the lake/beach area we went into town stopping by High Falls – a lovely waterfall right in the centre of the city, then made our way to Strong Museum, much like the Children’s museums we’ve seen elsewhere with a recreation of Sesame Street, a supermarket, and a bunch of stuff. Upstairs was a really interesting historical collection of 20th century history – items from radio, manufacturing, toys etc. Yasmin ran herself silly while we just goofed around. Departed the area at 5-ish to head to Niagara Falls for the night.

Well, it’s been a while since we got back from Niagara Falls and without a laptop to record the trip in process, I have had to rely on my good old memory. (For the details of why no laptop, read on…)

We got to Niagara by dinnertime, checked in, got an upgrade to a Fallsview room, had the bags valet’ed in, then Ahmed told me they’d offered him an upgrade to the Presidential Suite for the price of a regular room (Canadian dollars). So I asked what was holding him back, and he and I went down and arranged it, getting breakfast thrown in as well. The same valet moved us upstairs to the 23rd floor and there were the double doors with the plaque: Presidential Suite. Pretty darned good; Mum had a grin from ear to ear.

It was hard to see the Falls because it was raining and misty, but we got the general idea. Called downstairs for the car to be brought up (!) and drove out for dinner. This time we found a Red Lobster (a seafood chain but not too bad and Mum was really keen to try it) and indulged Mum’s fantasy. Not really the sort of place Presidential Suite inhabitants frequent, but we move easily between being snobs and hicks, sometimes all in the same day. We made it back to the suite in time to get Yasmin into bed at a reasonable hour, if late. Her and mum shared the lounge, mum on the pull-out sofa and Yasmin on an extra cot. Ahmed and I had a soak in the giant double Jacuzzi and got to sleep in a kingsize bed in a separate room. Bliss.

Next morning a great view of the falls unfolded as the sun rose and the mist disappeared. Fantastic. We took our time getting ready for breakfast, went downstairs and ate a feast. Back upstairs to look at the falls some more, pack the bags and brush teeth. Valet’ed (is that a verb?) the bags downstairs, putting Ahmed’s laptop bag at the bell desk and trusting the rest of the luggage to the car. Left the car valet parked (we’d paid for the whole day) and walked to the Maid of the Mist boat dock. Great trip, if a little wet. Mum had a ball. Yasmin didn’t like it much. The falls are pretty impressive up close, even if it is mostly grey mist; but you get a completely different sense of scale looking from the bottom up. We ate lunch at the fast food café then walked back to do the walk behind the falls, which was a little disappointing – not much to see but a great grey wall of water. Ate an ice-cream in the foyer of the building and then started back to the Marriott. Ahmed went on ahead to get the car out and pick up his bag. We followed along behind – had to wait for the incline railway to get us back up the hill. Got up to the hotel and found Ahmed sitting in the lobby drinking a Starbuck’s coffee. No car, no bag. Turns out they lost his bag; and were making a pitiful effort to find it. Apparently it happens ‘all the time’. Ahmed kept his cool, but I was ready to chew some ears, but no point.

After an hour and a round of coffees for all of us, still no result, so we had to leave with an insurance form and a weak reassurance that they would find the bag. We drove on towards Syracuse with nothing but a poor photocopy of a road map the hotel made for us. It was an uneventful trip, apart from the fretting and occasional conversations about the implications of a lost laptop bag, we stayed on the highways and we made it to the Days Inn (what a come-down!) in time for Desperate Housewives and a takeaway dinner. Yasmin was really tired so went to sleep fairly easily.

The next morning we skipped Day’s Inn’s doughnuts and coffee breakfast and ate across the road at Denny’s. Another big breakfast – something almost everyone does well here – then hit the road for home via the highway. I dozed off and woke up just as we passed a sign for Howe Cavern, a spot Miss Collette from ballet class had recommended. It was on the map we had so we headed there for a bit of a look. Turned out to be a wee way and much more impressive than we had expected. A huge underground cavern and lake with full-on tours running every day. We joined a tour and Mum and Ahmed took a ba-zillion photos. Yasmin and I just looked around and listed to the guide.

After the cavern we headed off back on the highway, Ahmed needed a break so I drove for a while. I decided to turn off to go to Poughkeepsie as the name interested me and I was fed up with highway driving. Of course I got lost and had to wake Ahmed to use the OnStar feature in the car. You press a button on the rearview mirror and get patched through to a call centre which will help you out. We weren’t actually registered for their ‘got lost’ service, but they do give one free sample of service, which after several convoluted laps of a small but complicated town that wasn’t Poughkeepsie but was on the way, we needed. They directed us to the correct highway to get us on our way to Poughkeepsie. Once there we got lost trying to find somewhere to eat but with Ahmed navigating, pointing and yelling directions and me driving and yelling back, we eventually found the Coyote Grill – very upscale eatery with enormous portions – and we ate. After dinner Ahmed drove the rest of the way. Not so hard to get home as we were close to the home of one of Ahmed’s work colleague’s (he lives a long way from work!) and we’ve come back from there before. We were almost at Bedford (Martha Stewart and celebrity country) when Mum fell asleep in the back seat, so she missed that bit. We arrived home about 10pm-ish. Still no bag and still no news. Everyone headed to bed and crashed.

Next day I took Yasmin to school. Ahmed got up and started to sort out the drama with the bag, reporting it at work, finding out what paperwork he needed to file and fortunately discovering some of the stuff he thought was in the bag was actually on the desk at home. At about midday he headed off to work and I took Mum to the post office to send a big box of crap to herself in Australia to make room in her suitcase. While waiting for Mum, Ahmed called to tell me that his bag had been found. It turned up in the back of some guy’s limo. Seems this big corporate lawyer from New Jersey found it in the back of his car and gave it to his PA to return. So it was just a matter of waiting for it to be FedEx’ed to us. Ahmed, with no bag and no laptop, had no work to do, so we picked him up and went to lunch at the new local falafel place before returning him for a meeting, then Mum and I went to Circuit City to get her a camera card. Much relief all round about the bag, and no further worries about the need to start replacing things.

It was then a matter of two more days before we put Mum on the Amtrack for her adventure across America. In spite of all her planning and careful packing, there was a slight underestimate as to the capacity of her suitcase so at the last minute we were transferring stuff to one of our bigger bags. This of course began the domino effect with regard to time. We left the apartment late, we missed two express trains into the city and had to wait half an hour for the next local train that stopped at every station to New York. We discussed options on the train, deciding that if we didn't make it, the airport might be our only option. As we pulled into Grand Central we were at the doors, bags ready and we ran, pushing and shoving and 'excuse me-ing' through the crowds out to the street. I might have stopped swearing as much as I did in Australia, but that hasn't prevented me becoming ruder. I hijacked the first cab I could see and thankfully he was free. I did the movie-cliche thing of saying to him "Penn Station, as fast as you can" and he obliged without breaking any serious road rules. We jumped out of the cab, I threw him and tenner and didn't wait for the change (the tip was more than the fare, but he earned it). We ran through the bottom of Madison Square Garden, a bit of huffing and puffing going on I can tell you. If the platform we needed hadn't been right in front of us, there was no way we would have made it. We galloped down the escalator with luggage, yelling at the conductor to hold on. Once he caught our eye, I knew we'd be ok. We jogged down the platform to the correct carriage, Mum and her luggage were loaded on, we said a quick goodbye, and by the time I gasped, puffed and wheezed my way back up to the staircase, the train was pulling out to Chicago. I kid you not, 30 seconds to spare. Just as the train was pulling out I heard a desperate shout from the other end of the platform - some other poor sucker was the one to miss the train that day.

I spent the rest of May recovering and tracking Mum's progress across to California.

Class of '05

We bring you this brief interruption to the tales of May: this last weekend was fantastic. It was Yasmin’s pre-school graduation, complete with caps and gowns and a show by all the kids; followed the next day by a splendid ballet recital given by all the students of the dance studio.

The school graduation was a stage extravaganza with all the kids performing in dances and songs, the graduates getting their own five minutes of stage time to show themselves off. Imagine my surprise to see my little Aussie (along with her two American friends) decked out in a sparkly stars and stripes hot-pants outfit complete with cowboy boots, twirling a baton with patriotic zeal! Incidentally it was just as she was introducing this particular item that the teacher pointed out that the kids had chosen the item they wanted to be in and selected their own costumes. It was hilarious. Little kids doing big people’s stuff is just magical fun. Gives you a different sense of perspective about life. After the stage show, the graduates came out in caps and gowns and all the parents cheered as their child received their certificate of completion. Of course I tear-ed up, they grow up so fast! I’m sure it won’t be long before we’re sitting in the audience at a university graduation wondering where the years went.

The next day we tizzied her up for the ballet recital. At the recital the littlest ones (of course) were easily the best performers and our wee girl did us proud. From a kid who stopped dancing and cried every time the parents stepped in to watch during classes, she has blossomed into a mini-diva/queen of the stage and has overcome her shyness. You should have seen all the little ballerinas and tap dancers – gorgeous in their frilly tutus and jazz skirts, little uncoordinated arms and legs in all directions, putting their hearts into their performance. Another pack of tissues (Mum) and an inordinate amount of photos (Dad).

But it’s all over now. This is the last week of school. The rest of the class are going on to elementary in September, while we come home and have to wait until February to start the real deal.

Mothers' Merry Month of May (II)

Part Two
Monday morning saw a brief return to routine with Ahmed off to work for early meetings and Mum in a hurry to get some laundry done. I dunno, here she is on holiday and she just can’t seem to stop doing stuff. So we made sufficient domestic effort to see us through the next couple of weeks and rested up from the big weekend.

Tuesday was our re-booked tour of NBC. And this time we were not going to be late. We even made it in time for coffee at Dean & Deluca’s across the street (trying to be posher Starbucks but over-rated). Having been to television studios in Melbourne, NBC was a bit of a disappointment. I don’t know what I expected for the outrageous fee, but a TV studio is pretty much a TV studio, northern or southern hemisphere, as it turns out. Naturally they have a more substantial gift shop with all manner of merchandise branded for the different shows they make, always good if you’re stuck for a gift idea and have an enormous disposable income to waste on printed mugs, t-shirts and caps. The historical and informational part of the tour was interesting. NBC pages (low ranking NBC employees looking to move up in the network one day, perhaps in front of the camera or into production departments) act as tour guides, filling in details about the shows and sets and background of NBC itself.

After the tour we walked up 5th Ave again, this time stopping in at Tiffany’s for a look. I’m owed a PhD completion/graduation gift so I thought I’d go and get some ideas. Do I need to tell you how nice their stuff is? And not all of it is as outrageously expensive as you might think. There are items, on the ground floor at least, that mere mortals can afford. So I took notes for Ahmed. Now I’ve just got to get him in there…

The rest of the afternoon we spent at the Guggenheim Museum. A big spiral ramp with art in rooms off each level, the smart way is to take the elevator up and walk down. Lots of Kandinsky and art of that ilk, and a large mirror installation in place at the time. A total departure from the Frick I mentioned a few months ago. I found the gift shop to be fun too, as my credit card statement will demonstrate. Once we’d finished competing for the biggest purchase, we took the subway back to GCT and got home in time for me to turn from tourist into domestic diva again.

Wednesday was yet another day in NYC, this time we headed downtown. Mum wanted to visit Ground Zero. After we’d done that we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and took the subway into the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens: a little piece of horticultural heaven in amongst this sprawling concrete jungle. After an enjoyable walk we subway-ed (is that a verb?) back to Manhattan, getting off at Canal Street to check out all the market-style shopping. It’s rumoured that here is where you’ll find all the knock-offs of brand name items. We didn’t see too many, but here were plenty of fake/facsimile/almost-right items. You could tell because the fabric design had been altered slightly, or the name spelled incorrectly. It’s very busy around that part of town, very crowded and I wouldn’t trust my credit card information there (perhaps I’m paranoid), so after a quick look we headed back to Penn Station so Mum could pick up her Amtrak tickets for the following week. Ahmed was in charge of picking up Yasmin, so we had all the time in the world to do whatever Mum wanted, it was after all, her last opportunity to spend time the city before the next part of the trip. We walked up 7th Ave and looked in on a designer bag sale. I couldn’t tell it they were the genuine item or knock-offs, but the prices weren’t inviting either way. And some of the stuff was just plain ugly, designer or not.

With sore feet and raging hunger we made our way up to Times Square and searched for cheap souvenirs, of which there are plenty. The trick is to find the best price without having to backtrack – all the vendors are in fierce competition but there are thousands of tourists who’ll pay any amount of money for some cheap crap with NYC written on it. The square was filled with the hustle and bustle of the end of the work-day traffic, so we sat down in a restaurant and watched the traffic go by. The food was in mega-portions so we only ordered appetizers, and even then we couldn’t finish them. After dinner and an interesting chat with the older couple seated next to us we gave up for the day and headed home. NYC complete (enough): tick it off the list.

Thursday was our belated Mother’s Day treat. I took Mum off to the mall for a pedicure with foot and leg massage and while we were there we added a manicure and back massage as well. After all that luxury, we went to Macy’s to indulge in a free make-up. It’s all good fun, but why do youthful women with flawless skin insist they know what looks good on us sagging old crones? If one more consultant puts eyeliner on me after being told not to, I’ll curse her with … some evil thing I’ll think up later. The make-up was overdone and I only narrowly avoided looking like a (battered and antique) painted kewpie doll. Mum, however, was done by someone with a bit of age and experience and consequently looked great. We bought some product anyway and went off to pick up Yasmin for ballet. After that it was a quick trip to WalMart and Costco then home to pack for the next big trip – a long weekend drive trip to Niagara Falls.

Mothers’ Merry Month of May

Part One
(Before we start, that title is punctuated correctly, there were two mothers enjoying a busy May.) On with the story…

A merry month indeed. My mother arrived on the 1st of May on her first big around-the-world trip, and she was keen to make the most of it; as were we. We’d been saving a bunch of fun things to do until a) summer (or at least better weather) arrived; and b) we had a visitor to do them with. After all, I figured, if the sightseeing or event or tour wasn’t all that great, we wouldn’t want to repeat it when visitors arrived. So with time to kill before Mum arrived, I scheduled out her two and a half weeks with us, taking into account all the things she’d said she’d like to try and fit in.

As it turned out Ahmed had to be away the first week Mum was going to be here. And it was only a matter of good luck that he was still in town and able to pick her up from the airport late Sunday night. The day before she arrived I’d made an attempt to do a bit of cleaning up and get a bed ready between which I had to run Yasmin to a classmates birthday party over in the next town. So we were ready for kick-off the first day of her holiday with us.

Ahmed took off before the crack of dawn for the airport and wouldn’t be seen again until the Friday night. We started the week slowly with a bit of local shopping. Showed off Costco (bulk buying heaven), WalMart (worth a look if you’ve not seen it), and HomeGoods (discount kitchen and home wares heaven). Then we came home and unpacked the goodies while Mum took Yasmin for a swim downstairs. Heated pool though it is, it was a bit cold for Mum, so they were back in a short time. But by the time they’d dressed it was dinner time and day one over.

The next day we dropped Yasmin at school and went and did grocery shopping and took a look around Marshall’s (discount clothes, home wares etc.) and Bed Bath & Beyond (everything for the bed, bath and wherever your beyond is).

Wednesday we had a day trip to NYC planned. We were to enjoy a tour of NBC TV studios, lunch at Trump Tower and a theatre matinee on Broadway. The morning proved rather more challenging than anticipated and with Ahmed away, we had to get Yasmin to school on the way in to the train. We missed the train but were hopeful we’d make it to the studio tour in time, but it wasn’t to be. It cost 25% to re-book the tickets and there wasn’t another tour available until just before our theatre show. So we pushed it out to the following week, paid the fee (I muttered under my breath about it, to no avail), and went for a walk along 5th Ave to Trump Tower for an early lunch. Trump’s bistro (the best in the world according to him, as quoted on The Apprentice recently) is hardly better than an average café in Melbourne, but it is quite nice to watch the water fall over the forty-ish foot high marble wall. And it is one of the few places to sit, eat and relax in mid-town.

After lunch we decided to walk along south Central Park, watching the clock to make sure we wouldn’t be late for the theatre. If it looked like it was getting too close to time, we planned to grab and cab; but it wasn’t necessary and it was a nice walk along the bottom edge of the park and up Broadway. I’d booked tickets for Mercedes Ruehl as Peggy Guggenheim in “A Woman Before a Glass”. It was great. But as I looked around the packed matinee, I realised I was probably one of the youngest people there. The audience was mostly middle-aged and older women (yes, I know I’m on the lower edge of middle-age) with a few stalwart men peppered amongst the crowd. However, they made for a great audience and Mum especially enjoyed her Broadway experience.

We didn’t have time to dawdle after the theatre though as I’d arranged for Yasmin to be picked up by a school friend’s mother and we needed to get back to pick her up as close to dinner time as we could manage. The subway, fantastically efficient once you know how to work it, got us to Grand Central quickly but we just missed the last off-peak train and had to pay the fare difference onboard. By the time we got back to our station, picked up the car and got to Yasmin, she’d had dinner and was planning on staying the night for a sleepover. With much reluctance, she decided to come with us as we were going out for dinner at the local diner. An ice-cream dessert was the perfect bribe to get her into the car without much fuss.

The next day was a school and ballet class day, so we couldn’t go far out of range. Mum went for a walk into town by herself and came home laden with shopping bags. She’d discovered Burlington Coat Factory, another discount clothing store, and had a fine time in there unsupervised. I made a pathetic attempt at weekly exercise while she was out and went for a swim after I dropped Yasmin at school. After lunch we picked up Yasmin and went off to ballet. Mum, as the only grandmother present, was given a special seat in the classroom and allowed to watch the entire class. Not so us the rest of us mere mortals. We were sat out in the back room only allowed a peek every now and then through the curtains. Even though there’re only a few kids in the class, and therefore only a few mum’s present, the noise level is pretty wild and it can be a very tiring hour or so. With that, all the other busy-ness of the week, and a weekend in NYC coming up, Thursday evening and Friday were taken fairly easily.
Ahmed arrived home late Friday night from his jaunt in Europe (sans gift this time, the slacker) so not everyone got an early night in preparation for the big NYC weekend.

Next morning we were up at the crack of lunchtime, missing a dozen trains into the city and wasting half a day breakfasting and getting our collective acts together. But it didn’t matter really. We still managed to get into the city, drop the bag at the hotel, find the bus tour ticketing, have a late lunch, get on a bus and do the double-decker tour of downtown/midtown Manhattan. Partly because we were so late getting started, partly because it wasn’t the warmest day, partly because Ahmed spent some of the trip on the lower deck sleeping and partly because a three-hour tour of a city is of limited entertainment value to a four-year-old, we didn’t get off at any of the predictable stops – Empire State Building, Macy’s, Madison Square Garden etc. Rather we stayed on board being entertained by an interesting tour guide with an artistic bent until we got to 5th Ave, at which point we got off, took a wander through FAO Schwarz (an upscale toy store), spent 20 minutes trying to extract Yasmin from the Thomas the Tank Engine (or should I say Thomas the Train, as he’s known here) display track, then found an upscale little Italian eatery at which to enjoy dessert and decent coffee (that end of 5th Ave is very upscale). An Italian eatery, it seems, that has been on telly. I went downstairs to the restroom (!) and on the basement level was a private dining room I could swear was a venue used on The Apprentice as one of the ‘rewards’ for the winning team in the early weeks of the latest series; the team were taken there for dinner with ‘The Donald’ and Milania (sp?).

After flirting outrageously with the rather gorgeous Spanish/Italian waiter (we couldn’t agree where he might be from) Mum paid for dinner and we left for the hotel in a chatter cloud of effusive praise for the food and service (Mum). You’d think she’d never eaten out before. Maybe life in the Australian desert is getting to her – she’s gone a bit Croc Dundee in NYC…

Back at the hotel we settled Yasmin down to sleep, or a facsimile thereof, and with Grandma babysitting Ahmed and I went out to find something to entertain ourselves. Having not done this the entire time we’ve been here, we thought a stand-up show would be cheap and cheerful. If you wander around Times Square you’re bound to run into someone hawking discount tickets to something or other and we picked up a couple to a comedy club about two blocks from the Square. We had plenty of time so we walked around for a bit, eyeing off all the restaurants and nightlife we were discovering. Having only ever been in during the day (and not having had any babysitters) we’ve not enjoyed much of the non-sleeping part of the City-that-never-sleeps. Mostly because that which never sleeps is the sleazy bit and we’re not particularly interested, but mainly because we just haven’t seen it. Well we saw it and it was fine and I’m sure it’s interesting if you know people there or if you’re into the whole ‘New York is exciting and I’m here for a good time’ experience. But as a short term tourist, it’s just a bunch of pubs, bars and restaurants like anywhere else. Unless you know which places are the places to be, you could almost be anywhere … almost … it is after all, New York City.

The comedy was good and we had some laughs, although the content was very localised considering the out-of-town audience. But then I guess that’s New York – the center (sic) of the universe. The room was not much bigger than our postage-stamp sized apartment and they jammed everyone in so tight I was sitting closer to the couple next to us than I was to Ahmed. Somehow they kept track of who was ordering what, with the two drink minimum being where they haul in their profit margin, and we managed to sail past two drinks each into not-such-a-cheap-night-out-anymore territory.

Mother’s Day
The next morning was Mother’s Day. I’d hoped we’d be able to have a posh breakfast somewhere, but it didn’t quite work out that way. Because we’d missed some sightseeing opportunities the day before we wanted to get on and make up for it. So we cabbed it to an open venue, not so many of them in mid-town on a Sunday morning, and had an American breakfast – lots of fat and sugar and coffee. After we left Harriet’s we rushed to the Circle Line Cruise dock and jumped on a three-hour cruise around Manhattan island with minutes to spare. Mum and I took about twelve-bazillion photographs (the wonder of digital technology) while Ahmed alternately dozed, watched Yasmin and looked out the window. The boat ride certainly opens a new perspective on the city. That’s a lot of brick work piled on a small island!

After we’d done with boating, we headed back to mid-town to use the second day of our bus pass on the Uptown Loop. Not as interesting as the previous day. Uptown is a lot posher and as a result the streets are less interesting – all clean, clear and quiet. Again we didn’t feel like getting off to visit much but near the end we stopped at the Children’s Zoo and playground at Central Park for you-know-who. The movie Madagascar is based on the Central Park Zoo and a movie about something like that might give you the impression it’s big. Ah ha, fooled ya. It’s tiny. And we didn’t see any lions or zebras. Just a few performing seals, penguins, tree monkeys and copulating polar bears (you should have heard the various parental explanations for that!). After we’d done the zoo and Yasmin had run amok in the tiny park with a giant slide, we tried to rejoin the bus tour for a ride back to the hotel. But wouldn’t you know it, a ‘vehicular incident’ between a cab and a van just in front of the bus stop snarled traffic and the bus couldn’t (wouldn’t) pull in and let us on. So we cabbed back, picked up the bag, rescued ballet bear who had been left on the floor of the hotel (good save – that could have been a disaster) and headed to GCT to catch the train home, all happy, tired travellers who’d done as much as we could in a very short time. The bus tour is a great way to get your bearings in NYC and, if you’ve a mind to, you can hop on an off at various points of interest. We’ll try to cram in some of those before we come home as it’s just not a trip to New York without the Empire State building.