Here’s a fun fact- when a hotel hosts rehearsal dinners and bachelor/ette parties on Friday night, they often host wedding receptions on Saturday night. And those wedding receptions are frequently as loud or louder than the Friday night activities. I now know this from experience. Just saying.
I had higher hopes for Sunday. My cousin, his wife, and their adult son were meeting us at the train station to spend the day together in Manhattan. Great, I thought; I’ll have a keeper. It was a huge relief to my cracked confidence that our survival in Manhattan did not depend on my ability to navigate.
After another uneventful train ride, we arrived at Pennsylvania Station. I had purchased tickets for all of us to take a tour on that hop on/hop off bus. We were scheduled for the opposite neighborhood tour than the one Max and I lost the prior day. We also had reservations to tour the Empire State Building. First, though, I was still on the hunt for my New York bagel. We wandered around the station until we found the recommended carbohydrate pusher. I enjoyed my bagel and we set out to find a bus stop once again. Again, the bus stop was much further away than I anticipated. I knew the M&Ms store in Times Square would be a difficult landmark to miss, so that is where we decided to get the bus. About twenty-five minutes into the walk, I casually asked my cousin what that big building was that we saw as soon as we exited the train station. “Oh,” he said, “that was the Empire State Building.” I don’t know why we walked over twenty-five minutes to catch a bus that we intended to take to… the Empire State Building.
I convinced myself that it was all going to work out to the good because I was so looking forward to a guided bus tour of SOME part of Manhattan. We finally reached the bus stop and joined the line. While we were waiting, I asked one of the employees to confirm that there was, indeed, narration on this “tour.” The employee assured me there was certainly narration. We climbed up to the top decker of the bus and settled in to see some sights. We did see sights. However, we still have no idea what those sights were because there was no narration. We disembarked the bus close to the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building Experience was great. Still no guided narration, but there was signage and my cousin was able to fill in a few blanks.
When we finished at the Empire State Building, it was clear that we were not going to be able to eat and do anything else before we planned to go back to Long Island. It was also clear that eating was imperative. Originally, I hoped to go to Little Italy for a meal, but this turned out to be as overly ambitious as everything else I had planned on this trip. Neither time nor my blood sugar was going to allow for any additional trip to get dinner.
My cousin’s son suggested we go to Bubba Gump’s in Times Square. I like Bubba Gump’s, so I was down for it. My cousin’s wife pointed out we were about seven blocks from the restaurant. I didn’t think that was a big deal. Seven blocks didn’t sound like much. I walk an average of over four miles a day every day. What I did not understand was that seven city blocks in New York City are considerably longer than seven blocks in my little subdivision. Seven blocks in Manhattan are about a mile. Since I had already walked about six miles that day and had not eaten for about six hours, walking to the restaurant was not the wisest decision. My cousin began traipsing through the crowds in the general direction of Times Square. I am sure he wasn’t truly trying to lose me, but his pace did lead me to question his intentions. I walk a lot in my normal life, but I am nowhere near as fast as my family is. Luckily, Max did not leave me in the dust. He kept right by my side and gently kept me upright.
We had a wonderful time together at dinner- talking, laughing, enjoying each other’s company. I may have been lost in New York, but I wasn’t lost in my family.