Adventure #72: NYC

"The city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

May 18, 2016

One of my best friends from high school, Felisha, was graduating with her masters from Columbia AND she was singing the national anthem. She invited us to attend and we were so excited! It was an exciting event and it would be our first time in NYC. Of course we hit an extra hour of traffic on the way there, which we had planned for, but there was enough traffic that would make us barely late. I had even reserved a parking spot a few days before, and the parking garage turned us away. He said they had accidentally booked too many cars. Jordan and I were trying to decide whether I should make a run for it while he searches the city for another spot when the man who had just turned us away said that he would take our car. We were so grateful! Then we started booking it to the school.

I was running to the school, leaving Jordan with the stroller behind. I didn't want to miss Felisha singing, but we were already too late to meet her sister at the gate for tickets. I kept running. I was praying that I would at least be able to hear her from outside the gate. Luckily, within a minute of getting to the gate, I heard them announce that Felisha would be singing the national anthem. She started singing and I started crying my eyes out. It was so gorgeous. Jordan and I decided it was the best national anthem we had ever heard!

But seriously, I felt so many tender mercies that morning: The parking garage taking our car even though they were full and running quickly enough to hear Felisha sing. Heavenly Father really does answer our prayers and this experience was a huge reminder of that. 

Columbia has a BEAUTIFUL campus! Jordan and I kept saying to each other how cool it would have been to attend school there. Of course, we would never have been able to get into to Columbia, but it was fun to dream. The graduation ceremony itself was also amazing. And again, Jordan and I were wishing we could have had the same experience at our graduation ceremony. Oh well, at least we really enjoyed attending Felisha's. :)

After the ceremony was over, we travelled with Felisha's family to Time Square. It was fun finagling a stroller through the subway system... (that was sarcastic if you didn't catch it). But once we made it down there it really was a lot of fun!

Of course there are lots of characters hanging around. They were almost clean enough to take a picture with, but then I used my eyes to see the Elmo fur all greasy and matted... So I took a picture from afar. So non-conspicuously... That's my shoulder on the bottom left. I was pretending to take a selfie... Why do I do such weird things?!?! And why do I share them?!?! Sigh... moving on.

This sounds like a super cliche thing to say about New York City, but the building really are sooooo tall!!! You feel so tiny looking up at the sky scrapers.

We got some hot dogs and some much needed rest after walking so much that day. Maria was a little cutie pie with her cheerios. 

Felisha's family had tickets to see the Lion King on broadway, so after they left we walked around a little more to check out everything. There were definitely things there that I never want to see again in my life, but it was kinda fun being surrounded by so many people and so many things going on.

Jordan always does a good job at keeping our munchkin happy.  :)

It was a long trip home... walking, subway, more walking, driving, traffic, detours, etc. Maria was so tired that she just snuggled in my lap watching Disney. Overall it was a fantastic day! I was surprised how dirty and smelly New York City was, but I'm excited to see other places there, too.