April 26th Niki, Lisa, Monica and I left school at lunch for an adventure! We had been invited to New York by Scholastic. We drove to Phoenix, leaving our classes with substitutes, we boarded a plan, had a run through the Houston airport grabbing dinner on the way to our connecting flight. Lisa was told she didn't have a seat on the flight. Despite a backup plan we made on the way to our seats, Lisa soon joined us. The first flight Lisa and Niki had worked on our presentation for Scholastic, on the second flight Monica and I worked on it. About the time we were finishing and fighting to keep our eyes open we landed in Newark. We grabbed our stuff and a cab and headed to the island. We hadn't been in our taxi very long before we knew it was a bad mistake. Niki asked if he was going to take the tunnel, he told her to shhhhh, he had had a few beers and needed to think. He gave us an extended tour of Midtown that we didn't need, including the wrong way on a one way street. Monica had to use her GPS to try and find our hotel because we knew we weren't going to get there if we relied on the cabby. Once we stopped to try and figure out where we needed to go, I looked across the street to find our hotel right there. We got to our rooms and were in bed around 3 a.m.
We woke up Wednesday and went straight to work! We wound around for a bit before a few locals set us on the right track, we went down to 557 Broadway to Scholastic! We were met by Carol, who escorted us upstairs, where we met the team of workers we would be consulting with. We were working with marketing, webpage management and Book Club teams so forth. We talked about how book orders can improve and be made easier for teachers and parents. It was exhilarating to work together coming up with ideas, seeing how things came together and improved. We had breakfast there and then when they cleared breakfast they brought in fruit and cookies, when they cleared that away we were escorted upstairs, where we had lunch with Judy, the presidents of Scholastic Book clubs. We met in her office with a catered sandwiches, bean salad and cookies. I saw a best seller's sequel that isn't published yet, personalized autographed pictures, but best of all half of her office was bookshelves of all different books she had read over the years.
After we left at five we made our way to Little Italy where we ate dinner at Lombardi's. Pizza is one of my favorite things, I like it anywhere and I was hoping to be amazed at the pizza served at its birthplace. It was good, but not as good as the one we would have at the hole-in-the-wall pizza-by-the-slice place in Little Italy on Friday. Niki's cousin met us there and then took us on our first Subway ride (well Monica's first ever and my first in New York - I'd been on the Metro in DC). We had to hurry from Soho to the Theater District so we could make it to our show: Jersey Boys (curtousy of Scholastic!). Jersey Boys was great, I loved the story line, the songs, the actors - but oh the language (terrible)! When we got out we walked down around Time Square, enjoying the aliveness of night life! Niki wanted Carvel ice cream so we hiked all the way down to Penn Station, where we found the chain door down at Carvel's, but the workers still in cleaning. Niki explained that she had come all the way from Arizona for some they sold us four cups of ice cream and passed them under the chain. Niki can talk anyone into anything! We were tired from our long day, and our late night the night before. We had walked and walked. With our ice cream in hand we went down to the subway, but spent the next twenty minutes waiting on the wrong track. But never fear the time was not wasted, I was able to not only see but photograph subway rats!
Figuring out our error, we went to the other side, but to get there we had to go through the worst experience yet, I'd take the drunk taxi cab driver over the putrid subway elevator! But we made it to the other side just in time to catch our train, we arrived at the hotel around 1:30 am and settled in for a few hours of sleep!
Thursday morning we woke up early met for hot chocolate (me) and coffee (everyone else) in the lobbey and headed out for a few hours of sightseeing on foot before Scholastic. We took the subway to the financial district walked around Ground Zero around to the harbor for a look at the Statue of Liberty, We were going to go up toward Brooklyn Bridge but we didn’t have time so we walked up Broadway, Niki and Monica stopped for an egg sandwich from a street vendor.
By the time we made it to Scholastic (just in time) we had been walking hard for two hours. We ate the same breakfast as the day before buffet style while we jumped right into work. We spent another day talking nonstop and enjoying the sensation of being listened to. We took a break for lunch and walked down the street to Pub 89, where we found the food great (I had lettuce wraps that were amazing!), the décor modern and urban but the bathrooms were the high point of interest. The doors into the stalls were made of glass and while no one was in the restroom cubical it was see through. However, once in the stall and the door latched the glass fogs up somehow!
We returned to Scholastic with another round of meetings, meeting on the lay-out of up-coming September flyer, rewards points and flyer contents. It was fun to be a part of something so big and to be listened to. We finished with a wrap-up session prioritizing our wishes and recommendations, reviewing what we had talked about for the last two days. It was an amazing experience and I loved it as much as being in the city! We celebrated our time by going out to dinner. Sean and Carol took us to a Korean BBQ, where they ordered pans of meat and we barbequed them in the middle of our table. It was amazing! Everyone toasted (I had water) to our great experiences together. All too soon we had to run – straight to our second Broadway show. This time we made it just after curtain to Mama Mia. It was a fun couple of hours with some upbeat Abba songs. The story line wasn’t as good as Jersey Boys, but I was grateful to get the opportunity to go to two.
We met up with Niki’s friend (who is a NYPD homicide detective) met us and as we walked around Rockefeller Center, they caught up on old times. We took the subway to the Village and got desert at this little night café. I had some amazing gelato, and Monica had her cheesecake she was waiting for. We walked back to the hotel and went to sleep around 2 (again). We woke up, packed up and met up to spend our morning walking around the town (again!). We checked our bags in at the hotel, and decided breakfast would be eating at Carlos Bakery in Hoboken, New Jersey. We took the Path (train) under the river to the Jersey side (going against the millions of commuters) to Hoboken, where to our surprise we found the bakery in just a few minutes. We took pictures and ordered a variety of items, took them back to the train and ate in the subway car. It was delicious!!! I love bakery food and it was fun to eat at a place that is famous for having a reality TV show.
We headed back to the city, all the way uptown to walk up 5th Avenue hit the big piano at FAO Schwartz, walked briefly into Central Park, saw the park bench musicians, the caricatures artists, the entry to the zoo and for the first time in days: at one point I could see trees all around! The craziest thing about NY has been the lack of anything but buildings, no patches of dirt, parks with only pavement and cars everywhere.
We got in the subway and headed back downtown. There we had our long awaited walk through Canal street, where we got to buy all sorts of touristy items from Chinatown, including I heart NY shirts, postcards, magnets and knock-off bags and jewelry. Shopping took a lot of energy so as we turned into Little Italy, we stopped at the first Pizza-by-the-slice we found and ate super soft crusted cheese pizza, which we chowed down on until we were stuffed! It was so good! We had finished all that we really wanted to do, but still had a little bit of time, so we took the train up to Grand Central Station where we walked around taking pictures while Niki met her sister for a short time to chat. That building was one of my favorites! It was beautifully created and gives a throw-back to the glamour years of the twenties.
We took the subway for the last time back to the hotel, got our bags and met with our car service. We came into NY with a drunk dirty cab, we left in a posh Lincoln Navigator, with a professional driver and complimentary waters for everyone. It was really nice. We had talked to loads of people about how long it would take us to get to the Newark Airport in the afternoon on a Friday and everyone talked us into giving ourselves hours, it turned out that we didn’t need it, it only took us a little over a half hour, then we found ourselves in the airport with hours to spare. We had our last slice of East Cost pizza, walked around the airport. I had to scour the place for a plug in, as our batteries for our phones were constantly dying! Finally we got on our plane, I tried to keep my eyes open until we took off, but then I was OUT. I was going on my fourth night in a row of under 5 hours of sleep a night.
Once in Phoenix, I woke up, gathered my things and then met Rachel. She picked me up and we headed up to Pinedale (for Jaden’s Baptism). I keep awake by telling Rachel everything that happened, which lasted until about Payson, the next few hours (10-12 PM) were a struggle for me, but once there I got to drop into bed!
