July 3rd

There was no parade when we arrived. I was a little disappointed.

But we arrived in NYC at my cousin’s apartment at 4pm. The sun was shining. I saw no sign of muggers waiting for us. There were no piles of garbage waiting to be picked up. The Upper East Side looked amazing.

My cousin lives in the most amazing old building that used to be a music school. Built in 1929, it has a guard at the desk, beautiful paintings on the wall, and impressive columns holding up the high ceiling. It has art deco elevator doors, art deco lights, and an art deco floor.

I loved it.

We got into the elevator that shot up so fast that The-Youngest didn’t even have time to turn on his phone and check his feeds. When we got out, we saw the building still had the old mail chute! Even The-Youngest was impressed, though I think he really dreamed of putting something in the chute to see what happened.

We met my cousin in her apartment, and she showed us around.  She had bought about a thousand days of food for us, nineteen types of cheese, and advised us on what to eat, see and do in her Manhattan neighbourhood.

She was incredible. Her place was incredible.

Once two studios for music students, it had been turned into two very long spaces, with the floors so soft, it felt like walking on cushions.

They weren’t carpeted floors, no, it turns out they were cork, polished so much over the years that they felt like leather. LEATHER! There were two ACs, a newly renovated kitchen, and beds for everyone (even the boys got their own sofa bed.)

However, we were all fading. I think it was 4am PST (or at least felt like it). Following my cousin, we spent the last of our energy wandering down to a park across the road and having a nice dinner in the sunshine. We ordered from a buffed-up Mexican food cart that had lost its wheels and grown a big roof. The food was fantastic!

However, it was HOT. Worse, it was hot and humid.

It was then I realized our first mistake (see, I told you in the last blog I’d tell you about the mistake we made.) We hadn’t packed for the discomfort of hot and humid. We had made the mistake of looking at the weather forecasts. Rain. Clouds. Thunderstorms. More clouds. A bit more rain.

Not the massively sunny-sun and sticky humidity that we found on this day.

We now knew why New Yorkers fled NYC at this time of the year.

While we ate, my cousin told us that in NY, people will sit with you at an outside table to eat. Horrified, I found out they would also talk to you. What kind of barbarism is this? In Vancouver, people are far more likely to just stand behind you and glower at you until you leave than sit down and have a wee chat.

She also gave us subway advice (don’t ever get on the empty one, it’s empty for a reason and if there’s an empty seat in a full car, there’s a reason for that as well) but said only the crazies would talk to you in the car – everyone keeps to themselves there.

There was a lot we had to learn.

Despite NYC being in, you know, America, it felt a bit like a city in a foreign country. There were new social rules we would have to learn. There were legal rules we would need to know. There were unexpected challenges we would have to face.

However, I have to say from the little I saw, I loved this part of NYC. A park full of doggies and their walkers. Brownstone buildings with those incredibly wide steps. Trees everywhere. A massive mish-mash of architecture all around us.

Wow.

We went back to our apartment, made sure the AC units were blasting away since it was so hot, and then went to sleep. I think I fell asleep with my shirt half off. I dreamed of being trapped in a small bathroom that was being shaken by Andre the Giant.