Can you plan for everything?

Well. No. I’ve tried.

And I failed.

No matter how well you plan, you’re always going to neglect to think about something.

We realized, on day 2, it was two things.

First: Clothes.

Not that we forgot clothes, (though this is a common nightmare of mine) but we failed to realize that NY in July is like Florida. Hot and humid and nasty. The moment we stepped outside, we were drenched in sweat. Top to bottom. Clothes stuck to us, The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World’s hair went flat (I didn’t know that was a thing) and we had the life sucked out of us with each step we took.

We should have packed lightweight shirts and shorts. Instead, I had dress shirts for those dress-up dinners. I had two pairs of pants, heavy cotton things. I had kinda tight-fitting golf shirts.

In other words, the worst for this weather.

But day 2 wasn’t a shopping day. Nope. We had things to do. We had a cool tour planned. Not your usual hop-on hop-off tour. Nope. We chose a tour of TV and movie sights. And at night, my personal request – a boat tour of NYC at night. Not your usual boat tour. Nope.

However, we hadn’t planned for one of us to get sick.

The-Oldest caught a nasty cold, likely on the plane (and not, as his brother hypothesized, because he licked the subway hand poles.)

Do we go without him? Do we stay inside and take a rest day?

Being us, we talked it over and The-Oldest didn’t want us to lose a day. We had things booked, he said. Neither was vital for him to see or do. He wanted us to go without him.

What a cool guy.

We stuffed him with drugs and charged out to catch our tour.

We took the subway to Times Square, again. It would turn out to be our most used stop. It was busier this time, filled with a huge variety of people. More so than people who use the Vancouver SkyTrain.

We found the tour bus, found the tour guide, watched people line-up for a diner though we had no idea why (it turned out to be a singing diner.) We got on a small bus with a small group.

Perfect.

And the guide took us to a bunch of areas we never would have gone to. Tribeca. The East Village. The Highline. Greenwich village.

We saw the Ghostbuster’s firehall which had real firemen outside. The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World took loads of pictures, though when I saw them, they were mostly of the firemen. I think she even asked them if they’d take off their shirts.

We saw where the Friends apartment was, where they shot the Santa scene from Elf (a family favourite), and where Law and Order filmed, which was largely ever street in NYC.

Our guide told a cool story about one of the Fast and Furious films shooting in Times Square and how they could only film for 10 minutes before they had to let people back. It took a whole day for about 30 seconds of film time.

We had a blast. It was the perfect tour for us, though The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World did ask the guide “Are we were going back to see the firemen, errr, the Ghostbuster place with the, you know, firemen?”

He said no.

The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World frowned. In hindsight, she should have put on her MUST -DO list, “See all the fire halls and rate how hot the firemen are.”

Me, I discovered that a cold Coke in a proper glass bottle on a hot day is the best thing in the world. Seriously. Not beer. Not ice water. American recipe Coke in an ice-cold glass. OMG good. The-Youngest wanted to go to Seinfeld’s soup Nazi (which we drove by but couldn’t stop.) I think he secretly dreams of being a soup Nazi.

It was sad that The-Oldest couldn’t come. He would have loved the Elf location and all the associated stories. Like his brother, he too would have enjoyed teasing me for taking pictures of water towers on top of buildings (but hey, there were so many different types!)

By the time we were done, it was 2. We could have gone home, but no, we decided to go to a place The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World HAD to see.

The NYC library.

But there, too, we were in for a surprise.