August 5-6, 2017
Originally, this part of the trip was supposed to last a day longer than it did. We were supposed to fly out of JFK on August 7th (my dad's birthday) but we ended up leaving on the 6th instead. More on that later.
We fought the crazy lines, as I mentioned, in the Amsterdam airport and flew, uneventfully, to JFK. The flight was a lot longer coming back than it was going over. On the way to Amsterdam we had a tailwind the entire way. Coming back, we had a headwind. So it took us 7 1/2 hours to get back. Mara was a trooper, as always, watching movies, coloring, eating and sleeping on the flight. We landed at JFK around 1:00pm or something.
I should take this moment to mention that by this time I was so travel-weary that I wasn't nearly as good about taking photos or committing things to memory. My memories of NYC are a little bit blurred and occur in snippets. So for that, I apologize.
We arrived and after a very unpleasant taxi ride to the hotel (I was unbelievably carsick), we checked in and relaxed in our rooms for a while. We were on the 30th floor! Definitely the highest hotel room I've ever stayed in in my life. Mara was full of energy so we didn't stay put for long. My mom and dad wanted to rest, so Corky, Mara and I packed up the stroller and headed out to explore Central Park (which we were literally across the street from).
We found Victorian Gardens, a small amusement park located within
Central Park. Mara was elated to discover that she was, indeed, tall
enough to ride many (almost all) of the rides. She had been such a
great traveller that we wanted to spoil her. Admission was kind of
expensive but we did it anyway, and MAN did she have a ball!
Pregnant mommy couldn't go on many of the rides, so Daddy
picked up the slack. They spun those teacups so dang fast! Mara
loved every second of it and didn't want to leave when it was
dinner time. Now she's a ride junkie. LOL!
As we were leaving Central Park, we walked past this big expanse of grass and saw two French bulldogs playing! One was brindle, just like Abby, and I missed my dogs so much that I begged Corky to let us go over there and ask if we could pet them. I can't remember the other one's name, but the brindle one was named Rita and she was ADORABLE. Frenchie owners understand what it's like to miss your BatPig when you're on vacation, and they were more than happy to let us love on their little piglets for a while. Mara loved it and kept trying to pick Rita up. Rita was a pretty good sport about it. Finally, after lots of snorting (from the Frenchies) and kisses (from us), we thanked them and went on our way.
We ended up meeting my parents (my sister was off visiting a friend who goes to NYU) and walking to a restaurant called Rue 57 for dinner. It was kind of a French/American place. Mara got a grilled cheese, if I remember correctly, and I had a caesar salad. Mara was exhausted by this time and was starting to crash and burn, so we quickly ate and ran. She went to bed on her cot without much fuss, and we both crashed soon after.
The following morning, Mara got up around 5:30am. Not too bad considering our sense of time and space was totally obliterated. I had been suffering from some pretty severe sciatic nerve pain since about midnight and, to my horror, could barely even walk. When the nearest Starbucks opened at 6:00am, Corky and Mara set off to get coffee and breakfast.
Thankfully, once I got up and started moving around, the pain lessened and we decided to go out. Around 7:30am, we left the hotel and walked to the end of the block where we found...... this fountain?? I have no idea what this was, but Mara loved running around while we studied the subway map and tried to figure out how to get to Chinatown (Corky's request).
We then figured out where we were going, bought a metro ticket, and down underground we went!
Mara in the station, reading the map.
Mara on the train. She liked it!
We walked around Chinatown for a while. Some of the little markets were just opening up, but most everything was closed still. We went to a Chinese bakery and got some moon cakes (a tradition) and Corky bought a piece of chocolate cake for later.
We continued walking until we stumbled upon Little Italy. Everything was closed. It made for a nice quiet walk down that street. Mara looked like she was about to fall asleep, so we decided to walk a while. Corky saw the Empire State Building in the distance so we walked in that direction.
As we walked through SoHo, Mara fell asleep.
Little Mara, asleep in the big city.
We saw this huge old church in SoHo, and it had these black metal
doors next to it. The doors had these little tiny window flaps in them.
We opened one and peered in, and this is what we saw! Kind of creepy.
We walked past NYU and found a Fresh & Co., a restaurant that serves healthy food. We were kind of hungry so we went in. Corky had a breakfast quesadilla and french toast, and I had a bowl of oatmeal. Mara slept through it, but woke up right after we left. She was not happy. She'd been such a great traveller all this time that I really couldn't blame her for just being done.
My dad called as we were about to get on the subway, so I told him I'd call him right back because we had a train to catch. When we surfaced by our hotel again, I called him. He informed me that there was a weather advisory for the New York/JFK area for the following day - the day we were scheduled to fly home - and that it would likely cause our flight to be delayed by quite a bit or cancelled altogether. He asked if, provided my mom could switch our flight, we could be ready to leave that afternoon instead of the next. I had wanted to give Mara an extra day to get back toward our own time zone but I also really wanted to get home. So, of course, we said, "sure!"
My mom was able to successfully switch our flight to the same flight only a day earlier. The trouble was that none of us were sitting together except Mara and me! This wouldn't have been such an issue except that a) this was an almost-six-hour flight on a smaller plane, b) Mara was in an awful mood and c) I couldn't get an aisle seat (which sucks when you're pregnant and have to pee every twenty minutes). We ended up trapped by this lady with a sleeping baby. Mara was freaking out over everything. Thank god the plane was new enough to still have screens in the backs of the seats. Had it not been for that, the whole flight would have sucked ten times worse than it did.
We arrived back in Portland at 9:30pm exhausted, disheveled, achy and so ready to be done with airplanes.
The greeting we received from the dogs upon our arrival home was one of the best things ever.
The trip was amazing, challenging, overwhelming, fun, tiring and definitely crazy, but I am so glad we went. I was so happy to be able to finally experience Norway after hearing stories about it my whole life. Amsterdam was fun and I wish we had more time there - oh well, maybe another time! I'm so proud of Mara and how well she did with all the travel and transitions and I'm so grateful to my parents for making this trip happen. The memories are things we'll have forever.
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