Traveling to New York

Monday night we had a little trouble getting Sophie to sleep so Heidi ended up sleeping with Sophie in our bed. Since the guest bed is currently covered by kitchen china I had to sleep in Sophie's bed. A short time after that Heidi dumped Sophie with me and went back to sleep. Then I became uncomfortable and went to our bed - only to find that Heidi was missing, downstairs watching TV since she had insomnia.

When the alarm went off 3 am Tuesday I had no idea where I was or what was going on. Heidi got a grand total of 3 hours sleep. We got ourselves together, piled into the car, and left for the airport at 4 am. Sophie was raring to go.

The streets were deserted. I could have fired a cannon down 23 avenue without hitting anyone. It only took 10 minutes to get to the Park 'n Ride by the airport, where Sophie announced she had to go pee. Heidi and Sophie had to wait by the washroom for someone who seemed to be taking far too long...Heidi nicknamed him "Poopy McGee."

We got to the airport and on the plane without too much hassle. The trip to Toronto was uneventful, except for by fluke, "Poopy McGee" was on our flight. Sophie was excellent the whole trip, she got a little antsy towards the end, but that is to be expected for someone her age.

Going through customs in Toronto was a nightmare. Lucky for us the New Zealand Rifle Team was standing in line ahead of us. That really sped things up. Also there were many people, who were quite irate, who had already missed flights because of the big hold-up. There were two customs agents serving the line-up of 300 people, until 1 custom agent decided it was lunch time, and then progress slowed to an absolute crawl. Sophie fell asleep in Heidi's arms but woke up before we got to the front.

While we were waiting to board in the waiting area Sophie tried to make friends with as many people as she could, including an African-American family, our stewardesses, and an older couple.

Standing behind us in line we noticed a guy with a Carolina Hurricanes hockey bag, and an NCAA "Frozen Four" 2001 over-the-shoulder bag. He also had a Saskatchewan hat on. I managed to see the tag on his bag read "Ryan Bayda."

The flight to New York was short although Sophie was starting to get extremely bored by the time we got close. I played a game where I hid regular objects (my watch, keys, lip balm) in the Air Canada barf bag and she got to "unwrap" her "presents." Then we put the Air Canada headphones over our eyes and pretended we were pirates.

There was some kind of SNAFU on the ground of LaGuardia, so we ended up circling around New York a few times before landing. This was an ideal situation for people who wanted to take pictures of New York, but not such an ideal situation for parents of a two-year old who really needed to pee. It only took about 15 minutes of circling, but 15 minutes as measured in toddler bladder failure time = an accident. Hopefully the stewardess who wouldn't let me take her to the washroom is the one who got to clean it up. Luckily Heidi is a very smart mommy who packed a change of clothes in the carry-on.

The first thing we noticed in LaGuardia was how many people were in the waiting area - it was many more people than you typically see in Edmonton. LaGuardia seems like an older building, there is no air conditioning, just giant fans everywhere. We got our bags without incident, although the carousel was not very well-marked.

We had pre-arranged for a cab/limo to pick us up and finding him turned out to be an interesting experience...we were told to watch for a car with a driver who would be waving a sign with our name on it out the window. There were quite a few cars with signs waving out the windows but at last we spotted ours. Our trip into town was exciting - we were finally in New York! - although not as scenic as we had hoped since the driver took some kind of tunnel.

As a nice surprise Toscha and Jon were waiting for us at the Broadway Inn, and Juli, Alan and Malakai showed up shortly after. Jon brought a map of all the subway lines in New York, and explained about the five boroughs - Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island and Brooklyn. Once we had checked into our room and got everything straightened out, we all headed to Times Square, which is a two-minute walk from the hotel.

It was really cool to be in a famous place like Times Square. There were lots and lots of people around, but it wasn't as bad as we had expected. Even though there's lots of people it's still manageable. We took a few pictures of all the advertisements and buildings in the area. Jon pointed out one of the more famous ones - where the New Year's Eve ball drops down. He told us the building actually has no tenants since it earns enough money through advertising that it doesn't need any - crazy!

We decided to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe. The food was OK but nothing to write home about. By this time Sophie had been up for a long time and was no longer listening to any of the requests that her tired parents were making. So for part of the meal Heidi took her upstairs to the merchandising section of the Hard Rock Cafe and for the end of the meal I took her into a different section of the restaurant where she climbed onto a giant red semi-circular cushion and danced to the loud music that was playing. She was having a great time.

After we finished eating we headed back to the hotel. Jon and Toscha headed back on the Subway because Jon had school the next day. We got back to our room and were all asleep by 9:30 New York time.