Travel day from HELL and friends from HEAVEN

On the way from NYC to Charlotte, NC I wanted to punch some suckers in the face.  I am a patient traveler & don't figure there's any use complaining about things that are out of my control, but seriously, dude, it was a rough day.

My NYC morning was rainy but we decided to walk Central Park anyway and got soaked to the bone.  Which meant that I had to throw my wet clothes in a plastic bag and partially unpack to get dry clothes out & then re-pack, and that I was kind of freezing so I layered hardcore but once I got into the subway, hefting my suitcase & two carry-on purses up & down stairs, I was frying.  It is not fun trying to remove layers of semi-wet clothing on a crowded New York subway with luggage precariously tipping at every stop.  At least, because of the debacle of getting into NYC (which I didn't go into detail on here but trust me, it was a debacle), I took all the right trains & made it to the airport in plenty of time.

Plenty of time because, it turns out, my flight was delayed an hour.  This is after my original direct flight to Charlotte had already been canceled and I'd re-booked onto a new flight with a layover in Boston.  An hour's no big deal, so I read and we boarded, and we sat there... and sat there... and sat there.  Finally we got word that due to inclement weather, we were delayed two more hours, and everyone had to get off the plane.  Groans all around.

Well, this meant I would miss my connecting flight, so I got in line to fix that and stood there the entire two hours.  When they called us to board, I was the 2nd person from the front & they told me I had to go wait in another line!  No way.  I refused & the guy conceded but had no good news.  I would miss the last flight out of Boston and there's only one more flight to Charlotte from JFK but it's full.  He told me I could fly standby but with my All-You-Can-Jet pass, that sort of change incurs a penalty of $100.  No way; this was not my fault.  He couldn't help me & the line at the help desk was out of control so I called jetBlue customer service & got connected to an agent just as they were calling final boarding for my flight.  Trying not to panic, I explained my situation and asked for her to please, please waive the fee and she agreed.  Whew.

BUT she couldn't put me on the standby list; I had to see the help desk for that.  Sigh.  So I got into another line.  When I finally reached the front, all the agents but one went on their break.  Really??  The agent who stayed (bless her!) was very nice and acknowledged she could waive the fee, but for some reason, couldn't get me on the standby list.  She had to call her supervisor, who had to call her back, and I was probably standing at the desk for 45 minutes.  Fiiiiiinally, I was put on the list and, fingers crossed, walked over to wait at the gate.

The plane started boarding, the gate agent called out one name - not mine - and then said, "sorry everyone else on standby, there are no more seats."  Fuuuuuuudge.  I sat down on the floor and cried.  Yup.

Oh, and by this point, my phone was dead because I'd had to call jetBlue so many times, and I couldn't even call my friends that were picking me up from the airport.  Thank God for free wifi and Facebook.

Resigning myself to sleeping on the floor - since not only were all hotels I found online booked up, but they couldn't even give me a real ticket for the next flight out so I'd have to be back at the airport at 4am to get a boarding pass - I went to the bar, where the bartender had just seen what happened and gave me a free glass of wine.  So nice.

I managed to nab a weird little couch at the end of the terminal for my bed and met another AYCJ-er traveling solo so we traded off watching each others bags & guarding our coveted sleeping spots.  All my toiletries were in my checked bag but luckily I had my eye mask, neck pillow and ear plugs, so I did manage to get, oh probably 3 hours of sleep.


The next day, waking to the sound of floors being cleaned and polished, I blinked my contacts clear, got my boarding pass, got a coffee, and finally boarded a plane.  ...Which then, of course, was delayed.  We sat on the runway in NYC for about 45 minutes and then when we landed in Charlotte, they had no open terminals so we sat on the runway there for about an hour, and then when we pulled into the terminal, the jetway was broken and they weren't authorized to pull up a stairway, so we sat there for another hour.

I wanted to cut a bitch.

Everyone around me was complaining - I'm missing meetings, this is ridiculous - and I just sat there loathing everyone and everything, thinking miserably to myself:  I've been in an airport or on a plane since 1pm yesterday!!!!  GRRRR!  As my friend Jen would say, what fresh hell!

BUT.  We finally did disembark and I guess bad luck figured I'd gotten clobbered enough because magically my bag, which had gone to Boston without me and taken the first flight from there to Charlotte, was waiting at the carousel.  I used a pay phone (remember those?) to call my friends & then suddenly, joyfully, there they were and I was whisked away from the evil airport to their welcoming home.

So my two day trip to Charlotte got shortened to 19 hours, but my friends took me for shrimp & grits and sweet tea, blew up the air mattress for an afternoon nap, and it is indescribable how just being around them made me feel infinitely better.

We went to a museum where we spent some time checking out their platform shoe and haute couture exhibits, then had a make-your-own-pizza party in our pajamas, falling asleep all piled up on the couch and air mattress watching a movie.  It was so lovely.  You girls are the best.

At 4am I got up again & T took me to the airport (thank you so much, girl!) for my 6am flight to Houston.  I boarded the plane and immediately fell asleep.

(PS - I still love jetBlue; the problems were with the weather and the airports, and everyone from jetBlue I talked to did their best to help me).

I am so happy and grateful for:
~ eyemasks & earplugs
~ patient friends
~ safe flights

 xo!  n.

My Empire State of Mind

Twenty-four hours in NYC!  How does one cram it all in!??  Especially when it's your first time there as an adult!  Lucky for me, I had a crazy local tour guide, Caccese, who made it not only possible but fun as hell.  There's too much to even write about, after only a few hours of uncomfortable plane-sleep and a couple of NYC cocktails, it's all kind of a wonderful, brightly-lit whirlwind, so I'll let my pictures do the talking (in chronological order)...

I'm a Rockette!

from the top of the Empire State Building!

 

my first NYC street dog! (delish, tho stomach was a little grumbly afterwards...)

my first time hailing a cab!

Caccese's surprise for me - yes that IS the "Friends" apartment building!!

The site of the Twin Towers - still being rebuilt & far from done.

first NYC pizza - burned & scraped up the roof of my mouth!

drinks by the Brooklyn Bridge

yes, yes that is a bumper sticker he bought & stuck to his shirt.

next morning, watching the rain from a bagel shop, rescheduling my cancelled flight 

(the beginning of the travel day from hell)

my first NYC bagel

 
Central Park in the pouring rain.  We are drenched.

One crazy day in New York with a crazy Yankee.  It was freaking fantastic.  I heart NYC.

I am so grateful and happy for:

~ covering the whole island of Manhattan in one day, almost entirely by foot!

~ a funny, fun tour guide friend

~ lots of NYC firsts

xo! n.

Sunny days in Portland

Portland loooooves me.  It wants to have 10 million of my baaaaabies.

I only had ONE rainy day in the infamously rainy city of Portland, Oregon!  My other three days here were gorgeous and cool, sunny with a breeze, absolutely perfect.

I stayed with a friend of a friend, JM, who I'd only met once before, for literally 3 hours.  She was incredibly welcoming, treating me like an old friend, and by the time I left, I felt like we were old friends.

The first two days I wandered the city and surrounding neighborhoods on my own, popping into shops and getting a feel for the energy that inspires "keep Portland weird" bumper stickers.  I love the wide-porched brightly colored houses, screaming their own sunshine into the often dreary skies.

Everything here is so so green.  Lovely.  I wandered into a shop & thought, I think I could deal with the rain if I was shaded by such a beautiful canopy and had cute little rainboots like these...

 My very first day here, meandering through Powell's books (a mansion maze of a bookstore!  I could've spent hours in there!), and down city streets, I was struck by how friendly everyone was; obviously LA has dulled my expectations of human decency.  Sitting outside in the sun with a beer, a stranger saw me looking at a map and stopped to ask if I needed any directions and give me his favorite sights to see.  Later, sitting at an old cafe bar, Besaw's, having a coffee & a delicious "potato pie," every person who sat next to me struck up conversation.  I think it'd be easy to make friends here.  And speaking of coffee, I had the BEST coffee of my life, Stumptown Coffee (local!), with JM in a french press at Mother's Bistro.  Mmm...

(they had a funny little booth set up to take your picture with the store & your name on the marquee - I should put this on my vision board to imagine I'm a famous author doing a book signing there!)

On JM's day off, she took me over to Multnomah Falls, the third highest waterfall in the world.  It was breathtakingly serene and powerful, framed by the lush forest and bright blue sky.  We hiked to the top (actually the trail takes you above the top of the falls), on steep switchbacks, and my out-of-shape ass, not used to such elevated and angled trails, was winded by the middle, heart beating like to break through my sternum yelling, "save yourself!"  I felt so lame.  But we made it, me still clutching my coffee cup (dork), sweating despite the cool weather and cold spray, dizzied by the height and feeling like a part of something magnificent just by being there.

Then we drove under skies cozy under quilted clouds to a lookout point where you could see almost 360 degree views of the river and gorge.  It was gorge-ous.  Ha ha.  We stopped at the botanical gardens to smell the roses (I've been doing a lot of that lately, literally and figuratively), and then to Widmer Brewery (which JM found magically, magnetically, like a pro!) to sample some delicious beer and shriek - each revelation louder than the last! - at all our similarities.  We both loved Elijah Wood growing up (shriek!) because of Huck Finn (shriek!), were obsessed with Newsies (shriek! and a bit of not-so-quiet singing) and many, many other much less predictable parallels that confirmed us as soul sisters.  Drove back under the quiet gaze of Mt. Hood, changed, and somehow - we are rockstars! - nabbed a table by the window in the highest restaurant in Portland, overlooking the whole city.

The next day was her goodbye party (she's moving to LA!  Funny, huh?) at McMenamins Edgefield, which is one of the neatest places I've ever been.  It's an old poor farm turned mental institution turned hotel/spa/bar/restaurant/golf course/outdoor concert venue/gardens.  It was lovely and quirky with tiny little themed bars that pop up like garden gnomes as you wander the grounds.  I took a picture in Jerry Garcia's Icehouse for my brother, who follows jam bands.

cheers, Alex!

About 20 friends of JM's met up with us, and we had an animated lunch then a rowdy game of shuffle board (is that possible? yes.) and drinks before I had to catch my plane for the red-eye out of there to NYC.

It was a phenomenal trip.  Thanks, Portland (and so many heartfelt thanks to JM & her kitty Abby for putting up with me!) for showing me a lovely time.

I am so happy and grateful for:
~ beautiful weather
~ a dear new friend
~ exploration

xo!  n.

19 hours in Boston

I've never thought much of Boston.  It always brought to mind baseball and snow, neither of which I'm really a superfan of.  So when I booked my jetBlue flights and saw that I had to fly through Boston to get from Denver to Portland, OR (I know, ridiculous - I'm at the Boston airport now preparing myself for a loooong day of travel including a three hour layover in NY), I didn't really consider staying longer than the overnight that was required.  I didn't think I'd care about seeing much in this city.  It proved me wrong.

My sweet friend S. met me at the T station, took me for dinner at a truly Italian restaurant, Giacomo's (where the waiter literally tapped me on the shoulder and said, "hey, which'a you got the ravioli?"), to her favorite place for the best cannoli I've ever had, then let me stay the night at her apartment.  All of this after I forgot to remind her I was coming & she only just happened to check Facebook after my plane had landed!  Today, before my flight out, I had a couple hours to wander the city, and I really discovered how much I like it.  I still may not be a fan of baseball or snow, but I'm now a big fan of Boston.  I'll be back.

Next stop:  Portland, Oregon!

Today I am so happy and grateful for:
~ kind, giving friends
~ deeeeelicious food
~ historic port cities (love 'em!)

xo! n.