I came home Friday night and Mom was already there. She was sleeping over since I live only 10 minutes away from the Louisville airport and our flight left early. Of course, none of these precautions are truly necessary for the Louisville airport.
Honestly, after my travels I have decided it is the best airport in the world. There are two wings, A and B, and a Starbucks in the middle. TSA lines may get long since there's only one, but it's not nearly as bad as the hectic Atlanta airport. There are no zipping trains, or busy food courts, or over crowded gates that are trying to board multiple planes within 30 minutes. I love it's simplicity, but hope this post won't bring too much attention to it, as then the ease of this airport could be lost.
Mom and I arrived two hours early for our flight. We checked our bags in with a woman who had a shirt that said, "I'm only a morning person on Christmas" and I was afraid that when my Mom pointed it out the woman, at 6am in the morning, would say, "It's true though." We then meandered to TSA, where Mom and I were approved for pre-check. I thought that wasn't surprising considering my Mom is the least threatening person on the planet. Afterwards we went to Starbucks to get coffee, I ordered something with salted caramel, but was too nervous to drink all of it while we sat waiting at the gate.
Here is the thing, I'm like a nervous Chihuahua. When I travel to new places I just get real anxious and can't stomach a whole lot. I tried to cherish the drink, but in the end I threw it out, and didn't eat my granola bar that I'd packed. I also have a terrible fear of vomiting, and an airplane seems like prime vomiting conditions, and the literal worst vomiting location. So, I played it safe.
The flight to New York was a dream. We flew straight to Chicago, had a nice layover which allowed for us to eat a little more breakfast and drink more coffee. Then we flew straight to New York, landing by 1:30PM. I was excited to have this big chunk of time to explore New York with my Mom, who showed no fear to the city, but I knew she was nervous. We met this woman from AAA, who was going to take us to our car when our bags arrived. Mom told me she had prepared to tip everyone who helped us do anything, as that was how it worked in New York. Like I said, sweetest person ever.
She did embarrass me a little though, as Mom's are inclined to do, intentional or not. The bags were taking their sweet time to get to us, and Mom wasn't going to let us sit in silence. She was chatting with the young woman from AAA, who wore riding boots and winged eyeliners. She wasn't a New York native, but she'd been here a while. I was very intimidated.
My boyfriend, who loves New York and visits as often as he can since his brother goes to school in the Bronx, told me the people of New York are very fashionable. As if movies hadn't shaped my stereotype of these people enough, I now had a witness to them. I wanted to appear cool, I even wore decent clothes on the plane and not super lazy comfy clothes just to impress them. I'm sure I looked very regular. Well, I'm standing quietly, waiting for the bags, and Mom is explaining why we're in New York. It's so I can see CATS on Broadway. I smile meekly at this, it's a very dorky fact, but it's also incredibly true. She tells the woman that I've always wanted to be in the show, and even had my cat picked out. You all know this, I explained it in the post about CATS and my career prospects. But, I was not about to admit it to this woman. I tried to ignore it, but Mom pressed on.
"Which cat was it? Do you remember?" I smiled awkwardly at the woman, and mouthed "No" to my Mother. I was trying to say, "No, I'm not answering that," but that would be way too teenager-ish, even though that's exactly how I felt. Mom was confused, but perhaps she got the message as she changed the topic to living in New York.
I'm not sure how it came to light, but I believe Mom was talking about being nervous in the city. She was likely referring to one way streets and crowds. But, the woman replied with, "Yeah... well you've watched the news these past couple of nights..." This surprised me and my Mom. We had not watched the news, and this woman said this statement so conspicuously. What was on the news? What was happening? Should we grab our bags and go back to the airplane? No. CATS was at stake here.
The woman explained some repeated crime was happening, and finally our bags came. Her job was simple, walk us out the door and to the car that was parked, get us loaded up and return to the office. We said goodbye, and thanked her for all her hard work, and then soaked in the luxury of having a car drive us around New York. Not a cab, not an Uber, an actually driving service.
The driver was very friendly, but he also didn't give us too good an opinion of New York. As we drove painstakingly slow through the highway and into the city (I don't think we ever went over 35mph) I tried to take it all in, thinking this could become my new home. My Mom didn't know it, but her little girl still had dreams of living in the big apple, but this time as an editor and writer. She, of course, chatted with the driver. He had an accent, but explained he had gone to school in Arizona, and then Texas, and now he is here in New York. She asked how he liked it as we battled stop lights, crosswalks, and the groups of people who inhabited it. He said he didn't like it. It was too expensive, and all the money you made went into basic necessities. He explained the high prices of restaurants and rent in certain areas of town. It was all very uplifting as I dreamed, just as I had as a child, of moving to the city and making a name for myself.
We pulled up to the hotel, right next to Time Square. Mom tipped the driver and thanked him, then worried that we should've let the doorman carry our bags, and if she should've tipped him for getting the bags out of the car. I shrugged it off, we were independent women. The hotel was extremely fancy. It had jewelry stores in it, which was wild. It had a gold card member's desk. And the concierges were snooty as could be. I know this because I braved talking to a stranger to ask about affordable dinners in the area. I did not enjoy his condescending tone of voice when he asked what we meant by affordable and then went on about different pricing. He suggested a brunch location for the in the morning and after that I walked back to Mom who was collecting our room keys.
As if the lobby wasn't nice enough, the elevators were high-tech. They each had these long touch screens for one to select their floor number and then it would tell them which elevator to get on. For example, we were on the 6th floor, and it often told us to get on L2 or L5. The room was one of those rooms that had a fridge, but it was full of items for one to purchase for outlandish prices. This is sad because it's impossible to store leftovers in that fridge. I quickly set to unpacking, and Mom called Dad to tell him about our trip. We lounged on the bed for a little bit, taking it all in. Allowing for a moment of peace and rest after the travels, but then... it was time to get up and out into the city.
No comments:
Post a Comment