da travel journal - day one

did i fail to mention that punkin and i were taking a trip to new york city? well, we are. in fact, we're here! after a 3-hour-plus plane ride on which punkin had no dvd player, book, activity, game or other distraction [she remembered the dvd player, but not the dvds], we landed at la guardia glad to be on the ground. thankfully, our luggage found its way to the terminal as well, and we were on our way to our fabulous hotel in a famous new york city taxi cab [punkin's review: "this is not what i expected...in a bad way."].




punkin made the observation that life is made up of strings of waiting; a notation that has nothing but been reinforced since we' ve been here. once we checked in and got settled, she was chomping at the bit to "do something!" so we walked down to times square and visited the child's paradise/parents' nightmare toys r us. after spending the money she'd saved up for the trip in one fell swoop, we went for an early dinner to beat the crowds. the meal took "for-ever!" as punkin put it. the service was probably the slowest i've ever experienced in any restaurant on the planet. fortunately, the food was good and we stuffed ourselved silly. i think part of it was that we were just thankful to have food at all.

we walked back to the hotel and decided to order an in-room movie [tim allen in the shaggy dog - cute, but disturbing] and have dessert brought up to us. i should have known better, but i still almost lost my treasured dinner when i saw that a piece of chocolate cake, a slice of apple pie and 2 glasses of milk cost $40 with tax, gratuity and room service charges added. note to self: room service is not for the cheap or faint of heart.

tomorrow: texans tackle broadway