Day 3 began as all the other days has, with me getting up earlier than I should. This time, I woke at 6, went back to sleep and got up at 7. Ok, so that’s not early, however, we didn’t get back to the hotel until 11 again last nite – and it takes me a while to wind down, before I can fall asleep. I’m enjoying my stay – but can’t wait to get back to the normal routine of going to bed at 9pm.
Mom and I have taken to going down to breakfast that the hotel provides, and then coming back to the room and napping. It’s not bad – that way I don’t stress about what needs to be done – haha – there’s nothing that needs to be done I’m on vacation.
The breakfast that the hotel provides is quite extensive. They have juices and coffee or tea. Eggs, sausage, potatoes, sometimes hard boiled eggs, sometimes french toast. They also have muffins, bagels, bread for toasting, cereals, fresh fruit, yogurt, milk and other things that I can’t remember. It’s a buffet – and you could eat too much – I have to watch how much I eat, I’ll have to go on a diet when I get home!
Day 3, Mom brought 2 hard boiled eggs back to the room to eat for lunch. Mom eats a lot more than I do – she says her metabolism is faster than mine, and she has to eat frequently.
Did I tell you that Mom had hip surgery last year? So now she’s using a walker all the time, and really doesn’t get much exercise, like she did. So where is she putting all this food that she eats??
We all decided that we would go into New York City for day 3, and walk around Central Park. Sounds like a plan – the plan was to get together around lunch time and drive it. So at noon – mom was hungry – so she ate something, then I ate the left over Chinese food that we had gotten the day before, and we waited for my brother to call. At around 1, I called my brother and asked when we were getting together – you see he has to come and pick us up – I’m not driving around here – not that the traffic is really heavy – it’s just I dont’ like to drive in an unfamiliar place.
My brother had gone to get a wheel chair for mom – she insisted she didn’t need one – she’s stubborn that way – but we insisted. He picked us up – brought us back to his house, and then we waited. Finally when everything was ready – he took is 2 children to the train station – they were going to ride the train and then the subway (they are freshman in college and senior in high school and according to my brother, ride the trains and subways all the time) and then meet us in the park. My brother has one car, and it barely holds 4 people. And off we went.
I don’t like to watch traffic, I get nervous with drivers whizzing by. However, I got the tourist tour – there’s the Hall of Fame (sounds like an interesting place to visit), there’s Yankee Stadium, there’s the new Yankee Stadium – old one is going to be torn down, there’s the reservoir, etc. We went traveling over several highways and cross town expresses. I would never have been able to find my way around.
We found a parking place, and with mom in the wheel chair, my brother, his wife and me, we crossed to Central Park and started walking around. We must have walked for an hour or 2, we were just sauntering – with runners, walking people, moms with baby carriages all around us. The daffodils were just coming up – no flowers yet, tho we did see some early crocus which was pretty. But it was just a very relaxing walk. The kids met up with us, and we all just kind of kept to our own pace.
Fay, my brother’s wife – is she my sister-in-law? pointed out a number of buildings – Mt Sinai hospital, the met museum, the building where my brother used to work, and several others. Wandering around the Great Lawn – where softball games are held, cross country skiing is done if there’s enough snow, and symphonies are held in the summer, we even saw the spire to the empire state building. Next time, maybe I’ll get to go up in it.
Coming up on 5:30 – we decided to go out of the park and find some place to have dinner. Just before we exited the park, there was a vendor selling NY pretzels – had to get one, it was just as good as I remembered! We wandered around for a few blocks, and found an indian restaurant that looked interesting – so we ate there. It was good food, and good companionship. My brother’s 2 children are very intelligent and they all kept up conversations about politics, philosophy and other topics. It was good to listen.
Full, and drowsy – the kids went off to the subway station, and we caught a cab to take us back to the car – some 20+ blocks away. I’m glad my brother wasn’t too tired to drive home, he pushed my mom in the wheel chair for quite awhile. And it was hard not to fall asleep in the back of the car on the way to the hotel, but we were still awake, when we were dropped off.
Didn’t take much time to unwind and fall asleep – I’ll tell you. The walking was great, but I’ve not been very active this winter. Oh, don’t get me wrong – I didn’t have any problems keeping up with the walking, but it did make me very tired. Guess I’ll have to put my walking shoes back on and try to get some exercise when I’m home.
Not sure what we will be doing on the 4th day – but I’ll let you know. Til then…
