New York, New York!

At first, all I could think about was Homer Simpson’s trip to New York? Do you remember it? Well, if not, you can always click here to link to the full episode. Yes, I did try to get you a clip, but believe it or not I couldn’t find one (and trust me, I looked. I spent the better part of 90 minutes looking!)

Anyway, the point is that I went to New York myself on Sunday. Yeah, yeah…it wasn’t THAT big of a deal…I’d been before after all. I wasn’t afraid to ride the subway or walk the streets or anything (I did both — and at NIGHT! — this trip). I WAS afraid that I would come across VERY provincial. I have been living in this backwater of a town for nearly a decade now, and I thought that most of the gloss of my city-slicker youth would have worn off to the point that I’d feel really, really out of place in the Big Apple. Afraid that I’d feel like a big, fat, nearly-40 mom-of-two, suburban slob.

I may have looked it, coming off the New Jersey commuter train at Penn Station, walking out through the lobby of Madison Square Garden and over to 34th Street, in my sweaty Lululemons and running shoes, towing a rolling carry-on bag and toting a new faux lizard-skin handbag.

See? I stood there all goofy like any other tourist and took a picture of the sign.

So why was I in New York, you ask (and, more importantly, why am I home again so soon)? Well, Jen and I headed out to the city that never sleeps (and it doesn’t, and isn’t that wonderful? So unlike stuffy Calgary where they roll up the sidewalks at 6:01pm) for a Monday meeting with the support team at SixApart (awesome creators of TypePad, the platform you’re reading this on right now) in their uber-cool BOHO-esque office in Soho.

We both arrived Sunday and headed out on foot to explore the neighbourhood and found a fun place to have dinner. My asian-inspired steak salad was SUPERB, heavily endowed as it was with avocado, mango, peanuts and cilantro. Here’s Jen at dinner:

And me sitting opposite enjoying my (3rd? 4th?) glass of wine:

We had a fun dinner, and then walked a little bit more around the ‘hood. There is just something magical about a city where the flower merchants are still open at 12:30 a.m. – it was so fragrant! So colourful! So vibrant!

We grabbed a bagel (a real, New York bagel) for brekkie in a little hole-in-the-wall deli (I learned that much of Soho consists of charming little hole-in-the-wall places) next to our hotel, grabbed a coffee in Starbucks and grabbed a cab to our meeting.

I am really a city girl at heart.

The meeting was excellent, and we were treated to fare from the local bakery on our arrival (GAWD, I could smell the raisin bread baking all day long…droool…), handmade espresso and order-in deli sandwiches for lunch. When 4:00 was approaching, we headed back out to the streets to hoof it to the subway, thence to the New Jersey commuter train, and transfered to the Air Train at Newark Liberty International Airport all the while impatiently tapping our toes and watching the minutes tick by far too quickly as my 6:00 WestJet flight approached. Once at the airport it was a sprint to the gate, budding in line at security ("excuse me, my flight is boarding in a few minutes, can I go in front of you?") and another sprint over to the gate. I made it, just as they were paging me to come to the desk!

Jen, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. Her 7:00 pm flight was canceled, and she was put on a 9:30 pm flight. After waiting 4 hours at the airport, Air Canada advised passengers that the 9:30 flight was also canceled. Another night in New York (well, okay Newark…not nearly as cool!)