NYC - Part I

Last fall, Ken had a business trip to New Jersey. The office is really close to New York so we added a couple of days to the trip and I was able to tag along. It was so much FUN!!!

We left home on Friday afternoon, landing in Newark around midnight. The start of our trip was really quite comical (looking back - at the time it was pretty frustrating).

As we were boarding the plane, with our carry-on luggage, I realized that since it was the last flight back east on a Friday night, everyone else was flying with carry-on luggage and as we were some of the last passengers to board, we had to gate check Ken's bag. Not too big of a deal - we'll be fine.

Hours later, we land in Newark. We get off the plane, find Ken's bag and head for the monorail to take us to get the rental car. The monorail is broken and the one attendant doesn't know how long it will take until it's fixed. We go back by baggage claim so we can get a taxi to take us to get the car. It's raining lightly and we get in line...the line's pretty long and after 5-10 mins we find out that their computer is broken and so they have to write all the fares up manually before people can get in the cab to go to their destination. Okay...the line is moving, we'll get the car and get to the hotel...

We get to the rental place, Ken quickly checks in gets/gives all the necessary information. We're told that our car is in parking spot 83 and we head outside (this all was really quick - like 8 minutes!). Spot 83 is empty. I tell Ken I'll wait with the bags while he goes back in to get things straightened out. I'm waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Finally, 15 minutes later, Ken comes out and we get our car. Turns out that the woman who helped him when he went back in was new and she had to cancel his car and then redo it for the different car...

Alright, so now we are in the car, we have our GPS working and we're heading to our hotel. This hotel is right next to the airport and it would have been almost as fast for us to just walk there once we got off the plane! We get to the hotel, it's 1:30 am by now, I'm exhausted, Ken's tired and really concerned about how tired I am and how sore I might be in the morning since we're scheduled to tour the Statue of Liberty.

Ken pulls up front at the hotel, I stay in the car while he goes to check us in. Turns out he can't because the computers are doing their nightly maintenance. It'll take another 15 minutes. We can park the car and come in with our luggage and by then we should be able to get checked in. So, now we're in the lobby, I'm falling asleep in the chair, holding bags, and telling myself that I'll get enough sleep and I won't be sore. The clerk is unable to find our reservation. There's nothing in the computer for us. Ken's about to blow his top - poor guy! Thankfully he's really organized about confirmations etc. so he pulls out the confirmation number from his breifcase and now the clerk scrambles to find us a room. There's none of the room we booked, but he's going to upgrade us for free, blah, blah, blah (seriously, I'm so ready to be in a bed by this time!). We get up to our room, fall into bed and pray the night is long enough...