Groton, CT

I left my stomach on the side of the interstate 95 somewhere in Massachusetts. How nauseating this drive is. I think it has to do with in silly driver, but the Kia Sonata does not have the best shocks, so it is the bumpiest ride I have had in a long time. Stop-Go traffic didn’t help either. Luckily I did not actually throw up.

I was rudely awoken this morning by all the furniture being scooted around in the room above me. Thank you Marriot for your lovely hospitality at Six AM. I am shocked that a hotel would start construction that early. Today was the day that we would get to sleep in until 7:30 too. Oh well. I laid there like a slug until 7:15, it was my only defense. So until 8, when we were ready to leave, it was loud and slightly irritating noise coming from upstairs. Everyone knows how I am when I am not happy with my method of wake up, let alone that method continuing for 2 hours. So this morning was a little rude.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and some dry apple jacks for the road. Ate some apple jacks but by the time the coffee was cool enough to drink, it was no use. Car sick. So I instantly attempt to meditate myself to sleep while listening to my “chill” playlist as to not jump out the car window.

We arrived in Groton, CT around 11am (thanks to the rush hour traffic). We went to the Submarine Museum and toured a 1954 Sub. That was really cool, but I got claustrophobic down there… ick, I have no idea how frank is going to survive down there for months at a time. That is going to be rough. But of course this sub was from the 50's so there have been many many advancements since then. At the Museum Submarine School Graduation was taking place and a few sailors (now bubbleheads) were graduating. That was cool, since Frank will be doing that in October or so. I feel bad I won’t be there to see that, but we will survive. Frank bought me a little pin that I picked out to hang on my mirror of my car. It is a sailors hat that says “I <3 My Sailor”.

We went to “Flannagans” for lunch. It was good, then we got back on the road, and I plugged myself into the Sony XB’s and listen to P!nk as to save my soul. But I won’t go into details. We are currently driving through Connecticut on our way to NYC which Crystal thinks will kill us. It’ll be fine. We must keep to the mantra of “Keep Calm and Drive On” which has not been the case for today. So we revisited the mantra. Unfortunately I need to pee again. Are we there yet?

We arrived without trauma to Manhattan through the Bronx. It was an easy arrival compared to the rest of the day. We got to the hotel (Hampton Inn on 35^th and 5^th), washed the road grime off of us and went out to strut around the city and see Times Square. I warned Bill not to take directions from locals, as they rarely know what they are talking about since they typically do not drive. He asked the man at the front desk how to get to Times Square… wrong. I realized after about 2 blocks were going in the wrong direction, so I attempted to speak up but was shot down. So we carried on about 10 more blocks. Once we arrived to Madison Square Gardens, they decided to listen to me and concurred that the man at the front desk was bonkers. So I directed us to Times Square which was about 30 blocks the opposite direction. Hahaha. Crystal couldn’t stand the smell of the streets (since it was garbage day) so she kept spitting in order to not throw up.

We got to Times Square, took pictures, and looked around. It has expanded so much! Even compared to what was on TV for the past few years. We decided to pop in somewhere and have a drink and maybe an appetizer. So I spied The Hard Rock Café just across the street. This was the biggest Hard Rock Café I had ever been into! It was really quite cool. So after some confusion on where to sit, we sat in the next to the bar in a spot under a vent eventually causing me to shiver violently. I got a cute little drink that came with a “souvenir glass” (emphasize the glass part) and we ordered an order of nachos with pork. The nachos were much better than the nachos I got in Dublin. Those were vile. After we feasted on Nachos for an army, we decided to go our separate ways and find adventures in the Big Apple. I got my souvenir glass on the way out, it was in a box, in a bag. So Frank and I made our way up the street, and Crystal and Bill went down the street.

After we got our fill of the many screens in Times Square, Frank and I jumped on the subway and made our way back to the area of the hotel, which was also the area of Macys. While we were walking to the Metro, a gust of wind, or someone shoulder checking me on the street caused my Hard Rock bag to skyrocket in front of me and promptly land on the concrete. And just like that my $10 cup was shattered to oblivion. Sorry, Jenna, that was supposed to be your souvenir but now it is in the NYC Dump.

We popped out of the subway and it was pouring rain. POURING, big, fat rain. Frank and I were unprepared for rain with no rain gear. So we run out and stood under an awning of sorts to figure out what we are going to do with ourselves. I was looking around to figure out where the metro actually dumped us out. And I glace behind me and peer in the big doors only to realize where we were. We are stand right outside one of the many entrances to the biggest and my favorite store in the world J Macys. I said “Frank Frank Frank! We are at Macys!” He says “ooooh joy”. Hey man, it is better than fat rain. So we tour ourselves around Macys NYC up the 7 escalators, some of which were made of wood, and peered around. I had no desire to actually buy anything because the store itself was very overwhelming. It was like the Harrods of NYC. We went downstairs and there was a touristy portion of Macys which sold “Macys NYC” gear. I was tempted by a couple things, but then I recalled I have no finances for that. So we carried on and went to exit. Through the fat rain, across the street we could see a store that was likely to have umbrellas and such. I picked out a purple umbrella and Frank picked out a white I <3 NYC poncho that is likely to never be worn again. Although it served him well for the evening.

Frank got the bug to find a pair of “swampers” to wear around and prance around in. By now it was probably 8 and there is not much for two underage people to do in NYC at this time. But we attempt to find some swampers because I want a pair for myself for London. After what seemed like 2 hours, with sloshing loafers and wet jeans, we threw in the towel and headed back to the hotel. We crawled into our room, got dry clothes on. Frank decided to blow dry his shoes because he had no others. While he was doing that I searched for and ordered a classic NYC Pizza. He was surprised when the man came to the hotel door, and although he said he had not been hungry, he ate about 3 giant pieces. We took two pieces over to Bill and Crystal (who had also fought the rain back to the hotel). The later called and said the pizza was “completely fabulous darling”. It was. It was such good pizza! Really greesy, but super delicious. I was snooping around on my Broadway App for my iPhone when I came across tickets for Macbeth tomorrow night at 8 for $50 each! So we ran it across the parents and we booked it.

After our pizza pie and ticket booking, we watched some TV and fell asleep.