According to Wikipedia, Joe Biden likes to refer to LaGuardia Airport as a “third world country.” Also, apparently the airport is ranked as the worst in the nation.
I don't know that I could confidently say that LaGuardia is either comparable to a third-world country or the worst airport in the nation. I can say for sure that it was a little crowded. I can also say for sure that, unlike at JFK, there was no convenient airtrain that would get us to the subway system. There was only a rather expensive bus. Little Sister researched our options and determined that taking a taxi from LaGuardia to the Times Square area would likely be less expensive per capita than it would be to pay for the bus.
The plan for the day went as such:
1. Freshen up in the airport bathrooms.
2. Take a taxi to our hotel. Because Older Sister would be at work when we arrived, there was nobody to let us into her internship dormitory, not even for a hot second so we could drop off our luggage. We'd therefore had to engage a hotel room for the first night.
3. Leave our luggage with the concierge/bellhops/whoever while we went out into the city.
4. Race to Ham4Ham in front of the Richard Rodgers Theatre. During the afternoon, cast members from Hamilton stand outside the theatre and did short performances. Little Sister really wanted to go, and Older Sister really wanted us to go. If we hurried, we'd make it.
5. Have lunch at the Shake Shack.
6. Go to the American Girl Place. Get our dolls' hair done.
7. Take a nap (because red eye flights).
8. Meet up with Older Sister in Times Square for cheesecake at Junior's.
9. Go to The Color Purple.
10. Have dinner after the show at Carmine's. Little Sister had made us a reservation.
'Twas a fairly simple, ten-step plan. But it did not come together as we'd thought it would.
First, the bathroom lines at LaGuardia were quite long. Baby Sister sallied forth to change, brush her teeth and hair, and put on makeup. Because the lines were so long, and because someone had to stay behind to watch the carry-ons, we decided that we'd make better time if Little Sister and I freshened up after we claimed our luggage.
I should explain the luggage situation to you. American Airlines, unlike every other airline I've ever traveled with, does not allow you to have a complimentary checked bag. You can have one carry-on, one personal item, and that's it. If you want to check a bag, you have to pay $25.
Since we had a hard financial limit for this trip, we'd bought American Airlines tickets because they were cheaper. Then, we decided, we would check only one large suitcase containing only toiletries.
"Only toiletries" somehow turned into toiletries and three American Girl dolls and some jelly shoes for Older Sister and granola bars and fruit to eat for breakfast. And then, since we were going to be sleeping on the floor in Older Sister's place, we had to add some sleeping pads and sleeping bags and some other things. And then, since our individual suitcases could only be carry-on size, each of us ended up shifting a certain amount of personal luggage into the big suitcase.
Getting that thing zipped up was a miracle. That they didn't charge us extra for it was another miracle. As it was, my carry-on ended up being slightly too fat so they checked that one, too, as a courtesy.
So, in short, we had four suitcases: three smaller but very packed ones and one ginormous and even more packed one. We also had Little Sister's backpack, Baby Sister's pillow, and my pillow-stuffed-into-an-Urban Outfitters-bag creation that held my journal, electronics, scriptures, and other necessities for flying overnight.
We hauled our carry-ons down to the baggage claim, where we picked up the large suitcase and my intended carry-on. Because there were no nearby bathrooms, Little Sister and I once again delayed our freshening up. We supposed we'd take care of that when we reached the hotel. So we went to get a taxi.
Yes, a taxi! I was very excited to ride in a taxi for the first time. Maybe it was the exhaustion from the flight or maybe it was the unpleasantness of being icky from 36 hours of no bathing, but the taxi ride turned out to not be that exciting. My sisters and I all sat in a stilted and tired silence while the driver expertly guided the cab around the outskirts of the city. There was a little TV that played the same six minutes of programming on an endless loop, which was annoying, but the real nemesis of Fun Times in a Taxi turned out to be the taxi's meter.
My understanding of the taxi was that we were charged, not by distance, but by time spent in the taxi and by tolls on the road. All that was well and good, but traffic was such that we ended up taking 50% longer than Little Sister's estimates had suggested. That meant paying 50% more, which meant staring at the meter in horror as the price climbed and climbed and climbed. By the time we reached our hotel near Times Square, we'd reached what seemed practically the Everest of taxi fares!
As we prepared to exit the taxi, Little Sister tried to pay using the little card machine in the back seat. Notice the operative word tried...because this was how we discovered that Little Sister's credit card was not working.
In the end, I paid for the taxi, and our driver helped us get our oodles of luggage out of his taxi. He probably drove away wondering how we would manage in this city, since I think we appeared to be a lot more incompetent than we liked to think that we were.
Gathering together our luggage, we entered the doors of the Manhattan at Times Square hotel.
The lobby of this hotel was nice. It smelled similarly to the hotel we'd stayed in last time (cigarette smoke covered by the scent of cleaners) except the cigarette smoke undertones were much, much stronger. And the line of people waiting in the lobby was much, much longer. Everyone was trying to check in, even thought check-in time wasn't for several hours.
Little Sister asked the concierge where we could leave our luggage. She pointed us to some bellhop-type workers who were loading luggage onto carts and taking the carts away. We approached one of these workers, a man whose nametag read Hector. Hector had a thick Brooklyn accent.
Little Sister said that we wanted to leave our luggage. Hector asked us what room we were in, and Little Sister said that we hadn't checked in.
"Oh, no," Hector said. "I'm not putting your luggage in storage if you haven't tried to check in yet. If they have a room ready, I'll have to get your luggage out again and take it to your room. That's double the work. And I refuse to do double the work."
"The lady over there told us we could leave our luggage here," Little Sister said. Little Sister tends to be all giggly and sweet with strangers; this was the first time I'd seen her visibly annoyed with someone she didn't know.
But Hector refused to listen to us. Giving up on explaining that we had no intention of checking in right now, that we only wanted to drop our luggage off and rush to Ham4Ham, Little Sister got into the very long line for check in while Baby Sister and I extricated our American Girl dolls from the big suitcase. I also looked for a bathroom in the lobby where we could freshen up. I found one but, unfortunately, it could only be entered by using a room key.
After some twenty minutes or so of waiting, Little Sister returned to us with the news that there were no rooms available for checking in. We'd suspected as much, which was one of the reasons we had decided it would be best to merely drop the luggage off. So we went back to the bellhop area.
Hector was no longer there; it was another fellow now. We asked if we could put our luggage in storage. He said yes, then asked if there was anything else we needed.
"No, we're fine," we said.
The bellhop looked at us with pursed lips and raised eyebrow. His expression seemed to say, "I don't buy that for an instant."
After a moment of hesitation, I ventured, "Well, we wanted to change, but it looks like the bathroom needs a room key to get into it, so..."
"I can get you a bathroom key," he said.
Quickly, and at long last, Little Sister and I were able to brush our teeth, change our clothes, and put on our sunscreen. We left our luggage to be put into storage. Then, with Samantha, Kit, and Molly in tow, we headed to Ham4Ham.
How was New York City? About the same as it was the last time I saw it. Loud, crowded, too many people surging across the street at green lights. Part of me was all, "Oh, hello, I've been here before, and I sort of belong, and I'm not fazed by any of this." Part of me was all, "Ahhh! I'm back! I can't believe I'm back!"
We'd planned to be at Ham4Ham at least half an hour early, but the delayed taxi and the checking in and all had conspired against us. We got there right before the show began, and the place was packed. Barriers had been set up in the street. Cops were yelling and herding people off the sidewalks, but a lot of the people they were herding weren't moving simply because there was nowhere to go. We ended up pressed into a mass of strangers.
Behind us, I could hear passersby struggling to get through. I heard some people say things like, "Oh, it looks like we've gone the wrong way! We'd better turn around." I think those people were tourists. I also heard somebody yell as they passed, "Get used to it! It only gets worse!" I think that was a local.
Then Lin-Manuel Miranda came out of the Richard Rodgers Theatre, and the crowd went nuts.
I find the Hamilton craze both bewildering and amusing. Last year, on our tour of SoHo, Chinatown, and Little Italy, the tour guide mentioned how during the first recorded murder trial in U.S. history, both Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were present. I said, "Oooh," but no one else in the group seemed to understand the soap opera melodrama of this circumstance. Yet now, some people would probably consider that tidbit one of the most interesting parts of the tour—but only because of Hamilton, not because they've suddenly gained more interest in important U.S. historical figures in general. As for me, I wouldn't call myself a Hamilton fan; I know some things about Hamilton that make me want to see it and some things that make me not want to see it. We'll see. And although I like some of the songs from other musicals Lin-Manuel Miranda has done, I wouldn't consider myself a particular fan of his, either.
The point is, the crowd went nuts, but I didn't. Even so, I jumped up and down a little so that I was able to see the famed composer and Broadway star. Yes, I got to see Lin-Manuel Miranda with my own two eyes! How many people get that opportunity? I wasn't so apathetic that I didn't realize that this was a rare chance. I know a lot of people who would have loved to be in my place.
Anyways, Ham4Ham lasted around twenty minutes. We could see and hear almost nothing, but Little Sister seemed happy just to be there. Afterward, we briefly met up with Older Sister, who was on her lunch break. Then we ventured off to Shake Shack.
By this point, Baby Sister had been becoming acquainted with the city for a few hours. I felt bad that she'd only seen the bad parts of the city, like driving in the the traffic and being squished in the massive crowd outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre. She also seemed pretty horrified by the way none of the New York pedestrians actually seemed to pay attention to the lights at the crosswalks. Now that we'd gotten the uncertainty of the first few hours behind us, however, Little Sister and I were determined that she should enjoy herself. After all, we had really good plans for the rest of the day!
Having lunch at Shake Shack would be a good pick-me-up, I thought. I admit, I'm not the most ardent of Shake Shack fans. I like their concretes far more than I like their burgers. Still, it's not half bad.
This time, the line outside was not as long. We ordered, waited for our food, and found a place to sit. Last time we were there, it was crowded inside. This time...it was just as crowded inside. Maybe more so. We struggled to find a way to eat while keeping our American Girl dolls safe. We ended up eating while standing. At one point, I noticed a sign that said that if the building exceeded more than 100 people, it was violating the NYC fire code. Shake Shack must violate the fire code routinely. Both times I've visited there had to be 100 people in there and, probably, more.
Instead of getting a burger, I got the Chicken Shack, which was delicious, and a chocolate concrete with chocolate truffle cookie dough, which defied description (in a good way). Unfortunately, Baby Sister had some complications in ordering her burger, so it turned up without basic things like lettuce and mayonnaise. She was visibly disappointed.
Not even Shake Shack was showing itself to Baby Sister at its best advantage. I began to wonder if Baby Sister was even going to like her graduation trip or if we would have been better off going to, say, Disneyland.
With lunch out of the way, we proceeded to the American Girl Place.
Please remember that we'd been carrying our dolls around all day. We took them with us to Ham4Ham and Shake Shack. A lady squished against us at Ham4Ham had commented on them, joking that if we lifted our dolls up high enough, they, at least, would be able to see what was going on. Other than that, though, people had mostly just ignored them. There are way more interesting things to see in New York City than three grown women carrying around 18-inch dolls.
But when we arrived at the American Girl place, we pretty much became an instant attraction. Little girls who were carrying their own dolls seemed fascinated by ours.
"Is that your baby?" one little girl in the bathroom asked me. I introduced Molly to her. She and her friends seemed really excited and told me about their own dolls. One of their mothers said that she remembered Molly, Kit, and Samantha from when she was a little girl.
Baby Sister was finally starting to get excited. The doll holders in the bathroom, the displays of the dolls and their accessories, the station for doll ear piercing—it was her inner child's dream come true!
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| Miss Molly McIntire in the American Girl Place bathroom. |
"Our next appointment is at 7:30," the lady said. Which was in the middle of The Color Purple.
We were dismayed, because we weren't sure if we'd have time to come back on another day. The only time we could maybe come back was on Saturday morning. We asked if we could make appointments for then.
"You have to be here the day of to make appointments," the lady said. "We open at nine at Saturday. The sooner you can get here, the better."
Our dreams of getting our dolls' hair done crushed, we left the American Girl Place in lowish spirits. We were able to pick them up slightly by picking up chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting from Magnolia Bakery, but just slightly.
Little Sister seemed bent on reassuring Baby Sister that the day's experiences didn't necessarily represent what the rest of the trip would be like. "When we were here last year," she said, "the first day was the worst day." Implicit in her statement was a promise: it will get better.We went back to the hotel, claimed our luggage, napped, and then changed for Baby Sister's first Broadway musical.
We met Older Sister at Times Square, had cheesecake at Junior's, showed Baby Sister our favorite Broadway souvenir shops, took some photos, and went to The Color Purple.
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| Chocolate mousse cheesecake at Junior's! |
Older Sister, though, saw it a few weeks before we came to visit. She assured me that the musical version was very appropriate, that we wouldn't have to witness any of that stuff. Thus we bought tickets.
Well. In a way, Older Sister was right. Not much disturbing stuff happened onstage. At the same time, though, the entire musical was about the main character having unhealthy relationships with everyone she met. Almost every song, every line, seemed to be sexual in one way or another. Now, maybe that's an accurate representation of how it is for someone who's been sexually abused. Maybe the point is that, until the redemption at the end, all that Celie was capable of knowing was unhealthy relationships. Fine. But in my opinion, it didn't make for a very good musical. I wasn't uplifted. I didn't enjoy myself. I was just depressed.
So although the actors were amazing (Heather Headley, the original Aida, was costarring), I just didn't like it. Baby Sister didn't like it much, either. Older Sister and Little Sister really liked it, though; I guess they look for different things in their entertainment than I do.
In any case, it was a good thing we ate at Carmine's afterwards, because that totally made up for the stress and disappointments of the day. Carmine's is probably my favorite restaurant in New York City. It's like Buca di Beppo, but better. Older Sister actually got me a Carmine's cookbook for Christmas (and a pasta strainer, because how can you make Italian food without a pasta strainer?).
This time, we got to sit on one of the upper floors. We feasted on cheesy garlic bread, angel hair pasta with garlic and oil, and chicken scallopine with lemon and butter. Deeelicious. I soon became a lot happier and quite content. And score! Baby Sister was enjoying herself, too, if the fact that she was taking second helpings of everything was any indication.
Filled to the brim with good food and very sleepy, we said good-bye to Older Sister and walked back to the Manhattan at Times Square. We needed to get a good night's rest so that we could get up early the next morning to get to Older Sister's dorm before she left for work.
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