New York -- Day One

Thursday, February 12 -- The Trip Begins

The first day of our trip began a little earlier than a normal day, but not quite as early as I had planned! I took Austin to daycare as usual and then went to pick up Cecilia. We got over to Peoria really quickly and got right to the airport. Our flight from Peoria to Chicago was very fast (you're in the air -- not including taking off or landing -- for like 25 minutes!) and there were no problems with it. I was sitting in front of a woman who was having the LOUDEST cell phone conversation ever, though, and we learned all about how she wants her mail picked up and when her bills will be coming in the mail!

The first thing Cecilia noticed at O'Hare is that our flight to LaGuardia was canceled! Awesome! We took it in stride and figured that we'd just find another one...or end up vacationing in Chicago! After several minutes and some issues with the automatic ticketing machine (which didn't seem to think Cecilia was pushing the buttons correctly!), we were rebooked on a flight leaving around 12:30 instead of 11:05 a.m. We were actually okay with this because it gave us time to get something to eat, and you know how important food is to us!

During out wait, I decided that I was insane to travel in high heeled boots and changed to the comfy shoes Cecilia loaned me for the trip! While we were sitting around changing shoes and drinking Starbucks, we saw a very odd collection of travelers. My favorites included

• Tall Asian Man Carrying Short Ladder -- This random guy was just walking through the airport carrying a ladder that was maybe 4 feet tall. He was not dressed like a maintenance worker or an airport employee. In fact, he was dressed in what you might call business casual, which made it even more peculiar that he was carrying this ladder. I wanted to ask him if he was going to put the ladder in the overhead compartment or check it!
• Lindsay in the Future -- Okay, so this woman wasn't really like Lindsay all that much, but we decided that she was the Lindsay of the Future because she was very stylish, as were her 4 kids!
• The Mystery Farter -- Sorry Mom! I know what you're thinking right now about me writing the word "farter", but I must speak the truth. As we were sitting people watching, someone in our area completely smelled the whole place up. It was horrible, and it lingered for so long! The smell actually affected the taste of our Starbucks...it was agony! We never knew who the culprit was, but we will never forget that moment!
• Tall Asian Man Without Short Ladder (v2.0) -- He was back! This time, he had placed the short ladder by one of those Hudson News stands (specifically by the "Comfort Station" with the neck pillows) and was walking away. If you ask me, it was rather suspicious! No one was around the ladder attending to it, either, which was even more odd!
• Tall Asian Man Carrying Short Ladder (v.3.0) -- Once again, we saw this same man AGAIN WITH THE LADDER! This was way, way down in another area of the airport and we just ran into him again. Who is this man and what was he doing with this ladder all over the airport??

Okay, so our flight was canceled and we got booked on the 12:30 to LaGuardia. We saw that that flight was delayed until about 1:30, then 1:45! At this point, we were just hoping to get there! We boarded and ended up waiting on the plane for a really long time -- probably about an hour and a half. I was sitting next to this woman who kept falling asleep. She woke up before we had even left the ground and asked me if we were there yet. Okay, no ma'am! She fell asleep again and woke up AGAIN and asked if we were in the air. What? Really? Can you not see out the window that we are still ON THE GROUND in Chicago? This continued throughout the flight at least two more times. The last 15 minutes of the flight, we had extreme turbulence due to all of the wind in New York City. I am typically an okay flier, but I was really pretty nervous and ended up crying (shocking, I know!) while we were landing! We finally landed and everyone started applauding the pilots!

We took a cab to our apartment and got checked in by the assistant, Jordan, who reminded us that it was FASHION WEEK, GIRLFRIENDS! We decided to walk up to Times Square and check out all of the sights along the way. We ended up coming back by our apartment and having dinner at Dallas BBQ, which seems strange since we were in New York! However, they had some great BBQ and fabulous Texas-sized margaritas!

After dinner, we went back to the apartment and hung out. It wasn't a late night out in New York, but we were happy to relax and get acclimated!