Ahhh. That's the sound of relaxation

Well, my brother and I got back from New York late last night. Of course since we were still on east coast time, we woke up before 6am, much to my chagrin. We are both completely exhausted. The public transit system is awesome in New York, but you still end up doing A LOT of walking. We easily logged 5 to 10 miles a day. Factored over the course of the 6 days we were there, that puts us at about... wait a sec, six times seven... carry the three... between 30 and 50 miles! I was fortunately wearing shoes designed for walking, but poor Jayson. Since he didn't even know he was going to be going to NYC when he flew over here, he had only packed one pair of shoes... and they were flatter than sandals. By the end of the first day, after walking all around the United Nations, midtown, and over the Brooklyn Bridge, he'd developed several blisters... and not on the sides of his feet from rubbing shoes, but on his SOLES, from just walking so much. I told him that his Mormon pioneer ancestors were probably rolling in their graves. Braving rugged trails, Indians, and polygamy in their non-ergonomic, non-air-cushioned, non-breathable BOOTS! He kept saying he should get some shoe inserts but we kept telling ourselves that we wouldn't walk so much the next day. That never really panned out, so he just endured the nuisance... but by the end of ALL of the days, we were looking for any excuse to sit down... even if it meant having to sit on a filthy sidewalk next to a homeless guy. (Although sometimes if we knew that we'd only get to sit down for a couple of minutes, we'd stay standing... that was too cruel a tease for our abused feet.)

Here's a quick run down of our trip, with the boring parts needlessly exaggerated and the exciting parts... also needlessly exaggerated:

Tuesday, May 15
Margaret left for Utah to visit family despite having MANY opportunities to come with us to New York. Evidently the draw of visiting Temple Square was greater than the draw to visit Times Square. Jayson flew in about 30 minutes after Margaret flew out, so I just hung around the airport after dropping Margaret off. After he landed, we went home and I told him about his surprise 30th birthday present... a trip to NYC! He was dumbfounded, as he knew we had something planned, but he was figuring something like the draft horse plowing competion finals or belt sander races or something. He didn't get much sleep that night, being so excited and all, which makes me wonder if I should have told him about the trip the following day, right as we were boarding the plane.

Wednesday, May 16
Since we were staying in a hostel on the Upper West Side, I decided it would be prudent to go buy some flip flops, antibacterial wash, hand sanitizer, new bedding, lice spray, roach motels, and incense. In the end, we decided to only get the flip flops. There's nothing like a shared shower to make you appreciate something like that... and since Jayson is more of a germaphobe than I am, (which is saying something), he concurred. (On a slight tangent, I remember back on my mission where one of my apartments had MUSHROOMS growing in the shower! We'd pull them out, but since they grow pretty fast, after a day or two, they'd be back. If I could endure a missionary's apartment for two whole years, I figured I could handle anything a hostel could throw at me.) After a day's preparation for the trip, we eventually made it on the redeye flight to NYC from Portland, leaving at 11:30 pm! Why do those flights seem like such a good idea when you see them online, but then, when the day comes and you're faced with the prospect of losing an entire night's sleep in an uncomfortable airplane seat with only a bag of chips and a pop to tide you over you think a different flight may have been worth it. I somehow managed to contort myself into a position that allowed semi-slumber, but Jayson couldn't sleep at all. Despite all the privations, we managed to survive the flight and witnessed the sun coming up over the city as we were landing.

Tomorrow I'll start with the actual crazy and zany misadventures of two twenty-somethings thirty-somethings in New York City.