The Arrival
I’ve been holding off on posting about my Mom and sister’s visit while waiting for my sister to email photos.. but as it is already Thursday and I still don’t have photos I’m going to go ahead and post. I’ll post photos once I have them though!
December 19, 2010: The Arrival
After almost 4 and a half months of not seeing my family I could not be more excited for their arrival! Especially after counting down the days and hours since I booked their tickets in October! The day was finally here and I still had about another 14 hours to wait since their flight wasn’t expected until 11:45 p.m. into Newark. Cleaning and prep kept me busy throughout the day though and a little after 10:00 p.m. I started my trek to New Jersey to meet them at the airport. I’d never been to Jersey before, but thanks to my favorite website HopStop I felt confident in my abilities to make it to the airport. Take the 6 train to 51st street, transfer to the E train to Penn Station and then buy a train ticket and get on a Newark bound NJ transit train right to the airport. Easy enough right? It wasn’t too bad, but I will admit having to call my roommate for help at Penn Station. It’s a big place! More like an airport terminal than any train station I’ve ever been to. I eventually found my way around though and made it on the train! the trains to New Jersey were pretty cool too! Double-decker! It was a short trip to the airport; only three stops. I’m not sure it was worth the $12.50 one-way fare I paid, but it got me there!
I made it to the airport a little before 11:30 p.m. and sat in the waiting area anxiously awaiting my family’s arrival! Around midnight I saw my mom and sister walking out of arrivals! It was official the Osgoodby chicks were all in New York, well New Jersey, and I couldn’t have been more excited to see them and for the days to come.
The next task was catching a cab from the airport. The train that I took to the airport quit running at midnight so the cab was our only option. It was definitely an experience too let me tell you. I’m not sure I would suggest flying into Newark again, but the rates were a lot better for the time so it worked out for us. Cabbies in the city have a bad rep for messing with tourists. I’ve heard past stories of them taking longer routes to hike up fares, wrong directions, the whole shabang. Most of the cabs I’ve taken in the city have always been great, but I wouldn’t put it past the few who try and take advantage of a situation. Of course, we would get one of the few that thought it was funny to mess with us. When my mom asked how long the ride was he told us three hours.. We all looked at each other and knew he couldn’t be telling the truth, but with his broken English he kept trying to convince us it was a 3 hour ride. He went on, “Well how do you know?” and after a stern remark from me saying “I live here.” he finally let up and told us it was about 20-30 minutes. Real funny cab driver. Not. It is a lesson to be learned though. I would say the majority of people in the city are good-hearted people, but there are those who that will mess with you if they think you are a tourist or new to the area.
We made it though! We stayed up chatting a little bit, but it was off to bed for us to get some rest before a full day of adventuring on Monday