What An Ending!
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Vacation always ends the same; we spend the last two days packing everything we have, including all the new crap we’ve bought. This is interrupted briefly by the moments when we weigh each bag to ensure that we are within the fifty pound limit. No matter how hard we try we cannot take everything and therefore we leave a pile of stuff to be donated, stored, or returned to our storage locker. There are also those little bits which inadvertently get left behind.
Our plane left early on the morning of the 31st. We loaded Mom’s car, then drove it down to Leschi to pick her up. After that we were off to the airport. It was perfect timing all the way around. We got there with about two hours to spare, checked in, went through security, and sat around for very little time before taking off. Maybe it was easier because we left Zachary with his grandparents…no, it was definitely easier because we left Zachary with his grandparents.
The last week of our stay, the Zman got to go to a week long camp sponsored by the Seattle Tilth. He got to play in the dirt, examine bugs, plant seeds, and pick his food right out of the soil. He had a great time and could hardly wait to go back each day. After we left on Thursday, Anne took him to camp and my sister picked him up. He got to spend a few days with her and Nancy before going off with Grandma and Grandpa. Next week he goes off to Science camp at the Pacific Science Center. On Friday Grandma will fly to Venezuela with Z in tow. She will stay for about ten days and then head home. We are excited, especially because she is the only person we know who has seen every single house the two of us have lived in.
Anyway, we left for New York on Thursday, arriving in the early evening. Unfortunately, we didn’t fly out until Friday evening. Fortunately, we had reserved a stay at a Bed and Breakfast in Brooklyn so we jumped in a cab and headed right there. It was stupendous. It was a beautiful old Brownstone in a quiet little neighborhood. They welcomed us with a smile and a cup of tea. Our room was comfortable and roomy and it even had a Jacuzzi tub!
We had a bath and went off to a jazz club down the road. We sat right up front, next to the guitarist and ate a wonderful meal while we listened to good music. Afterward we walked around the neighborhood, finally sauntering on back to the B&B.
We arrived in our room to find music, candles, rose petals on the floor, and a full tub. We had no choice but to soak in the luxury once more before heading off to the Land of Nod.
After a glorious breakfast with the other five guests we walked to the train to find downtown Brooklyn. Once there we shopped for last minute items. After carefully stuffing them into whatever crevice we could possibly find, we jumped into a cab for the airport.
J.F.K. sucks! Have I mentioned that before? Every time we fly through there we are delayed for one reason or another. This time it was two hours on the tarmac waiting for who knows what. We touched down in Caracas sometime around midnight. We were worried because we couldn’t remember whether we had worked it out with our driver to pick us up. We found our bags, secured a cart (no easy task) and waited in line at Customs for days. We were finally waved through to the throngs of taxi drivers waiting to take advantage of poor helpless fools like me. After two scans of the crowd, I spotted Miguel waving madly to us. We sighed relief and followed him to his car.
Miguel is our regular driver; he takes us to the airport in Caracas whenever we need him to. He is as sure as clock work. He drives a tiny bit fast sometimes, but then, so do most of the people of this fine country. He whisked us off to our apartment, unloaded our bags, and waved goodbye. Everything went so smoothly! I even had my keys in hand so it was only a matter of loading everything into the elevator and up to the seventh floor.
We arrived on our doorstep at 3:00 Saturday morning. I unlocked the gate and then the Spider Lock. All that was left was to turn the knob, walk inside, and fall deeply into sleep. But alas, the knob wouldn’t turn. We never lock the knob and therefore we don’t carry the key; it sits in a metal bowl on the counter in the spare kitchen. I can picture it in my mind, but that’s as far as I am going to get because it is 3 a.m. and I have just traveled four thousand miles to be locked out of my own apartment.
I walked to the school to see if perhaps the security guys had a spare key. They didn’t. The only option left was to call the woman from the school that takes care of these things. I couldn’t justify calling her at 3:00 on a Saturday morning simply because I didn’t have the right key so we fell asleep in the hallway until we heard people stirring. We made a phone call and two hours later we were finally inside our apartment. The first thing I did was find the knob key and put it on my ring.
Today we are unpacked and relaxing. We have grocery shopping to do, but the car battery is dead so we’ll put that off until tomorrow. We are here and we are childless. It’s a grand opportunity that we are rarely afforded. We had an amazing vacation. It was so vast an expanse that I am hard pressed to remember all the details. Everything went so well until the end…
MJR
Vacation always ends the same; we spend the last two days packing everything we have, including all the new crap we’ve bought. This is interrupted briefly by the moments when we weigh each bag to ensure that we are within the fifty pound limit. No matter how hard we try we cannot take everything and therefore we leave a pile of stuff to be donated, stored, or returned to our storage locker. There are also those little bits which inadvertently get left behind.
Our plane left early on the morning of the 31st. We loaded Mom’s car, then drove it down to Leschi to pick her up. After that we were off to the airport. It was perfect timing all the way around. We got there with about two hours to spare, checked in, went through security, and sat around for very little time before taking off. Maybe it was easier because we left Zachary with his grandparents…no, it was definitely easier because we left Zachary with his grandparents.
The last week of our stay, the Zman got to go to a week long camp sponsored by the Seattle Tilth. He got to play in the dirt, examine bugs, plant seeds, and pick his food right out of the soil. He had a great time and could hardly wait to go back each day. After we left on Thursday, Anne took him to camp and my sister picked him up. He got to spend a few days with her and Nancy before going off with Grandma and Grandpa. Next week he goes off to Science camp at the Pacific Science Center. On Friday Grandma will fly to Venezuela with Z in tow. She will stay for about ten days and then head home. We are excited, especially because she is the only person we know who has seen every single house the two of us have lived in.
Anyway, we left for New York on Thursday, arriving in the early evening. Unfortunately, we didn’t fly out until Friday evening. Fortunately, we had reserved a stay at a Bed and Breakfast in Brooklyn so we jumped in a cab and headed right there. It was stupendous. It was a beautiful old Brownstone in a quiet little neighborhood. They welcomed us with a smile and a cup of tea. Our room was comfortable and roomy and it even had a Jacuzzi tub!
We had a bath and went off to a jazz club down the road. We sat right up front, next to the guitarist and ate a wonderful meal while we listened to good music. Afterward we walked around the neighborhood, finally sauntering on back to the B&B.We arrived in our room to find music, candles, rose petals on the floor, and a full tub. We had no choice but to soak in the luxury once more before heading off to the Land of Nod.
After a glorious breakfast with the other five guests we walked to the train to find downtown Brooklyn. Once there we shopped for last minute items. After carefully stuffing them into whatever crevice we could possibly find, we jumped into a cab for the airport.
J.F.K. sucks! Have I mentioned that before? Every time we fly through there we are delayed for one reason or another. This time it was two hours on the tarmac waiting for who knows what. We touched down in Caracas sometime around midnight. We were worried because we couldn’t remember whether we had worked it out with our driver to pick us up. We found our bags, secured a cart (no easy task) and waited in line at Customs for days. We were finally waved through to the throngs of taxi drivers waiting to take advantage of poor helpless fools like me. After two scans of the crowd, I spotted Miguel waving madly to us. We sighed relief and followed him to his car.
Miguel is our regular driver; he takes us to the airport in Caracas whenever we need him to. He is as sure as clock work. He drives a tiny bit fast sometimes, but then, so do most of the people of this fine country. He whisked us off to our apartment, unloaded our bags, and waved goodbye. Everything went so smoothly! I even had my keys in hand so it was only a matter of loading everything into the elevator and up to the seventh floor.
We arrived on our doorstep at 3:00 Saturday morning. I unlocked the gate and then the Spider Lock. All that was left was to turn the knob, walk inside, and fall deeply into sleep. But alas, the knob wouldn’t turn. We never lock the knob and therefore we don’t carry the key; it sits in a metal bowl on the counter in the spare kitchen. I can picture it in my mind, but that’s as far as I am going to get because it is 3 a.m. and I have just traveled four thousand miles to be locked out of my own apartment.
I walked to the school to see if perhaps the security guys had a spare key. They didn’t. The only option left was to call the woman from the school that takes care of these things. I couldn’t justify calling her at 3:00 on a Saturday morning simply because I didn’t have the right key so we fell asleep in the hallway until we heard people stirring. We made a phone call and two hours later we were finally inside our apartment. The first thing I did was find the knob key and put it on my ring.
Today we are unpacked and relaxing. We have grocery shopping to do, but the car battery is dead so we’ll put that off until tomorrow. We are here and we are childless. It’s a grand opportunity that we are rarely afforded. We had an amazing vacation. It was so vast an expanse that I am hard pressed to remember all the details. Everything went so well until the end…
MJR
posted by Bronx to Timbuktu at 8:47 PM
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