Going Underground

Although I haven't been in a New York City subway car since 1978, I decided that as part of the NYC experience, that Lo should take a ride. Lo has never been to NYC. So although I went twice as a teen, and for about two days in 2007, I will be the guide and showing her around when we go for my birthday in April. Yeah, I am not a seasoned NY traveler. But I am a seasoned traveler. As someone once said about art, "I know what I like when I see it." I know how I like to travel.
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I've talked about Dad many times on this blog. He really had his awesome moments. The things I loved about him, I incorporated into myself, as I guess all children do with their parents. I really loved the way Dad traveled. He was adamant about not being a typical tourist nor doing touristy things. He introduced me to the concept of asking the cab driver or the bellman at the hotel where to go as opposed to asking the concierge.
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When our cruise ship docked in the Bahamas, Dad asked the cab driver to take us to his favorite bar. We were really off the beaten path. It was crazy. Not only that but the bar was named the same as my high school boyfriend who had an unusual name. Stuff like that is really funny to two drunk people. On our first trip to Las Vegas, it was December and there were horrid frigid straight line winds, but we ventured out that first day, grabbed a cab and asked the cabbie, "Where can we get a good Rueben sandwich?" The cab driver knew where to go. And our Lake Tahoe trip was awesome. Dad hired a limo to take us around the lake. And that guy was great. When Dad and I went to New Orleans for Halloween, he had broken his foot just before our trip and went anyway. My Halloween costume was as Tonya Harding, so Dad, on crutches, kept pointing at me and saying, "She did this!"
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But back to New York. I posted about my first trip and how I met Rodney Dangerfield. (That was one of my very early posts back in 2005, so it was a little strange to read it again.) We went the next year with my high school boyfriend, my brother, and his best friend and stayed through New Year's Eve on Times Square. That was crazy. Dad accidentally smoked pot laced with PCP and missed the whole basketball game and we only found him at the end of the game. That's a funny story. (Dad and I also took a trip to Puerto Vallarta as well as some beach vacations with other family.)
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Oh. So back to the subway in 1978. There I was in New York with my high school boyfriend. My high school boyfriend and I had a whole afternoon before the next basketball game to wander around and we went into the Empire State Building and saw the line for the elevator and I said, "I'm not waiting in line. We can still say we went to The Empire State Building." We did the same thing with The World Trade Center. Went in. Went out. We did take a ferry to the Statue of Liberty where we smoked a joint and took the walk up to look out the dirty crown windows. Then we decided to take the subway back. Except we didn't. Make it back I mean. We ended up in a deserted warehouse district with empty boxes blowing down the street. It reminded me of tumbleweeds in old western movies. And there was a guy either dead or passed out on the sidewalk and he was the only person around. We were freaked out. I think we had ended up in The Bronx, but I'm not positive. We walked and walked and walked and finally found civilization. And this was in New York. It was crazy that it was so deserted. We finally found a subway station and found a train back to Times Square and we were so happy.
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We shouldn't have that problem in April because I've been studying that map. I may have always loved improv traveling, but I really do like maps. Getting lost sucks. Besides, this time I will be the guide.