New York, Partly

Marc and I got up pretty early the Friday morning we left, and stopped by the Kee Wah bakery across the street to pick up some pastries for the plane ride. They opened at 8 am - when we got there, there was nothing on the shelves, and we could see the baker just starting to pull stuff from the oven. We hung out for about 10 minutes, waiting, before we were told that it would be another 45 minutes before the pastries were even cool enough to be sold.

Why do they open at 8 am then??? (As a side note, we went there after getting back from our trip, and noticed that the new store hours indicate that they open at 8:30 am now, haha.)

We then dropped Bandit off at Jan's, and then drove down to my parents' house. Turns out my mom had gone and bought a bunch of pastries for the trip. Can always count on my mom to make sure we're well stocked up on food for any kind of travel. I guess her bakery operates a bit earlier. We picked up Leslie in Menlo Park, then drove to the airport where we met up with two of my aunts and my cousin, who were all flying with us.

The flight out was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that we had to sit on the tarmac for a good hour before we took off, due to inclement weather in NY, and a baby that sat in front of my parents that would scream every once in a while.

We stayed at the Marriot in the Financial District, and got to our hotel pretty late that night. Still, we took a cab ride up to Leslie's hotel, which was the Grand Hyatt in midtown. The three of us walked around for a bit, looking for a place to grab a bite to eat. As it was past midnight, the best we were able to do was this hole-in-the-wall deli. The sandwiches we got weren't bad, though.

Saturday was the day of the wedding, and while we had intended on getting up early, I don't think we woke up until 9:30 or so. We went to Chinatown to meet up with all of my relatives for brunch. A few minutes after we sat down, Leslie's cell phone rang, and the call was from my dad. Except that my dad was just sitting there, with no phone in his hand. Turns out my dad didn't have his phone at all - he had lost it somewhere between the cab and the restaurant, and someone had picked it up. Luckily they called, and my dad was able to retrieve his phone from the person who had it!

After brunch, we went with my brothers and one of my cousins to check out Rockefeller Center and Times Square. Times Square was cool, although it might be sad to say that the highlight for me was the M&M store. While we were walking there, we saw TONS of cop cars, lights flashing, parked on the side of the street down every block. We thought something huge was going on. Marc asked a cop, and we found out that it was just their standard anti-terrorism operation. Crazy.

After our little sight-seeing bit, we went back to the hotel and I decided to take a nap. Marc wasn't tired, so he went out to go check out Ground Zero, which was right near our hotel. A short while later, a voice announced over the hotel PA that there was a fire in an adjacent building, and to not worry, but that there might be smoke in ours. Marc then called me a few minutes later to tell me the same thing, and that we should come check it out.

My parents went down, but I decided to continue my nap. My mom called me a few minutes later to frantically tell me to "COME DOWN NOW" (she saw the fire, and was now freaking out). So I dragged myself out of bed and went outside to check it out.

The building was the old Deutsch Bank building that had been damaged in 9/11 and was actually in the process of being torn down. Apparently, some workers had gotten careless with cigarettes, which started the fire. It was pretty scary, actually, because as the fire burned, you could see tons of concrete and debris just falling, like the building was crumbling.

I'm outta time! Will post more later - Cal game tomorrow, let's hope this turns out better than last year! Go Bears!