Last year Misses 12 and 10 (then 11 and 9) went on a school ski trip to Courmayeur, Italy. It was an 8-day trip so they were away from home for eight days, EIGHT days, that’s VIII days. BOTH of them together. This means NO KIDS for EIGHT whole days. HELLO! The Man and I stupidly didn’t book ourselves a holiday (more specifically a NYC holiday). I think I was a bit nervous, to be honest, to go away, in case something happened. Of course, if something did happen, I’d be able to magic myself to the ski village in a jiffy and do medical life saving things (note sarcasm).
The Man ended up bogged down at work anyway, so it was just me, all alone in the house. Come 4pm, when it was normally school pick-up time (madness, yelling…I mean… vocal debates over homework or “constructive activities”), I found myself wandering around the big, old, quiet house all by myself, all alone, really alone. It was the most surreal feeling.
Fast forward to this year. We booked them on the same ski trip, despite the not-so-good skiing conditions in Europe this year. Even when their friends were dropping out one by one (“no snow” cited the parents of those kids), we steadfastly ensured that they were still booked to go. Lucky for us, they were very much steadfastly going in their minds too. Why is that “lucky for us”? Because this year, The Man and I had booked a trip away. We were booked for New York City! And we were on that NYC-bound flight as soon as we could. After saying goodbye to them, of course. We weren’t due back till the day before they were to return, a FULL week in NYC, thank you very muchly! I was so excited!
Hello Lady Liberty, here we come!
So NYC. Lists were made. I had places I wanted us to visit, coffee shops and cafes. I had even booked a couple of restaurants just in case. It was all Excel spreadsheeted and colour coordinated – I really need a job, don’t I? But it was a great spreadsheet, I know … I’m so old school! So, anyway, I discovered that I’d left it on the home computer and had neglected to email it to myself and The Man. Guess we would have to wing it. Hmmm… That wasn’t going to be hard in NYC!
Having lived there in 2006, there were so many places we wanted to revisit and so many things we would like to do. Woodbury Common, lesser explored parts of Brooklyn (well, lesser explored for us as we never ever seemed to get to Brooklyn on previous visits nor when we resided in Manhattan), Freedom Tower, East Village and just aimless meanders through the city. Those were the vague plans in our heads!
Exploring Union Square
Look out for my next few posts and join me as I take deepest darkest suburbia to NYC! When you live in deepest darkest suburbia, city adventures are de rigueur!
For more from deepest darkest suburbia, sign up for our newsletter at the top of this page and LIKE us on Facebook. You can also follow us on Instagram @deepestdarkestsuburbia and @vanilla.beige
