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Saturday: last day and return home
Jun. 22nd, 2019 11:00 pmBreakfast at the buffet again. We packed up and left luggage at bell services, since we did not have a better plan. A. and I went to the American Museum of Natural History and went to the Dark Universe show. We spent a little time staring at an exhibit wall that tried to explain gravity (Newtonian vs Einsteinian ideas of gravity). A. really tried hard to understand curvature, which is not an easy idea to grasp.
We took a subway up to AMNH.
Meanwhile, I was also texting and on the phone with my sister-in-law trying to nail down brunch / lunch plans. I had told people about the trip and said let me know if you want to meet in the city, but did not expect anything to come of it. However, this time, something delightful did! Since I had not heard from them before we went to the museum, I nixed Ellen’s Stardust Diner, and countered with Tavern on the Green. Attempts to get a reservation there went weird, and my sister in law has social skills and did not want to do Fancy while wearing jeans (I am like, whatever, I am a tourist. I do not care). So we had brunch at Fred’s (brunch on Upper West! A Thing!); they were lovely, and helpful, and nice to the kids and I had avocado toast. A. really loved the French toast and their bacon was less plentiful but even better than last night’s.
After brunch, my sister in law went to work, my niece and mother in law went to walk in the park, and the rest of us returned to the hotel to retrieve luggage and then proceed to Penn Station, where we arrived ludicrously early and spent 45 minutes in ClubAcela. We initially got into the wrong car on the train. We thought it would be the first car again, but that was Business, so we had to walk through the entire train with our luggage after we were rolling, to get to the correct car. Had it been full, we would have caught our error much sooner. Oops! At least it was the right train.
Service on the way home was terrible which did not seem related to our error, because it looked bad for everyone in our car and possibly on the train. Slow, error prone (my drink was wrong, R.’s meal was wrong — we had the meal switched but did nothing about my drink), slow to retrieve service items (like, never, if you did not ask), and honestly pretty surly. It was the last Acela of the day and looked understaffed, so that was probably it.
A. went down to the Cafe Car by herself (I had gone with her, and T. had gone with her, but this time she did it herself) and got a snack! Paid, left a tip, the whole thing. I am very proud of her. Later, T. helped her figure out how to order a meal, and she ate half of the cheeseburger. She went back for a cookie by herself later, which they did not charge her for. Not sure why; could have been her age, her adorableness, the general negative service experience on the train being compensated for, maybe they figured out she was there from first class. Who knows.
While I was in NYC, the noise level was pretty distressing and I sort of just wanted to go home. As soon as I was on the train home, I was thinking about when we could go back and what we would do next time. Vacation! It is me being a nutter. If I had not had the tail end of a cold and persistent cough, it would have been more fun. Probably. Maybe I just would have overdid even worse.
We took a subway up to AMNH.
Meanwhile, I was also texting and on the phone with my sister-in-law trying to nail down brunch / lunch plans. I had told people about the trip and said let me know if you want to meet in the city, but did not expect anything to come of it. However, this time, something delightful did! Since I had not heard from them before we went to the museum, I nixed Ellen’s Stardust Diner, and countered with Tavern on the Green. Attempts to get a reservation there went weird, and my sister in law has social skills and did not want to do Fancy while wearing jeans (I am like, whatever, I am a tourist. I do not care). So we had brunch at Fred’s (brunch on Upper West! A Thing!); they were lovely, and helpful, and nice to the kids and I had avocado toast. A. really loved the French toast and their bacon was less plentiful but even better than last night’s.
After brunch, my sister in law went to work, my niece and mother in law went to walk in the park, and the rest of us returned to the hotel to retrieve luggage and then proceed to Penn Station, where we arrived ludicrously early and spent 45 minutes in ClubAcela. We initially got into the wrong car on the train. We thought it would be the first car again, but that was Business, so we had to walk through the entire train with our luggage after we were rolling, to get to the correct car. Had it been full, we would have caught our error much sooner. Oops! At least it was the right train.
Service on the way home was terrible which did not seem related to our error, because it looked bad for everyone in our car and possibly on the train. Slow, error prone (my drink was wrong, R.’s meal was wrong — we had the meal switched but did nothing about my drink), slow to retrieve service items (like, never, if you did not ask), and honestly pretty surly. It was the last Acela of the day and looked understaffed, so that was probably it.
A. went down to the Cafe Car by herself (I had gone with her, and T. had gone with her, but this time she did it herself) and got a snack! Paid, left a tip, the whole thing. I am very proud of her. Later, T. helped her figure out how to order a meal, and she ate half of the cheeseburger. She went back for a cookie by herself later, which they did not charge her for. Not sure why; could have been her age, her adorableness, the general negative service experience on the train being compensated for, maybe they figured out she was there from first class. Who knows.
While I was in NYC, the noise level was pretty distressing and I sort of just wanted to go home. As soon as I was on the train home, I was thinking about when we could go back and what we would do next time. Vacation! It is me being a nutter. If I had not had the tail end of a cold and persistent cough, it would have been more fun. Probably. Maybe I just would have overdid even worse.