The nuts were warm, the towels were hot, the glasses went "clink", and the cars just sat

1:38 PM Pacific
Email typed offline

First class is nice. Breakfast was first rate. It is nice to not have to hold my arms tucked in for hours and getting a sore back. Steve wonders how we will ever fly coach again but the price difference is significant so I will just enjoy it for now. They give you a personal digEplayer loaded with movies and music and you can just entertain yourself all the way across the flippin country. The ride to the airport in a fancy Lincoln Town Car was nice and it was great to not have to bother anyone for a ride and I did not get sick sitting in the back seat. We have a car reserved to take us bak home Tuesday night too.

Before landing we were given little dishes of warm nuts to snack on. Then we were brought hot towels to wipe our hands with. We ate on real china, drank from glass glasses and used real flatware of course.

Last night I was getting things together and crawled into bed at 11 and was up at 5. We probably have another hour in flight. This email will go when I can turn my device off of flight mode!

I miss Sophia. But I would never make her fly. We could hear a dog barking frantically in the hold and it made me sad.

We must be headed down since my ears just plugged.

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Midnight NYC time

After a couple of trips back and forth on the AirTrain at the Newark, NJ airport, we managed to find ground transportation to call a shuttle to get us to Manhattan in NYC. It took over TWO HOURS to get to and thru the Holland Tunnel and across the NJ/NY state line. Of course it was Friday night rush hour. They drive like freaks here, with five lanes narrowing maddenly fast to two. I now understand why New Yorkers (like our transplant friend Colette, now living in West Seattle) are driven bonkers by Washington drivers. Which I will of course point out that over half of Washington drivers are from another state anyway so we sort of get a bum rap. But I get it. I also thought I was going to get creamed into the side of a bus more than once. The driver was nuts, and we were crammed like sardines into a van with 11 people total. Not fun. But we made it.

We are in Murray Hill neighborhood, also called Midtown East. It is Midtown Manhattan.I have been Moonstruck! We found the most amazing diner across the street called Moonstruck (on Madison - they have two other locations). The logo is the same as that of the movie. The food was good, the portions were huge, and I wished our hotel room had a microwave so I could bring back the leftovers because I was only able to eat half of what was on my plate. And I had a real coffee ice cream soda. It tasted better after the ice cream had melted and mixed with the soda water.

We needed to walk after that so went just about 4 blocks and came to the Empire State Building. It was sprinkling lightly and they said the visibility from the 86th floor was 15 miles but we decided it we did do the ESB we would do it during the day. We did go buy a CityPass tho since it gets us into the museums we want without having to wait in line to buy a ticket. we have CityPass in Seattle, too.

Our room looked exactky like the photos on the web site. We got a couple of neat pictures - Steve has a new wide angle lens for our camera, impressive huh? Oh, and there is a neat building view out our window - we are at the back of the hotel where it is quiet (except I still hear the occasional horn honk). Tomorrow I will walk by and see what building it is (see last photo).

Oh, and then we went by Lord & Taylor and its amazing store windows, But those pictures will have to wait until tomorrow.