New York, New York, It's a Wonderful Town (Day 1)

 Well, I still don't have any pictures from the Bar Mitzvah celebration, although I hope to acquire some SOON. In the meantime, some pictures from our Bar Mitzvah trip. This is a pretty awful picture (why is it so impossible to get a decent self-portrait from an iPhone camera, when it does so well on the other side?), but it shows us in the plane on our way to Toronto.

Since our seats were courtesy of Aeroplan, we paid for the privilege with a four-hour layover, which turned into an extra hour on the tarmac when the pilots were delayed coming in from Edmonton ... ah well. At least the air conditioning was working.

When we finally made it to La Guardia, we took a taxi to our VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner) on 49th Street, right near 9th Avenue. It's a nice, clean, old-fashioned apartment with hardworking air conditioning.

 

The only problem is that it is a fifth-floor walk-up, which is a little rough with suitcases. But hey, if I can swing a 30lb kettlebell, I can do this, right? As it turned out, Ari's and my little carry-on suitcases were no problem. We were struggling with my dad's and his partner's much heavier ones when a young man from one of the other apartments took pity on us, took one in each hand and waltzed up the stairs with them. I bet his kettlebells are much heavier than mine. There are kind people in NYC, and let nobody say otherwise.

 

Of course there was one great advantage to it, which was a pretty darned good view of the fireworks! Some tall buildings on the harbour front were in the way, but many of the sets went up high enough into the sky that we could see them. Very nice, especially considering that we missed the Canada Day fireworks due to Extreme Exhaustion.

More tomorrow, I hope ... having breakfast with an old friend first thing, then I hope we can get down to the Circle Line and spend some time on the water. Stay tuned!