These are pictures from my trip to New York. Danielle is going to school at the Pratt Design Institute, lives off campus with two roommates, Jeanie and Jordan. I went there to take a vanload of Danielle's stuff out to her.
Danielle flew into Bloomington on June 8, she was a counselor at a World Affairs seminar for high school students in at University of Wisconsin - Whitewater. After an enjoyable week there it was family time for all of us. Danielle got to see how hard Gretta and Mary have to work at the kart track, we went to dad's cabin in Wisconsin, and finally we loaded up our van with her stuff and drove to New York City.
We started the trip off by going to a Cubs day game on Tuesday, June 25, 2002. After dinner with a friend of Danielle's, Christopher, Danielle and I headed east. We stopped in the trailer capital of the world, Elkhart, Indiana. We left Elkhart about 8 AM and got to New York City around 8 PM. Traffic wasn't an issue coming into the city. We drove into Manhattan via the Holland Tunnel. (If you've seen the Men in Black movie the Holland Tunnel is the one Tommy Lee Jones drives through in the rocket powered Ford.)
We got to Danielle's apartment and Danielle walked me around the neighborhood. She introduced me to her bodega (convenience store, there are one or two on every corner) and the man that runs her bodega. He was very complementary to Danielle and now he's met Danielle's mom and dad. We had really good Chinese take out and went to sleep.
Did I mention it was hot? I expected a lot of things from NYC but I didn't expect it to be so hot, I don't know why, I just didn't. It was hot and humid. I can't remember being so hot since being on a bike ride across Iowa. I'm talking 90 degrees and high humidity. When we go to New York, at 8:00 at night the temperature outside was 87 degrees. It takes a long time for all of that concrete and asphalt to cool off.
Danielle lives in a 3rd floor apartment, no air conditioning, no fans running, and we've been driving all day. Did I mention it was hot?
The next day we got up and unloaded a van full of her stuff up to her 3rd floor apartment. Did I mention it was hot? After a little arranging on Danielle's part we showered up and we to see the sights of NYC.
We had lunch at this little pizza place, we toured Pratt, then we took the subway to China Town. Then it was off to the Empire State Building where we went up to the observation deck. The observation deck at the Empire State Building is very cool, you go outside and can look out across the city. I asked people who worked there and they all said business was still way off from before 9-11. After the Empire State Building we went to Time Square, then to have dinner with our friend Jack Pontillo.
