Good-bye Italy - Hello New York City!

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Thursday, June 4, 2009 ~ Our flights do not leave Rome until around noon and so we're able to leisurely get to the airport. Our breakfast is across the street at The Yellow Bar and we enjoy a full English breakfast, as Jeff says, a heart attack waiting to happen. It does taste good though to eat eggs and bacon and all that stuff we had not been eating throughout Italy, plus I do love a grilled tomato for breakfast. Perhaps I should adopt that into my breakfasts at home. Back upstairs to finish packing our bags and work our way to the airport. I tell Jeff that in recalling how far away the train stop was situated within the Termini Rail Station that we should just go slow and catch the later train as time is tight to which he replies, no, let's go now. This causes us to rush hurriedly the 4 to 5 blocks to the Rail Station, purchase tickets and then walk to our proper track, although it becomes quite apparent that walking won't do it and so we begin to run. I don't know why it is but I am ALWAYS running to catch a train in Italy. Our track is completely on the other side of the train station as well as being out of the train station completely and located on track 20 something. Jeff takes my bag and I run alongside him. We board the train just before it leaves and I am now pouring sweat. Damn! The ride is a half hour and I am able to cool down before we arrive at the airport. Inside the station at the airport we determine our flights leave from different terminals and we give hugs and depart our ways. It has been a fantastic two plus weeks with my good friend Jeff. I hope his memories are as fond of me as mine are of him. Alas, I am now all alone. Boo-Hoo!

My flight back to the States has no hiccups and the plane is half empty. I notice there are two window seats in a row with no one sitting in them and move over and am able to enjoy space to myself all the way home. I arrive in Newark, NJ, around 5:30 p.m. which is about 11:30 p.m., Rome time. Plans are to meet Elisabeth at the Newark Airport and the itinerary I have for her shows she arrives an hour before me. I go to the location we'd chosen to meet and she is not there. I have no cell phone and so I use my phone card and call her cell phone. No answer. I decide to walk to the other International terminal and see if we had miscommunicated in that respect. I walk back and forth a couple of times keeping my eyes as open as possible and hope and pray I will see her smiling face very soon as I am exhausted. No go. I telephone her millions of times hoping she'll answer. No go. I am getting more and more tired and my phone messages reflect that although she says I sound like I'm getting angry. Not angry, just so, so tired. Some two hours after I've landed I give up on her. Now I'm in survival mode and trying to figure out how to get to our hotel on Times Square in New York City. To go in a cab would cost about $80.00 but by this time I am figuring I'll pay it as I just need to get to bed. I walk past a kiosk that says "ground transportation" and go up and ask the guy about that. He starts giving me a quote and says it'll cost me $19.95 to get to my hotel. I am flabbergasted and excitedly very pleased as well. I am told to go and wait until my shuttle arrives and they'll call my name in about 20 minutes. Five minutes later, they call me and I board the shuttle van with about eight other people. We arrive in the City quite quickly but the shuttle driver has to drop people off at all different locations. Fortunately, I was last to board and so I haven't been riding for a long time already. The young lady sitting next to me however is starting to get testy and proclaiming quite loudly that she's already been sitting in this van for two hours and when is she going to get to her hotel. Our driver is also getting testy. All I care is that I am sitting down and am finally on my way to my bed.

Arrival at the Doubletree Suites Hotel located smack dab on top of Times Square is an event after being in the countryside of Umbria, Italy. Unfortunately, I am just too tired to check things out and drag my tired old butt into the hotel. Luckily I had a copy of our reservation with me and the very nice, super beautiful, recipient of my first child, receptionist, let me into our room. At last, finally, a super deluxe, soft bed. I leave more messages for Elisabeth and take a shower and hit the hay and am O-U-T! Sometime in my dream sleep I hear Elisabeth arrive and she tells me she's going to go back out and get a bite to eat and how tired she is too and that she'll be back soon.

I do not awaken even slightly until 6:00 in the morning. I roll over and see that Elisabeth's bed has not been slept in and she is not sleeping in it as well. What the ???? I am still far too sleepy though and decide to roll over once again. I wake up a mere thirty minutes later and now I'm more awake and begin to wonder what I'm supposed to do. Do I call Jason and alert him that his wife is missing? Do I call the Police? What if she got hit over the head in some dark alley in NYC? I discover that all of her cell phones are sitting on the desk being recharged in our room. I become more and more worried and toss around all kinds of ideas and thoughts and finally determine I am not a good friend if I just continue to sleep when she could be out there bleeding to death in a strange city. I MUST do something. So, I take a shower. Who wants to be all stinky if you've called the police and it's going to be hours before they leave you alone? After I get out of the shower I decide to call the front desk and talk to the Manager. The Manager, however, is not at the Front Desk and so I leave a message that I need to talk to them in person and it's very, very important. I sit on the couch and go over what I'm going to say when I hear a key in the lock opening the door. I think to myself - Self, the Manager is using the key to walk in, how weird! In walks Elisabeth to my great relief as well as all other kinds of emotions all of which I am unable to sort out this quickly. She barely gets any words out when there's a knock at the door. It's the Manager, a lovely Black Woman and she asks did I ask to see her. I say yes, but I don't need to talk to her now which sends a look of confusion over her face. We're both looking at Elisabeth and it looks like my bad, bad daughter has just returned from a night out on the town. The Manager asks me if everything is okay and I reply yes and she leaves. It's a little weird now between Elisabeth and I, I try to explain my thought process on why I called the Manager. She understands and we move on from there. We have reservations at a Day Spa after lunch and so we go out to discover NYC. After some breakfast it starts to rain, a lot. Our appointment is a ways away and so we attempt to hail a cab. Neither of us has ever done it though and no cabs are pulling over. One finally does pull over and he takes us to the Great Jones Day Spa located in NoHo in downtown Manhattan. It is really raining now and we're so glad we've got inside plans for at least awhile. We are delivered to the locker room where terry cloth robes and slippers await us. We've arrived early and so we go out and enjoy their water lounge. There is a large hot pool with powerful jets, a three-story high ceiling to floor waterfall running down a glass pane and comfy lounge chairs scattered throughout. After enjoying the hot tub we go to our meeting locations to await our massage and facial. I receive a massage from a very handsome, man who kneads my very tired, jet lagged body into submission. I highly recommend such treatment after a week long hiking, traveling trip. Once he's finished with me I return to the water therapy area and both Elisabeth and I enjoy more hot tubbing as well as their fantastic steam room. I sure wish their spa was near my home as it was a most restful oasis of relaxation. Before leaving we each purchase a smoothie upstairs that had pineapple and kale amongst it's ingredients. It was quite tasty. We got our bearings and began to walk back towards our hotel. First order of business was to buy two umbrellas though as it was still raining quite hard. We found some right away and began our walk back in the rain. Elisabeth needed a nap, bad, bad girl. I went downstairs and checked my email and then took a small nap myself on the couch in our living room. Elisabeth had spent her early morning hours in a Pub near our hotel and had gotten kicked out at daylight. She had spent her time with a group of lawyers from NYC and they had given her napkinsful of places to eat and visit. We set out to find dinner in SoHo and hopped on the Subway. We found AquaGrill and were able to get a seat without waiting too long. They unfortunately sat us next to a table of ten twenty-somethings who enjoyed their dinner by screaming in high pitched voices across the table to each other despite the fact that they were only four feet from each other. It was actually painful and we all but put our hands to cover our ears. Our dinners were delicious and we were somehow able to ignore the young beauties and enjoy ourselves. Travel back to Times Square on the Subway was easy-peasy. We tried to stay up longer and enjoy Times Square but we were both so tired by now that we went back to the room and I, at least, slept soundly.

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