The Journey to NYC's Golden Streets and Avenues

Well, since the last post a lot has happened again. Emily, Richard, and Kristen all graduated last week (well, mostly graduated for Emily). The days of graduation were long but we had a lot of fun with David and Elaine being in Provo. We had a sweet graduation dinner at the Melting Pot (even though the waiter wasn't very nice and took away Emily's and Kristen's plates after they put raw meat on them--by his reaction, we were afraid someone was hemorrhaging or something). Also, Elder Bednar was the Commencement speaker, and we enjoyed his talk. He talked about learning to love learning for life--or something very close to that. Emily's convocation was at 8am, Kristen's was at 11am, and Richard's at some time in the evening. We took a great many pictures throughout the day and they turned out well. After Richard's convocation we went to Aunt Linda's house for a fabulous barbecue. We started with ice-cream cake (for Richard's birthday) as an appetizer and then moved into the main courses. There was an endless supply of steak and chicken; there was humus and flatbread; there was salad, and it was all very wonderful. We left after being very well fed.

We spent all of Saturday (the 26th) packing up all of our things. We were surprised by how much stuff you can accumulate in a month. However, we were able to get all of it packed up and still have time to go out to dinner with Richard's parents and a couple friends (Skylar and Sabrina). After dinner we worked off the calories playing Dance Dance Revolution for our new Wii (Richard got DDR for his birthday from his parents).

Sunday morning we finished up final preparations for coming to NYC and unloaded and reloaded bags that came out to 50 lbs. exactly. Richard's parents dropped us off at the airport and the voyage began. We made it through to Minneapolis, Minnesota without any glitches, but things changed a bit when we got there. They informed us when we were checking if we were at the right terminal that they had overbooked our flight to NYC. We were then informed that we could be "bumped" with perks. They offered $600 towards future flights with Northwest, $50 in food vouchers, lodging for the night, and first-class passage to NYC. After short deliberation, we decided to take the deal and spare Carma from picking us up at the airport around midnight on Sunday night.

So we left the airport in Minneapolis for our hotel. We went to the restaurant in the hotel after leaving our bags in our room and we were treated to the greatest meal we have ever had in a hotel in Minneapolis. Seriously though, the food was surprisingly good. Emily had the filet mignon and Richard had the Minnesota walleye (of which he gave some to Emily who is a self-proclaimed non-fish-eater... she may have liked it). The next morning we went to the Mall of America to ride as many roller coasters as we could in an hour. Unfortunately, we learned upon our arrival that their ticketing system was down. Our curse turned blessing though when they let us take a ride for free. We chose the Sponge Bob ride and it was incredible. We will try to post some of our video of it later. We went on another ride that was a lot of fun too. It was called Avatar or something. After our two rides we had to run back to the pick-up point for our shuttle back to the hotel. Luckily we made it.

We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare and then that time multiplied because our flight was delayed due to zero visibility at JFK airport. The wait wasn't too bad. We met an older woman who was traveling with her 20 year-old blind cat and another woman who couldn't understand why people kept walking up to the counter to ask questions. The delay wasn't too bad and it was worth the wait for a first-class ride (Richard's first ever). The flight was rather short and we made it to JFK safe and sound. Then came the mishap of the missing luggage that would continue for several days after.

In Minneapolis, they told us to go to a luggage counter when we arrived at JFK. Unfortunately, when we were walking to said luggage counter, the woman who worked at that counter was walking to meet us at the baggage claim. When we arrived at the luggage counter, they told us to go to the Information desk to have the woman paged. The Information desk told us when we requested the page that they do not do anything like that and sent us to the ticketing counters upstairs. We went to the ticketing counters and they looked at us confusedly. They didn't know where to send us so Richard asked for a phone number to call. He called the number as we walked to the baggage claim to see if we could spot any of our luggage. While Richard was talking on the phone, Emily found two of our bags, but that left one bag missing. We then ran into the woman who was in charge of lost baggage. She told us that she--not according to custom--put our luggage on the baggage claim belt and that somehow one of our bags was apparently picked up by someone else. So we had to fill out a claims form and they assured us that our bag would be found. Two days later they called us at midnight and asked if they could bring us our bags. Richard groggily (we were sleeping) told them to bring it to Carma's and Greg's (we gave Northwest their address because we didn't have one yet) either Wednesday or Thursday evening. They made several calls in the span of a couple of days (including one visit to Carma's and Greg's without our bag with them) and we finally gave them our new address and they brought us the bag on Friday morning. We are very glad to have our bag and to have the midnight calls stop.

Carma and the boys picked us up from the subway after we left the airport. They drove us to the International House and gave us brownies :) and hugs :). If you know the headache we've had getting into this place and all the frustrating conversations we've had with the Internship Office of the Communications Dept. at BYU you might know that we were expecting to have a dormitory style room for the both of us for a few weeks before getting a studio apartment. We were pleasantly surprised when we opened the door to our apartment and we saw a refrigerator, a sink, and a table... all tell-tale signs of a kitchen. A kitchen it was indeed. The bedroom portion is much larger than we expected and the bathroom is very neat. We are very pleased with our--in Emily's words, "adorable"--apartment.

We are unpacked and Emily has started work. Richard will start at the warehouse on Monday once our car arrives. We have explored the city a bit and we are planning many excursions into the city as well as other cities on the Eastern seaboard. We've already made it to Hoboken once last night for a great evening at Carma and Greg's place. Great food and great fun! We never knew we had it what it takes to be part of a Rock Band (as defined by the "Easy" settings on the Playstation 3).

Well, that should about bring us up to date again. These posts ought to shorten a bit with increased regularity.