Back home with the sounds of the big city still ringing in my ears. The honking of the cabs. The constant din in Times Square. The clacking of some woman's shoes walking down 6th Avenue. God I love New York City. I wish we could have stayed a little longer. After the incredibly long bus ride Saturday morning (it was only 4 hours but seemed like 40) we arrived at the hotel on 8th between 51st and 52nd somewhere in the vicinity of 10:30. Once we had all unloaded our luggage the bus took us to the lower part of the city for those brave souls who wanted to venture out on the ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. I wanted to go. My sister shot down the idea since she tends to get slightly sea sick on any kind of sea going vessel.

We stayed on the bus and got a quick view of the city again on the way back to the hotel, passing through Chinatown and the Bowery. Eventually we made our way back to Times Square where we scored tickets for Rent. Excellent musical. Go see it. Well worth the money and time. I managed to contact my friend Peg who lives in Queens and works for the New York Daily News to let her know I was in town. She made reservations for us at a restaurant called Candella near Union Square in the Village. Unfortunately I had to dash to Old Navy to buy a pair of khaki's since I had not had the forethought to bring anything dressy with me. Duh. Luckily they were on sale and I needed a new pair anyway.

Candella was excellent. Carrie and Laura had their first taste of New York fusion cooking and their first trip in a cab. I think both left them feeling a little out of it because when Peg suggested we go to CBGB's they didn't argue. After our deserts were polished off in rapid fashion, we took another cab over to the famous club in the Bowery. Talk about sticking out like a sore thumb! There was a punkfest going on. Yeah, me at a punkfest if you can imagine such a thing. Music wasn't half bad, granted I couldn't understand most of what was being shouted across the room but not altogether unpleasant. Since that kind of music isn't my sister or Laura's style we grabbed a cab and went back up to Midtown and the safety of our hotel room. We all crashed until the alarm rudely woke us at 8:30 a.m.

Sunday was a day for sightseeing. We took off from the hotel around 10:30 and didn't really stop until 4:30 that afternoon. Did the NBC studio tour, went shopping in a cheesy souvenier shop, made a stop at MTV, meandered around FAO Schwartz reliving our childhoods (even though they were a lot closer to theirs than I was to mine) and eventually crashed in Central Park for about an hour just people watching. It was a truly wonderful day. Heck, it was a great weekend. It amazes me now how well my sister and I get along. We are 7 years apart and up until about 2 years ago did not get along at all. As she gets older we have more in common. Granted, she has much better luck with the guys than I do, but we generally get along now. It's nice to be friends with my sister. I saw a lot of my college friends have this kind of relationship with their siblings and was very envious. Now I have it too.

We returned to our little corner of the world around 10:30ish last night. By the time I had unpacked shared weekend stories with roommate Marti it was almost 11:30ish. Today I am dragging but tomorrow, oh yeah, tomorrow there's basket bingo and I have my eye on the Winnie the Pooh basket. That sucker is all mine.