NY Family Reunion

We left on the 1st at 7 pm and flew out at 10pm. Then we arrived at JFK (yep!) with our suitcase, carseat and bag about 5.5 hours later at 6:30am and had to figure out how to get from JFK to Penn Station to take the Amtrak to upstate. It should have been simple, but the shuttle (that was twice as costly as public transport, but promised to be simpler) only took us to Grand Central Station. So we walked around Grand Central Station for a bit. So many people! Poor Aftasie was getting tired of the constant hand holding but there was no way I was going to let her disappear in the crowd. And tired, too, because she'd only slept about 4 hours on the plane.

Anyway, to make this part of the story short, we rode multiple subways and had to walk up and down multiple, long staircases and lots of New Yorkers helped us out! One woman (who had an accent just like my relatives) walked us three blocks to the Amtrak station once we had gotten off the subway.

Then we had a lovely 2.5 hour train ride, during which Aftasie slept in our seats and I slept on the floor. I was soo tired that I didn't care how filthy dirty the rug must have been. Then a cousin picked us up at the station and we had a LOVELY time with relatives in upstate NY. Vincent and Peter my brothers came, too! That was so nice. It was so nice to be supported and have people around who like me, who are also related to me! :)

Then we did pretty much the same thing on the way back but it was a lot easier because a cousin told us about an easy way to get from Penn Station to JFK (only two stops!) and we started our journey at 9am instead of at 7pm, which made a huge difference. We got home at 1am EST, where we had come from, which made our trip about 16 hours. Aftasie slept in the plane and I just sat there until we arrived. Oh yeah, I played some game Peter put on the ipad we borrowed - mushroom wars? It was weird, but it did pass some of the time :) Thanks Pete.

It is SOOOO good to be home. I feel refreshed. I feel like I actually did something! I think I have a hard time during the summer because I don't have as much to do as during the school year. It really helps if I am pushing myself. Otherwise everything becomes "break time" and I get frustrated. While I was bored and not doing much to keep up the house before I left, I have done loads of cleaning and feel all ready to do practically anything!