Emily and I were travelling to New Jersey today as she was competing in an Irish Dancing competition in Edison, NJ. We didn't know the schedule, only that it started at 7.30am, so her teacher said we needed to go early. So we left the boys sleeping peacefully and met the others in the lobby at 5.30am. We hopped in a couple of cabs to Penn Station to catch the 6.13am train.
There was some confusion with the ticket machines as we couldn't get them to issue return tickets. So we bought one way tickets, grabbed some coffee and bagels and boarded the train. We seemed to be the only people who had already been to bed. All of the other passengers were going home after a big Saturday night in the city! The conductor came past to check our tickets and said that we shouldn't have paid for the kids as they travel free on the weekends, but the tickets were valid for a year so we could use them another time. Pity we won't be catching another train to New Jersey in the next 12 months!
We arrived at Edison and waited at the taxi office while the van driver got a wake up call to come drive us out to the Convention Centre. We were among the first people to arrive and it became clear that we were way too early. None of our girls were dancing until later in the day. It was a very long day. The whole setup was so different to the way things are run here. There were 8 stages running simultaneously and literally hundreds of dancers everywhere. It was a good experience for the girls though, they all danced well and had a great day.
I was not too thrilled about wasting my last day in NYC and a little jealous that Alex and the boys were spending the day shopping and siteseeing while I was sitting in a warehouse watching dancing all day! The last train back to Manhattan was at 7.30pm and I had jokingly said earlier in the day that we wouldn't want to miss that one. Well the competition dragged on so long that we didn't get out of there until 6.45pm and just missed the 7pm train so we did end up coming home on the last train! As we had half an hour wait we wandered up the main street of Edison (all 2 blocks of it) and grabbed some pizza for dinner. It was almost 9pm by the time we got back to the hotel!
I needed to pack as we were leaving early the next morning, but I also still wanted to do some last minute souvenir shopping. So Emily and I dragged our tired selves back down to Times Square. My plan had been to buy "I heart NY" t-shirts for the kids' friends and my nieces etc, but the thought of how much luggage space they would take up turned me off that idea, so we ended up with fridge magnets, keyrings and pencils.
I managed to pack everything without having to crack open one of our empty suitcases! We set the alarm for early the next morning, sad to be leaving New York but excited for the next part of our adventure!
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