Small town girls in the Big Apple

Ever since my mother was a little girl, dreams of traveling to the big and bustling city of New York flourished.; I was no different. Both of us, having grown up in the quaint and sleepy towns of Mount Dora, Florida and Rochester, New York, longed for something more exciting.

My mom promised me at age five that when I was 16 and she was 50, we  would take a trip to New York City. Well the trip was taken four years in advance when I was 12 and she was 45 because of three words that changed my family’s life forever; My mom was diagnosed with stage 1B Pancreatic Cancer. Wanting to waste as little time as possible, she and I flew to New York City and stayed from October 22^nd – October 26^th of 2008. We stayed in a magnificent vintage feeling hotel on 45^th street called ‘The Roosevelt Hotel.’ During our stay in the big city we visited many celebrated attractions like Central Park, the statue of Liberty, Time Square, The Guggenheim Museum, Broadway, Ground Zero, Macy’s, Toys R Us, and FAO Swartz.

My mother and I spent an entire day in the lovely Central Park. There we had a picnic, took a bicycle ride and had dinner at Tavern on the Green. This restaurant’s atmosphere was cozy and elegant which made it even harder to leave. Another day we went to the Guggenheim Museum across from Central Park and that night we went to the Gershwin Theatre to see the Broadway play ‘Wicked.’ The play is a twist on my favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz, and was enticing from beginning to the very last seconds.

An additional day was devoted to shopping; We traveled to every kid’s dream, FAO Swartz, a huge toy store! After, we visited the larger than life Macy’s that is an astounding 11 stories tall! There were even the original wood escalators from when the store was first built on the upper levels.  Next we stopped by Toys R Us and inside was an actual ferris wheel.! Each carriage of the wheel was of a different fictional cartoon character such as Scooby Doo, Tweety Bird, Bugs Bunny and many more. “Shopping till we drop” was definitely our motto that day, considering we fell asleep with our shoes on because we were simply too tired to remove them.

One of our last days was spent conquering our fears, slipping and falling and trying to jump in the view of the camera. In the morning, we were trying to jump into the view of the camera outside The Today Show. Successfully accomplishing our goal we migrated down the street to face our biggest fear. Both my mother and I are both terrified of heights, so going all the way up to the very top of the Rockefeller Center was petrifying but once we accomplished it, it was liberating. Then, we went ice skating at the Rockefeller Center. After slipping and sliding across the ice, we skated like Olympians until our ankles ached. Subsequently, we got off the ice, had lunch at a little sub shop and caught a taxi to the airport and headed home.

My trip to New York City was amazing. I took the trip with my hero, mentor, survivor, best friend and mother and I am so glad we went together. In the end, we were just small town girls looking to take a big bite of the Big Apple.