This past weekend my family travelled to New York City for my niece’s wedding.  We left Ottawa before the sun came up Friday morning and arrived at the townhome I had rented through AIRBNB a little over seven hours later. As there were six of us staying together, it was less expensive to rent a home than to book several hotel rooms.  I chose a place in the Park Slope neighbourhood of Brooklyn so we could walk to and from the wedding and still have access to subway lines for site seeing in Manhattan.  Once we got over the fact that we were staying in a stranger’s home, and past the tricky door lock, we all loved the coziness of the typical New York BROWNSTONE home and would use the service again.  Use this link for your Airbnb travel discount…

I had prepaid for an overnight, covered parking spot for my son’s oversized truck with ParkWhiz for the weekend, but when he tried to park his truck, he was told they had no room for him.  After speaking to several people at that lot and another lot the company recommended, we were told that my original payment would be refunded if he paid for the new spot.  I still have yet to see a refund on my visa statement, but have contacted the company and was told (very good response time) that my refund will take a few more business days to process.  The bottom line is we did get parked and did not have to worry about further parking issues or driving in the city.

After unloading our luggage and a quick change out of our travel clothes, we headed to Manhattan via subway to take in some New York sights.  The architecture of the sky scraping buildings is magnificent. The clear blue sky as a backdrop was perfect for picture taking.  I especially loved the combination and contrast of the new with the very old…

My eldest son had mapped out our journey and we walked for miles and miles, trying to see everything in Manhattan.  We visited New York’s harbor, aka Battery Park, to view the Brooklyn bridge and the Statue of Liberty, strolled down Wall Street, to the ground zero site, through Tribeca, Greenwich Village, Times Square and Rockefeller Center…

Throughout our travels, we picked out and snapped pictures of many iconic landmarks and familiar (from TV) sites including Trump tower, Tiffany’s, Madison Square Garden, NBC’s news room, and Rockefeller Center …

Perhaps the most awe-inspiring of all the sights we saw, at least to my family, was the memorial site for the victims of the 9-11 tragedy where family members place flowers on the names of their lost loved ones on their birthdays.  It is incredibly beautiful; heart warming and sad at the same time.  The large, white, bird-like building in the last two pictures is the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, an architectural masterpiece…

Believe it or not, we took all of the above (and more, as I know I forgot to mention a few hot spots we visited) in Friday afternoon and evening, then headed back to Brooklyn on the subway.  Saturday morning we were able to walk through a beautifully verdant Central Park (at least a small portion of it) before it was time to get ready for the wedding…

The wedding we attended was beautiful, and lots of fun.  I have not seen my brother for several years; reconnecting with him was awesome and long overdue.  My parents had six children and fifteen grandchildren, but as they are currently living all over the USA and Canada, rarely (never) are they all in one spot at the same time.  Having four of us siblings and ten of “the cousins” (as they now call themselves) present at this event was nothing short of miraculous, but very touching.  At one point I overheard the cousins reminiscing about and toasting/roasting their beloved grandpa (my father).  They barely remember their grandma (my mother) as she died many years ago when they were all very young.

Our return trip to Ottawa from NYC seemed longer (it always does, doesn’t it?) than the journey to get there.  The trip took us over bridges, through tunnels, scenic neighbourhoods and lots of traffic, eventually winding through the mountain ranges towards the Canadian border, where we were met with a delay on the 401 due to an earlier accident.  Back to reality!

My father’s birthday is today; I know he heard his grandchildrens’ toasts and their plans to stay in touch and get together more often.  I could feel my parents’ presence that whole day; I know they were smiling down on the wedding and their family.