Well, it was an excellent little adventure, which I will certainly recount in detail, complete with photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back explaining what each one is (to paraphrase Arlo Guthrie), but first, in general:
- How in god's name do the people who live there survive in that humidity? Even when the weather cleared a bit, and I could sense that it was much less humid, it was still like breathing underwater. Good grief.
- Nobody knows the steps I walked.
- When something like this goes off with absolutely not a single hitch, it leaves me kind of hanging, as if I'm waiting for an imaginary shoe to drop but it never does.
It was truly a perfect weekend for what it was. Everything took less time than we thought it would: the cleaning, the use of the rented van, the emptying of the old apartment and the filling up of the new. And, not to make this sound unimportant because it wasn't at all, I had a really great time with my kid.
Friday
I got to Metropark a little after 11, parked in the longterm parking, which always makes me think I'll never see my car again, actually figured out how to pay for it at the machine, and headed inside the tiny little bunker-like station. Picked up my ticket and found out the train was on time. Got me a cup of Dunkin and headed upstairs to the platform.
The whole baggage inspection that I was led to expect was simply not happening, not even on the NJ Transit trains heading into New York (which is the platform in the picture.) There was no additional security of any kind that I could see.
Had an odd conversation with the woman sitting next to me waiting for the train; she was apparantly waiting for a local train and when I said I was going to Washington, she looked thoughtful for a moment and then said "Oh. There are a lot of Mexicans there." Uh .... huh? And that means ...? I had no idea. After a moment, I said "Well, there's a lot of everybody there" and dropped it. Weird.
I didn't get a window seat right away, but my seatmate got off at Trenton, so I moved over and got to sit alone all the way to Philadelphia! (A fifteen minute ride, whoopee!) But I took a bunch of pictures; I thought I'd document the trip, but it's too boring to look at:
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Most of it just looks like this.
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Or this.
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Or this.
But I liked this picture:
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And I arrived on time, and although Union Station was crowded (including a large contingent of Amish, or maybe Mennonite, folk getting off a train, which I don't understand -- maybe they were Mexicans in disguise) I found K with little trouble and we took off for the Metro.
It does not cease to amaze me for a moment that my baby navigates the Metro, or even the city streets, the way she does. So for those of you with doubts, I have absolute proof that one day they turn into actual adults. In fact, the whole weekend was kind of like one big proof of that for me.
When we emerged a few blocks away from the old apartment, it was POURING. We were pretty wet by the time we got there, despite umbrellas; of course, I was also pulling a little suitcase on wheels and that was soaked. But we dried off in a mostly empty apartment, relaxed for a bit, and, once the rain had stopped, headed out for dinner.
The temperature/humidity thing there was just a constantly changing obstacle. Just being outside causes the entire body to feel wet, even when it's not raining and it's not that hot, and then you step into air conditioning and your body just doesn't know how to cope. It wasn't that hot at this point, but we walked about a mile and a half to an Asian restaurant (where the food was delicious, and low points for me) and back, and I just felt constantly wet.
Perhaps you will recall my rant last week about how hard it is to walk 10,000 steps in a day. By the time I took off my pedometer Friday night, I registered 15,556. I guess city walking will do that for you.
We watched TV for a while, I met K's roommate who was delightful, and I went to sleep on the Aero-bed, which turned out to be very, very comfortable.
Next time: Moving Day
