It would take 75 hours and 30 min to take a train from New York City to Paso Robles, CA. And it can take 27 hours to fly. You could fly in 6 hours, but that would be easy cheezy. 27 hours with several hiccups is the way to go – if you want to stretch out your vacation time that is.

I was not asked, but thrown in the cold water. The first leg of my flight was delayed due to weather (which weather?). Then my connection flight was gone, the last flight of the night. Which made me being stranded in a freezing cold airport in Phoenix (outside temperature 114, inside 40, both Fahrenheit). And everything at the airport was closed, except the bathrooms. Nothing to eat or drink! Awful! And to top off the misery: not a single bench to sleep on. They all had bars across, so nobody could lie down. Awful awful awful!

So I spent 11 hours in Phoenix, in a freezing cold airport, hungry and thirsty…

Imagine you’ll have a whole week to spend in NYC with your friend and no agenda. Imagine this week is now! And so I went from Miami to NYC to meet Lisa, my friend of 40 years. She’s never been there before and so we did the typical touristy stuff a first-timer likes to see: street market on Lexington, Grand Central Terminal, Liberty Island, Little Italy in Greenwich Village, Ellis Island, Central Park, Show on Broadway, etc. My favorite: the MET, where we visited “Sleeping Beauties – Reawakening Fashion”, a fabulous exhibition of fashion / art / creativity – right down my alley!

Let’s start with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MET:

And look at a variety of people, some more famous than others:

And then we ate. A lot!

And we enjoyed New York!!!