It Is Trish

When your mom says she wants to take you on a mother/daughter trip to New York City, the answer should always be Yes.

Of course, it wasn’t quite that simple.

Several times, my mom mentioned wanting to go to NYC together before I leave for Greece, and every time I said sure, okay.  But she kept asking, so I became more certain that the trip would not happen.  You see, my mom and I plan very differently.  I operate on gut instincts, and when I say I will go somewhere, it’s a done deal, and the rest (travel, lodging, etc) will follow after.  My mom likes to think things through for a while before committing.  She interpreted my immediate yes as me flippantly agreeing, and I interpreted her waiting as her not really being interested.  Thankfully, we avoided the perils of miscommunication this time and after a couple weeks of awkward conversations, we bought our plane tickets (unlike the 2014 $999 trip to Ireland that included airfare, car rental, and four nights in castles, but I’m not still hung up on that or anything)!

And what tickets.  I found us seats on Southwest: $40 going and $110 coming back.  Let me repeat that:  we’re flying from Chicago to NYC in December, two people, for a total of $300.  On top of that, I had an $80 credit from the flight I cancelled during #32DaysInMyCar, so we only spent $220 combined.  

This insane airfare gave us the mental freedom to splurge on a hotel in downtown Manhattan.  Five years ago we visited NYC (that’s the picture above), but we stayed in a motel in New Jersey.  We saved money, but it put a damper on the entire trip.  We had to walk from the motel to the bus station, then ride for an 45 minutes into the city, for probably a travel total of a just over an hour.  It took even longer on the way home, and since neither of us were anxious to navigate public transit late at night in a strange city, we wound up leaving for New Jersey around dinner time.  What a waste!  So this time we’re splurging on a place downtown.  It’s still the cheapest option available, but since it’s New York, well.  It’s still pretty expensive.

Hah, I keep saying “we.”  Full disclosure: I am totally at the mercy of my mom’s generosity!  She bought the plane tickets and the hotel room.  The only thing I’m spending my money on is….my ticket to see Hamilton!  THAT’S RIGHT, I’M GOING TO SEE HAMILTON ON BROADWAY.

But that’s tomorrow’s story.