Days 1-2 - New York City/Transit to Turkey/Malta

Fall leaves in Central Park...

Oh dear blog, how I have forsaken thee! For nearly a decade, I once rushed here to proudly share pics of all our travels and photos of our son (before I realized how quickly photos of cute little boys can spread). These days, I work a tad more than I'd like, and just don't seem to have the time I once did. Still, I'm not quite ready to throw the towel in yet. So if you're still with me...please scroll through our amazing journey to Malta. I'm thrilled to relive it again, since it's not always so fun in the moment. Photos don't capture illness, injury, stress, late flights, arguments with your partner and jet lag...so the memories are just as good!

The trip started out...rough. For me, anyway. I got a cough a few days into November (that good God, is still with me over five weeks later). This in and of itself wasn't a huge deal. The problem is that the day we were going to the airport, I was cleaning the yard in preparation of our lengthy departure. I accidentally tripped on a dry stack rock wall, with my left leg going straight through it (scratching it from ankle to knee), and worse- falling directly onto a huge rock with my left chest bearing the weight of the fall. It was quite painful. It hurt to even breathe, and was ten times worse to cough. Why I didn't think to get an x-ray/pain meds is beyond me, but I guess I assumed there wasn't enough time for an ER visit and I didn't want to be a human zombie on Vicodin on our trip. I'll never know if I badly bruised it or hairline-fractured it, but I wish I did.

The whole plane ride from Kona to Phoenix, then Phoenix to JFK, I was downing and double-fisting ibuprofen like candy. And to survive a painful cough, I had to do this strange, multi-step maneuver of puffing my chest out like a proud solder (or a flat-chest Asian trying to increase her bust size), but also with my arms crossed/palms placed over the injured area to brace it. I also did my best to suppress/weaken the cough to avoid the sharp pain in my chest every time I coughed. But the best part of it all? Every time I coughed at night, I had to: 1. Frantically jump up out of bed. 2. Puff my chest out! 3. Cross my hands over chest. 4. Suppress cough 5. Grimace in agony. Whine to husband. Blame him for leaving out rock stack. 6. Repeat. All. Night. Long. 

The good news, of course, is that Ms. Drama Queen Whine Bag still managed to go on the trip, and after a week or two, the pain decreased, and is now completely gone. Sadly, that was not my only medical malady on this trip. I had another incident I'll call 'Airport Pukefest 2018'. (I'm having event t-shirts made for this, so let me know your size if you're interested.)

Back to the trip-

Our flight into JFK was one of those where we had to circle and circle and wait our turn for a landing. As a result, Ryan got sick. :-( He's only suffered air sickness twice in his life, and both were on our most recent trips (Japan in July, and then NYC in Nov). So I'm now thinking that he may have developed air sickness, since both flights were pretty smooth sailing and he still got sick. I feel for him, as it's always a bit embarrassing to throw up a plane, You can't really do it privately and can feel the stares from other passengers, who are both sympathetic and repulsed. Thankfully, he recovered well and was a champ the rest of the day in the city.

Our NYC digs were...um, okay? It was one of those cases where the unit pics look uber modern/spacious/trendy, and then in reality- it's older, tinier, dustier. The location was great- 15 minutes by express to midtown in a nice neighborhood full of brownstones. But there was a cleaning hiccup that resulted in our unit looking like it hadn't really been cleaned very well. Though I try not to complain, I did let the owner know about the situation in case he was charged for a full-clean by his cleaning service. The owner contacted me back immediately, even though it was well after ten at night. He apologized so profusely I feared he might throw himself on a sword and leave me his life savings and three children. He tried to refund us a night's stay, but I was mortified at taking that much $ from him, so we settled instead on him refunding us our departure cleaning fee- which he shoved under our door the next day, in cash. Like a drug deal. ;-) It was awesome. I used the cash to get our family a nice oceanfront lunch in Malta, which we were all very thankful to Francisco for.

So it was a rough overall start to the trip, but even a rough trip can be a great trip, as we learned! On to days 1-3 in New York!

Well hello New York City, it's been awhile. We missed you.

First stop on our list has always been, and will remain...Central Park.

Though in the past, we always hit the various different playgrounds of Central Park after visiting nearby Dylan's Candy, this time, we were headed to a new destination- the skating rink! Ice skating is always on Ryan's travel wish list, since we don't have any options on our tiny island. Because we've done Rockefeller once previously with Keni & Riki (my dad paid the tab, which was roughly the same cost as a human eyeball), we thought we'd try Wollman Rink in Central Park instead. It ended up being only a tad cheaper than Rockefeller, but there was no time limit, so that was a plus.

My view of the boys from atop the rink..can you spot them? If so, please tell which which ones they are, as I've forgotten. ;-) 

I am so happy he can enjoy ice skating. I've only tried twice, and both times were embarrassing fails. Once in my 20s, and again a few years ago in my 40s. I'll try again in oh, two-thousand and and NEV-ER. We can't take any credit for his ability or interest in the sport...he spotted a rink in DC 4-5 years ago, and begged us relentlessly to let him try. It hadn't really ever crossed our minds to get him into it, since we live in a place where its not an option. But we caved in that day, and he's loved it ever since. 

Since we knew Malta was not exactly chock-full of child-friendly fun, we let him design the first half of the day...and his second request was a meal at Five Guys!

We spent the afternoon in Chinatown, in hopes of pleasing my mom with some dim sum. But because they were so stuffed after our Five Guys/The Soupman's lobster bisque lunch buffet, we skipped the dim sum and bought fresh fruit to eat at our apartment instead! (This is also a treat for people whose produce is shipped on container that take weeks to get here.) Blueberries that are not mushy/moldy for $2 a tray and not $6?! Score!

My dad had the very good idea of walking from Chinatown down to Battery Park so we could catch a glimpse of Lady Liberty at dusk. Ryan was overjoyed to walk even more that day. (Kids love endless walking, all day if you didn't know.)

See what I mean? His joy was simply un-containable the further we walked.
"Please, more endless walking, mom! I love it so much!"

"Can we walk more tomorrow, please, please?! Can we?!"

One of the best parts of our day? Hands down, even more than the ice skating, in my opinion, was stumbling upon this new carousel ride in the park:

As you can see, it was called 'Sea Glass' and is right in Battery Park by the waterfront with views of Lady Liberty. It was only $5/ride, and because Ryan happened to be first in line, he got to pick the sea creature of his choice. Honestly, between the music playing, the frosted glass sea creatures and lighting, it was like being in an underwater  mystical water wonder land. I was in so much pain and sleep-deprived from jumping up out of bed like a maniac the night before that I had almost stayed home to rest, but I'm so glad I caved in to my FOMO and went with them, or I would have missed this magical place.

No filter. Because I don't even know how to use one if I wanted to.

The next day, we started our lengthy journey to Malta- a walk to the subway, a 60 min. subway ride, a short Airplane Train ride, a long plane ride (14 hours?), a shorter plane ride (2-3 hours) and a 20 min. cab ride to downtown, historic, Valletta!

Still in happy spirits as we start off...armed with Dramamine this time, 'cause mama don't play.

So long NYC! Hello Istanbul!
This is back when we still loved Turkish Airlines...we'll get to that. ;-)