I was pretty sure I had seen the last of "Ugly Americans" as my mother put it, until it was time to de-board the plane. When the seatbelt sign faded to grey, I unbuckled myself from my aisle seat and stood up; I noticed there was a bit of space in front of me, so in effort to allow for my row-mates to move into the aisle as well, I took that space. For the woman in the window seat in front of me me, my actions were not as logical. She snidely asked: "Do you have a plane to catch?" I had remembered her getting in a fight earlier with J. Woww about turning off her cell phone, so I knew she was up to no good; I pretended not to hear. She asked again, this time harsher and determined to get my attention. I replied, "No." She then began mumbling to the elderly foreign woman next to her about how rude/young/pushy I was and how I needed to wait my turn like she was doing. A couple more smack-talking remarks from her later and I couldn't pretend not to hear her any longer. I turned to her and explained politely that I didn't mean anything by it and I was simply taking the space I had been allotted. "No," she scowled, "You're rude."
"I'm rude?" I haven't done anything to you, I don't know you, and you're making a scene. Please leave me alone."
"I don't know you!"
"Then why are you talking to me?!"
This is when the nice lady who had been sitting next to me piped in--"She hasn't done anything wrong, Ma'am"
Crazy Lady: "Of course, go ahead and defend the young girl."
Nice Neighbor: Rolls eyes and says to me "Enjoy your trip to Prague, Dear." (A fact she only knew because she had apparently seen me reading my guidebook earlier.)
Crazy Lady to foreign elderly woman: "...always defending the young girl."
It was at this point that the old Orthodox Jewish man behind me must have noticed my shaking fist or had heard my pounding heart because he put his hands on my shoulders in effort to calm me down. He made sure I let Crazy out in front of me, which I had already planned on doing, and when she refused my offer, he shoved me along and gave me a heartwarming "Shalom."
I made my way off the aircraft and found a place in the terminal to zip the smaller part of my backpack onto the larger one. With my back turned, I heard the familiar Jersey accent whisper not-so-softly, "So obnoxious..."
WELCOME TO THE BIG APPLE, LANDIS.
On the verge of tears, I was relieved when the flamboyant older gentleman from my row told me that he was a physician and that the woman giving me a hard time was clearly insane. It took everything in me not to hug him.
And so I managed to gather myself together to wrangle eighty-odd pounds of luggage onto the bus to Grand Central Station to meet my Uncle Don. A ride full of awed gazes out the bus windows, upward. I met said uncle in said location and, the trooper that he is, he strapped on that backpack of mine and made it down, onto, and out of the subway and into his glorious TriBeCa apartment. There, I was greeted by Uncle Jorge and Cousin Yoya and the four of us schmoozed until it was time to ready ourselves for dinner at the very restaurant that Carrie and Mr. Big had their rehearsal dinner--a scene I was very familiar with.
After dinner we went on a fabulous walk along the "High Line." This is the walkway/garden that sits atop NYC's former elevated freight railroad of the West Side Line (Wikipedia).
So we strolled, and awed, and strolled some more, and continued on to the parks that line the harbor.
It was quite a perfect evening that most certainly made up for the traveling hurdles, and I am overjoyed to finally be spending quality time with these family members in this very remarkable place.
I know I am consistently a day behind, but really, what did you expect?
