New York Moment 16

While my niece was here, we were tourists. I wanted to squeeze in as many of the big New York things in the short eights days she was with us. The downside of all this running about is, well, all the running about. It becomes exhausting. I found myself getting stressed about missing a train connection and stressed by the crowds of people (the week she was here is the busiest time of year for many tourist attractions in the city, the week between Christmas and New Year's).

One day, we simply decided to take it down a notch. She picked one museum she was interested in visiting, and we headed that way, not worrying about time. We found out the museum was closed when we got there (no functioning phone number to be found prior to us leaving), so in the spirit of taking it easy, we wandered around in the fresh snow of Battery Park and tried to get our bearings, tried to figure out what to do next. I gave her a couple of options, and she picked riding the Staten Island ferry. Good choice.

We mosied over to a coffee place and got a snack. We mosied to the ferry. We spent the short ride there and back taking photos of the Statue of Liberty and making strange faces. The goal was not to get one single normal picture. I tried to sell my niece on the merits of standing in front of a mirror to perfect one's ugly faces, a hobby shared by me and a couple of my friends. I'm not sure that I convinced her but she certainly laughed a hell of a lot on this ferry ride.

Because of our no-stress goal for this day, we ended up doing and seeing a lot of things, by chance or by serendipity or whatever you want to call it. Sometimes it pays to be Taoist for a day, especially if disgusting and silly faces are involved.