Goodbye

 This post title serves two purposes. It is to designate the last day of our trip to New York City and my final post about that trip. It is also to let you know that as you read this, we are on the road again for a longer vacation and I most likely will be hard to find online for the next couple weeks. 

Our final day being a Sunday, we decided to go to mass at a place I visited numerous times during the early months of Covid before our local church started taping it's mass for anyone to see. So we walked the 10 blocks of so to St. Patrick's Cathedral, where we had briefly toured earlier in our vacation for an 8 am mass. It was quite refreshing to be walking the streets with few people out and about. One couldn't pay me enough to live my life in a place like New York City but if forced to at the threat of my life, I would and you would probably find me mostly in the early morning hours while most everyone else was asleep.

It is quite an ornate church and I'm sure I could bore everyone to tears with all the photos I took of the various apses and nooks, but I'll just leave it at this one of the altar from our seats in the third row.

We did take the opportunity before mass started to light the two candles above in memory of our parents who departed life too soon, my mother and my wife's father. 

After mass, we slowly walked back home through New York City Streets for the last time this trip anyway and once again through the lobby of our motel which you can see above. There was always people there at all hours of the day which I suppose is why there was also a manned post down the stairs which you can just see the railings of on the right, making sure only guests were able to climb the steps up into the lobby proper. 

One thing I didn't mention yet but should as sort of a Public Service Announcement, is that this particular motel charges a hefty "destination fee" on top of all the various other fees one pays at motels these days. Not sure what the purpose of a destination fee really is nor could the receptionist really tell us either other than to tell us that we got $15 in beverage credits every day which we faithfully maxed out.

We got checked out and made our way to the airport, not free from a bit of excitement along the way. I won't go blow for blow but the short of it is as follows. As we made our way towards the subway, we came across a black lady shouting at a muslim lady wearing a hijab about race and how to properly talk to a native New York n%4#$r. I'm sure you can guess what word she used. Once on the subway car, a hispanic man in a wheel chair loudly shouted in Spanish for awhile and then rolled his wheelchair over all our toes as he proceeded down the aisle singing loudly to a song in Spanish he played on a boombox. Just before exiting, a black man got into a very heated shouting match with the previously mentioned black lady who was shouting right back at him. Again, race played an issue evidently though to my own untrained eyes, the both appeared to have the same skin color. As they were threatening to kill each other, we reached our stop where we were to transfer to the bus and as the subway car pulled off, they were still yelling. 

Despite the drama, one of the aspects I really loved about New York, was how diverse it was. Many times I found myself a racial minority something I don't often see where I grew up. It was refreshing to see people from all walks of life and all parts of the globe walk around and call a place home. It reaffirms my faith that despite all that is going on, America is still a great place to live and call home and will continue long into the future when I am no longer above ground.