Brooklyn and The Subway Adventure

Today, Erica and I headed to good old New York. Destination within New York...slightly known. We got a late start to the train station and moods were low. We had been traveling all week with only one night of respite. Erica and I were trudging around the train station, waiting for our train, and ran into a bottled Dr. Pepper at a Subway! It said, "Hello." We were suspicious of a talking Dr. Pepper bottle, but responded back. The bottle said it was delicious and it was just that: Delicious! Immediately, our eyes lit up and the day seemed brighter!

We made it on the train with lifted spirits and journeyed into the concrete madness of New York. Dave (our only known contact in NY) sent us a text message with directions to his abode. The first part of the message said: Go to Penn Station. Well, we were in Grand Central Station...and we needed to go to the bathroom. Starbucks seemed like the best option, so we walked out of Grand Central and started walking on the streets of Manhattan looking for a Starbucks bathroom. Little did we know about an hour worth of our walking around could have been cut out if we had known the subway train layout.

After walking the streets of Manhattan for about an hour, Erica and I entered Penn Station with a Starbucks pastry and good dispositions...the backpacks were getting a bit heavy though.

The next part of Dave's message said to get on the A-train. By the grace of God we found it and got on for the ride. Little did we know that we were supposed to be on the A-train for about 45 minutes. The text said to get off a Broad Channel in Rockaway. We kept looking for the stop but it wasn't coming. Thirty minutes into the ride, we freaked out and got off at Rockaway Blvd. Way too early.

Pretty much immediately, as we got off the train and into the streets, it started raining. The exit to the train left us underneath a bridge around some creepy looking shops and a bus stop. We got into a Rite-Aid Pharmacy and began to look for peeper spray. Erica and I couldn't find any and also realized we had no idea what kind of packaging it would be in. We tried to gain the gumption to ask for directions, as well.

This guy, in the pharmacy, explained to us what stop we needed so we went back to the subway station. Crazy thing is, as we were trying to get back on the A-train, I swiped my Metro card to get through the gate and it only let me halfway in. So, I'm stuck in this barred door between the entrance and exit. Then we had a brilliant idea. Erica swiped her card and I was then able to get all the way through. Well, next, it was Erica's turn. She swiped her card and the screen stated that it had already been used. We panicked. I handed Erica my card and it said it had been used, as well. Now I was on the train side and Erica was on the street side. We had no idea what to do! So, I came back onto the street side.

We were then left with two useless Metro cards, wet clothes, heavy bags, and blank brains. I called Dave and talked to him for about fifteen minutes. In these fifteen minutes, Dave and I managed to confuse one another about stops on the A train. During this confusion, Erica was approached by a woman who must've thought we were about to die by the looks on our faces. She said she and her husband had unlimited tickets and could get us through. I got off the phone with Dave and the woman swiped Erica and I into the train side. Angels in disguise? Maybe. :)

We got back on the A-train and exited Broad Channel. We were drained of energy by then. Our bags were filled with boulders, I'm sure.

And the Starbucks pastry... squished. But we ate it anyway, of course.

FINALLY, we saw the Broad Channel exit. We hopped off that train so fast and headed for the exit. The next piece of the text said to take the shuttle. Erica and I were not aware that a shuttle was another train. We thought it was a bus. So we headed out to find us a bus. As we're walking out of the station, we thought it smart to ask a person working there which shuttle to take. A guy sitting on one of the benches asked us where we were going. We told him our next destination and he urgently informed us that the shuttle was another train. Not only was the shuttle a train, it was on the tracks about to leave. We stood there in a paralyzed stupor and he broke us out of it by saying we better hurry up.

We ran out of the station and back towards the tracks. The doors were about to shut and we were hopping on and off, lurching towards different doors, trying to read the signs on the train... we looked like we had gone mad. The conductor stuck his head out of the little window and asked us where we were going. We told him and he said, "Hop on the shuttle."

As we were sitting on the shuttle, Erica asked me if the guy in the station looked familiar. I said I didn't know because I wasn't really paying attention. She said he looked exactly like the guy who had helped us in the pharmacy. I got excited because he could've been another angel in disguise sent to help us make it. Erica didn't think so. Who knows? In an Adventure's in Odyssey episode called "Malachi's Message," Whit and characters are pressed with the same dilemma. Malachi then tells Whit that angels work in ways that can easily be explained away if you want them to. So, I think he was an angel in disguise and Erica doesn't. :) Point is, we made it!

We then got off the shuttle at our stop and Dave picked us up. It was raining and I had never been happier to see Dave's car then I was at that moment.

Dave took us to Pastor Edwin's house and we met his family. They are letting us stay at their house. So nice! After meeting the family, we helped Dave and sons take their U-Haul truck back to the U-Haul... place. Erica and I stopped by a chinese place to get food...which is another story in itself...but this is already very long, so maybe next time. Back at Edwin's, I fell asleep glad to be in New York--finally!