Fung Wah to NYC

The past week has been great. Bruce and I hopped on the $15 Chinatown bus and went to New York City for a few days. One of my college roommates/teammates is there for the summer, so I thought I'd visit her while she was on the East Coast. She has three kids (3, 2, and 3 months!) and lives on the third floor of a brownstone building that does not have an elevator!
Her neighborhood had a few condemned buildings in it and a lot of interesting characters. Every time we walked past a group of people with our little stroller parade we'd get comments like "Lord have mercy!"
All of these tall, steep stairs remind me of Sesame Street. This whole place is so not kid-friendly.
...But it was pretty.
Bruce kept pointing out the fire escapes. He thought they were so cool.

Getting out the door always took at least a half-hour. Getting shoes on four kids and getting them down the stairs with two strollers and a baby and bags strapped on is no piece of cake. I don't know how she ever goes grocery shopping. Or goes anywhere.
We took the subway a lot, which Bruce absolutely loved.
My friend has been in New York less than a month but said she's on her second stroller; the last one didn't survive the severe wear and tear of the city.

Bruce was surprisingly good on the 4-hour bus trip to New York City. I had packed a few things to play with, but I packed them all in the same bag with our clothes and stuff - thinking I could take it on the bus with us. It ended up being too big to fit in the overhead compartment so we had to shove it under the bus at the last minute. I had a pen and paper, a Where's Waldo book, and a bag of bagels for four hours. Fortunately Bruce was entertained by the construction vehicles, trains, cars, trucks, and clouds he saw out the window. The only downside to the bus ride was that Bruce thought it was totally cool that there was a bathroom on the bus - and he insisted on going every hour (even though he wasn't drinking at all). The seats on the bus were clean, but the bathroom was so nasty: pee covering every surface, a sticky floor, and burned out light bulb.