My brother (SundanceKid) and sister (ChangelingChild) live in New York City. They keep flying all the way back to Minnesota to visit our parents and me, and our parents occasionally drive or fly to NYC to visit them. I, on the other hand, have never gone out to visit them. I don't have a large travel budget, and with 4 kids, a job, and a farm, it's hard to schedule a trip, but this year I made it a priority.

(Me with SundanceKid demonstrating the tourist vs. resident perspective on NYC.
Tourist: "Hey look at all these people! Hey look at all these buildings! Hey look at all these lights!" Resident: "Ugh, look at all these people. Let's go home now and play video games.")

I was there for nearly a week, visiting my siblings and experiencing NYC. I imagined the experience would change my life. I would go from this:

To this:

But alas! I didn't quite make the "cool urban yoga mom" thing work for me. However, I did get addicted to all the cafes they have on every street corner. So my diet of Chai tea and scones ALMOST turned me into a hipster... almost, but not quite.

("Help! I'm trapped in a latte and I can't get out!")

The whole week was filled with super cool things. One of my favorite super cool things was the Museum of Natural History.
Dinosaurs! They had SO MANY dinosaurs! (I love dinosaurs.)

(Me, getting pecked in the head by a dinosaur at the Museum of Natural History)

(SundanceKid and me making "deinonychus claws" in front of the real thing.)

We also saw Neil Degrasse Tyson's "Dark Universe," which was awesome!

All the tourist activities were crammed full of people. Times Square was crammed full of people. The Brooklyn Bridge was crammed full of people. The Empire State Building was crammed full of people (and also took 2 hours waiting in line to actually get to the top).

(Once there, though, it was a magnificent view. If you get a chance to go, I would recommend going at night. Pretty lights!)

When my siblings and I got tired of people, we would walk through Central Park and Prospect Park.

(Central Park is lovely and artistic. It has these cool rock formations, statues, and bridges. Sometimes the artistic mood got to me.)

(...And sometimes I was just silly.)

(But that's OK because ChangelingChild was silly with me! Yay!)

(Prospect Park was a little more natural. More like the parks I'm used to seeing back home.)

Riding the Subway was a whole thing unto itself. I am SO glad I had SundanceKid and ChangelingChild to chaperone me while riding the subway, or I would have been lost a million times.

I am not used to navigating public transit systems at all. I live in the country- there is no public transit system. I've never lived in a city where it has been useful to use buses or trains or even Uber (I've never used Uber, guys!). So the subway system was confusing as hell. I'm sure if I lived there I would get the hang of it in short order, because if I didn't I would die alone and lost on a sketchy street corner.

(Adapt or die, bitch.)

But as a tourist, there is nothing worse than being lost in the largest city in America trying desperately to find her way before night comes and she winds up in the Bronx.


Actually, I've been lost in Lima before, and that was slightly worse because I didn't know the language. And, I've almost been left behind when on a coral reef snorkeling trip, so... I take it back. Being lost in the ocean would be much, much worse.

My siblings live in Brooklyn, which is actually not terribly crowded or sketchy. There is some pretty and interesting architecture there, and in general it's a pleasant place to walk around.

(Except for the creepy pandas. The creepy pandas will murder you in your sleep.)

We also went to the Museum of the American Indian and the Sex Museum.

(I recommend the Museum of the American Indian to all history and culture buffs out there.)

I didn't think the sex museum was really worth the $23 admission, but it did have a very disturbing cartoon that will take me a while to erase from my mind.

(It was a definite WTF moment.)

And, we did get to jump in a bouncy house made of tits. Yay, boobies!

(So. Many. Boobs.)

ChangelingChild also took me to a play called "Puffs!" and it was about Harry Potter told from a HufflePuff point of view. It was cute and funny and well worth the $30 admission.

(If you don't know what a HufflePuff is, you will just have to read Harry Potter, because your life will be meaningless until you do.)

Besides all that, we also got drunk and watched Disney movies, visited book stores and libraries, made art in a VR system, and played QuipLash and Joking Hazard.

(Ah, Cyanide and Happiness, how I love thee!)

I had a wonderful time in New York City visiting my crazy wonderful siblings and seeing all the things. Hopefully I will get to go back one day and finally figure out how to navigate that subway system!