New York Trip Part II: A Weekend at West Point

Here I am to write about my weekend at West Point with my parents, sister, and many other people to witness Matthew Hitzeroth's graduation.

So, to pick up where I left off, after Heather's and my day in NYC, we met our parents at the airport and my dad got a rental car that would take us to a town right outside West Point. I fell asleep during the car ride, which I think was about an hour and a half. When we got to our hotel I think it was about 10 or 11 pm, and I was pretty grumpy because I was really tired. All I wanted was a hot shower, which I got.

We had to wake up pretty early in the morning in order to grab a quick breakfast at the hotel and then make our way to West Point to watch Matt in a parade. Apparently, the whole week leading up to the graduation on Saturday was full with activities and events that the cadets had to participate in such as parades and drills and stuff. So my mom, dad, sister and I arrived at West Point Friday morning to watch Matt in his last West Point parade ever, and there we connected with Matt's parents and his younger sister, Gretchen. When the parade was done we all got to go find Matt and say hi, that was really exciting because I hadn't seen him since January and Heather hadn't seen him for like six weeks. They were soooooooooooooo happy to be together again. Here's some pictures of the 'parade' and of Matt in his uniform:


When we felt our greetings to each other had been sufficient, we decided to make our way to Matt's barrack. On the way we saw some statues of old army heros, so my dad got excited and posed in front of General Douglas MacArthur's, I believe. It was really funny and nice to watch my dad whenever he was in West Point, because you could tell he was REALLY excited to be there and thrilled that he was going to have a son who would have graduated from there! My dad doesn't show his excitement very often, so when he does, its a pleasure to watch.

The barracks were actually pretty nice...from the outside they kind of looked like medieval castles. Matt's room was pretty empty because he had been packing all week in anticipation of gettin' home and gettin' hitched one week later. Even his sheets were off of his bed, and we started telling him he still had one more night to sleep there, but he just told us that he had been sleeping without sheets the whole week! Silly Matt.

Both the families went out to lunch next, TGI Fridays. Very fun. Can't remember everything that was said and done there, but just know that hanging out with family one day before a West Point graduation, especially when its also one week before a wedding, is SO FUN. I do remember that our waiter spilled lemonade on Gretchen. I think he felt really bad. Haha. And a picture of the happy couple:


After lunch my family returned to our hotel room to prepare for a formal banquet and dance that evening. Matt only had enough tickets for his family and Heather to attend the banquet, but everyone got to go to the dance. It was my first officially formal event EVER, so it was really fun to actually get made up WITH Heather instead of just watching her get ready. We went back to West Point in time for Heather to walk into the banquet hall with Matt. In the meantime, my mom, dad and I walked to a Subway on campus. It was so funny to watch people's reactions as we walked into the Subway all dressed up. Here's a picture of my mom and I on our way to dinner:

When we finished our dinner at West Point my dad looked at his watch and saw that we still had like an hour and a half before the dance would start. I suggested that if we walked back REALLY SLOWLY, taking our meandering time to "stop and smell the roses," we might make it back to the site of the dance in time to not have to wait around. So we walked slower than a turtle. I spotted a cemetary on the way back, and thinking that there might be some cool old war heros buried there, suggested that we walk through it. We had so much fun doing this. So many of the grave markers were totally extravagent. I kept looking for names I would remember from history, but didn't find any. I mean, I did find a Joseph Hooker, and got excited that it might have been 'Fighting Joe Hooker' from the Civil War, but we looked at the years of his life and realised that it definitely was NOT him.

For all our slowness, we got back to the site of the dance with about 45 minutes to wait. Pretty boring. But, I did get to watch a helicopter land only about 100 meters away from me. I think it was the helicopter for the dignitary who spoke at the banquet.

Eventually all who had attended the banquet started pouring out of the banquet hall, and it was time for the dance to begin! The dance was held in this huge building with lots of different rooms, in each room a different type of music was being played. I think that in only one there was a DJ, all the rest had live bands. Before any of us went into the rooms to dance, something like five people in our party had to go off on different errands. So, not wanting to start dancing without everyone being present, those of us that didn't have any errands just sat and waited. Everyone took SUCH a long time getting back to us, so Heather and I got slightly bored, and Heather got a migraine because a girl walked by in a neon blue dress (Heather's migraines are initiated by the color neon blue). I thought that the migraine would put a huge damper on Heather's evening, but I think that she was just so happy to be with her husband-to-be that nothing would knock her off her care-free pedestal. Here's us being bored and waiting for everyone:


After a half hour, when hardly anyone had come back from their errands, Matt's dad suggested that Matt, Heather and I go enjoy ourselves in one of the dance rooms while he continued to wait for everyone. We agreed and made our way to what we thought was the jazz room and saved a few tables. We sat down, listened to the music, watched other dancers, and continued saving the tables as we waited for the rest of our party to arrive. After another half hour, when no one had shown up still, we decided to take turns dancing while one of us watched our tables. That was pretty fun. Finally, when we were thoroughly exasperated that none of our party had come to meet us, Spencer, Matt's brother found us and asked us what in the world we were doing in that dancing room! We said we were in there because it was the jazz room, of course, and we had all agreed to meet in the jazz room! He responded by saying that no, the jazz room was downstairs, and that's where everyone had been waiting for us for a long time! So, we all traveled downstairs to the real jazz room and had a great time. We left the party early, at about 11 o'clock, because it was going to be a really early morning the next day with having to arrive at West Point at 6 o'clock in order to clear security and such for the graduation. (Tons of security because Mr. George W. Bush was to be the commencment speaker!)

It was difficult to drag ourselves out of bed the next morning, especially for Heather and I because we hadn't had a decent night's sleep in about three days. But, with the anticipation of what was going to occur that day, it didn't take long for us to forget our exhaustion and be thrilled to be awake. However, anytime I got into the car for a drive, I always fell asleep.

We arrived at West Point on time, I think, about six o'clock, but still had to wait in a long line of cars for about 45 min in order to even get on the campus. Then we waited in a line outside of the football stadium where the graduation was to be held for another 45 min or something, waiting for the doors to be opened. It was a very cold morning, really misty, and I was wearing a sleeveless top and had forgotten to bring a sweater. Oh well, being in line and waiting was actually pretty much durable and even fun because for the first time that weekend we connected with Mr. Mark Economou, who is one of Matt's really good friends. I was really glad he was there because he is such a fun guy! He makes waiting around for something feel like you're actually at Disneyland or someplace fun like that. So even after the doors were opened and we were waiting for two and a half hours for the graduation to start, there never seemed to be a dull moment.

Finally, the graduation began and the cadets filed in, and the graduation speakers filed onto the stage also. Here are some pictures of the completed stadium. In the second picture, you can see George Bush standing up, in the blue tie. Pretty cool.



Ok, I had been to a college graduation before, and knew how completely boring they could be, but this one was almost without a dull moment. Even if I wasn't sitting with really funny people and people that I love (not that I don't love the funny people I was with...I think I was sitting with only funny people and I love all of them:), I don't think I would have been bored. George Bush's commencement address was totally great, here's a pic of him delivering it:

My only disappointment of the day: I missed the moments that Matt had his name called, he received his diploma, and he shook the President's hand. Kind of a funny story of how that happened, now that I think about it, but it actually brought me to tears and a huge hurty ball in my throat when I realised what I had missed. :( But here's the story. I think there were something like 900 cadets who were graduating that morning, and I sat through probably half of them with an ever-filling bladder. Finally, I turned around to my sister, asked her what she thought of my going to the restroom just then...do I have enough time before Matt's name came up? Yeah, she said, she thought so. So I made my way, almost as quickly as I could, knowing the whole time that Heather was probably going to have everybody pretend that I had missed Matt's name being called and his hand shake from the President. I came back to where my group was sitting with a smirk on my face because I just KNEW what they were going to try to do to me. My seat was the last on a row of about 12 people, and as I passed each one, almost everyone greeted me with a "You missed it!" and I answered back with "You can't fool me!" When I got to my seat, Heather and I went back and forth, she trying to persuade me that I had, in fact, missed Matt's name and me coming back with "I know you're joking!" Finally, when Heather wouldn't let up, my last comment to her was "Please tell me you're joking?" When she looked at me with a sad and sorrowful expression, I slowly sat down and didn't talk for almost the rest of the ceremony, because most of the time I knew that if I said one word I would start weeping. I don't THINK that I would have normally taken that so hard, but my sleep schedule had been so completely wacked up for the past three or fours days and every day had been chocked full of adventures, so I was TIRED. And I, when I am tired, get emotional. So there I sat with a hurty lump in my throat.

Here are some happy pictures of the graduated Matthew Hitzeroth!

After the graduation, we spent the afternoon at the home of a family that Matt had become very good friends with during his years at West Point. The husband was a professor at West Point, I believe, and during Matt's first year this family had been assigned to Matt as sort of a host family, I think. Something like that. But Matt had remained good friends with them through all of the four years, and so they hosted his graduation party/bar-pinning ceremony (bar-pinning ceremony: a ceremony where Matt made an oath to his duties to the country had his bars, the symbol of his status as a 2nd Lieutenant, pinned to his uniform). The family made SUCH awesome food for us, yummy hors d'oevers (no idea if that's spelled right) and Thai food. Thai food's great, by the way, definitely recommend. The bar-pinning ceremony was pretty cool to witness:


When the party was over, our trip was essentially done. Matt did say goodbye to West Point in a very unique way, and for the sake of a PG rating I'll leave it at that. Haha, it actually wasn't all that bad. But anyways, the next morning we left our hotel bright and early to catch our flight back to LA, and in the airport we got Dunkin Donuts for breakfast because we had seen pretty much NO OTHER donut place anywhere in New York other than Dunkin Donuts....it was EVERYWHERE. Deciding that Dunkin Donuts must be a New York thing, we realised we couldn't leave until we had tried it. And so we did. Nothing special, but to me, you can never say a donut is bad.

I slept almost the whole flight home.

A trip that was well worth it.

Happy graduation Matt, even though it was like three months ago! And sorry for missing your handshake with the President...I don't think I ever told you about that! :)

New York Part I: A Day in the City

At the end of May, my soon-to-be brother-in-law (who at this time actually is my brother-in-law) graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point. My mom, my dad, my sister and I decided that this was a special enough of an occasion for us to take a trip to New York to witness it, especially when we heard that President George W. Bush was to be his commencement speaker! So my sister got the bright idea that if we were going to NY anyway, why not splurge a little and spend a day in NYC together? Only my sister and I were up to this, so we decided that we would fly JetBlue on a red-eye flight so that we could arrive in the city early in the morning and have all day to toddle around, and then we would return to the airport that evening where we would pick up my parents in order to drive to West Point. Our goal was to spend less than $100 each during our day in the city, so Heather did some internet research to find out all of the fun things we could do for less than 100 bucks.

Our flight was really nice, I definitely recommend JetBlue. On their red-eye flights they pass out kits that help you sleep during the flight, it included an eye-mask, minty lip-balm, hand cream, and ear plugs. They also pass out Dunkin Donuts coffee! And during the whole flight, you get to watch an enormous amount of channels provided by Direct TV. My only complaint was that Heather and I believed we were going to be able to watch the American Idol finale that was airing that night, but when we got on the plane at 9 pm the plane was playing tv on NY time, so we missed the finale! AAAAARRRRGGGG. But compared to all the other fabulous things we got to do that weekend, missing the event was a minor incident. But still, aaarrrggg.

When we got off the plane, we both felt a little gross, and Heather was seriously about to faint because she was so hungry. (Don't ask me was she was so starving, JetBlue provides for you very well I thought. :) We cleaned up as much as we could in the bathroom before the bathroom cleaning lady started hmmmming and hahing that we were taking up so much space, so we left the place before putting on our make-up. Ok, I know its very fickle, but I got a little anxious about not having make-up on because Heather and I always like to dress the part of whatever adventurous places we go to, and because NYC always puts images of Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail into my mind, I was kind of thinking we would try to look cute in the city....but Heather was pretty set on NOT stopping in another bathroom before we went on with our day. That was another minor aarrgg.

Our first stop was the Today Show in Rockefeller Plaza. Thoroughly enjoyed it. We spent about a half hour, and saw the whole cast except for Anne. Katie Couric was really nice, and every bit of free time that she had she spent taking pictures with fans and signing autographs. Even though we don't agree with her ideals or values, Heather and I still felt very privileged to be able to see her in person before she quit on May 31. A very cool surprise at the Today Show was seeing Hugh Jackman (X-Men, Wolverine) in person!

When we felt like it was time to move on from the Today Show, we went in search of a good place for breakfast off of 5th Ave. We found a small place that was offering such things as bagels and egg rolls. Heather opted for the bagel, I for the egg roll. I wouldn't say I would want one again, but since I was in New York I though I should try something that is kind of unique to New York. (What is an egg roll? Basically just a roll with a scrambled egg in it.)

Next we made our way to Ground Zero. That was...I don't know if there is a word for what you feel when you look at the site now. It was a weird feeling of sorrow and anger mixed with a sense of helpless compassion because as Californian who knows no one who was immediately touched by the disaster, I feel disconnected from the sorrow in a connected kind of way. I feel diconnected because the strikes hurt real people, individuals and families, and that day will always be very personal for them and them alone. But at the same time I feel connected because the strike was not intended to be against individuals but against a nation and a cause, a cause that most of those who are parts of this country will stand up for and fight for at any moment in time. The site of the towers is HUGE. It grieves you to see the destruction - of souls, of bodies, of buildings - that went on that day.

On our way to Lady Liberty we decided to walk through the financial district. My greatest desire of that walk was to see the New York Stock exchange. In the middle of our walk we stumbled upon the site of George Washington's first inauguration as President. That was an extremely pleasant surprise!

We had to wait in line a REALLY long time in order to get onto the ferry, but Heather and I found ways to amuse ourselves, like we always do. First, I ran out of line quickly to buy an "I-Heart-NY" t-shirt....for five bucks you can't pass that traditional souvenier up. Next we started people watching. And it was that exercise that amused us for the rest of our one hour wait.

After we got onto the ferry, it was so amazing to watch Lady Liberty as we got closer and closer to her. From a large distance, it didn't really spark that much emotion in me because I've seen the statue so many times on television, movies, etc. But as we got closer and closer, and saw the Statue in all its height and glory, a huge wave of patriotism swept over me. I did listen to the ferry's recording of a woman narrating our trip to the Statue, and when she got to the part of describing the reactions of so many immigrants as they caught sight of the Statue of Liberty for the first time after their long voyage across the Atlantic, I have to admit, tears came to my eyes. They didn't last long, but my sense of patriotism lasted a really long time as I continued to gaze up at our symbol of freedom. It was really cool.


Heather and I spent about twenty minutes on Liberty Island, we fully circled the Statue of Liberty and also paid $0.25 each to get a telescope view of the NYC skyline. On the way back to the city our exhaustion caught up with us (we hadn't gotten much sleep on the plane and had been running around ever since), and so we both started nodding off on the top deck of the ferry. As we compared notes later, we realised that we were both at that REALLY SILLY stage of sleep where you fall asleep for thirty seconds and then jerk awake as you catch yourself from falling into your own lap. After we both woke ourselves up as we neared the dock, we started laughing SO HARD at what we must have looked like to onlookers, because Heather had been nodding her head up and down as she tried to keep her sleepy body stable and I had been jolting from side to side. Very funny.

We opted to go to the Empire State Building next. It was lunch time, but we didn't think we were that hungry, so we decided to skip. However, upon exiting the subway, we caught a glorious whiff of some kind of delicious edibles. We turned to where our noses were pointing us, and there was a street stand that sold hot nuts. Of course we bought some cashews to share, and I don't think I've ever enjoyed nuts as much as I did then. Yum!

The Empire State Building is huge. Overpowering, and very cool. But once I stepped inside, all the intimidation left and suddenly I was living Sleepless in Seattle. (It's funny, the whole day I felt like I new New York really well because I had met it so many times in movies.) The trip up the building was pretty much uneventful, although we did get to share an elevator with a bunch of U.S. sailors. Pretty cool, I guess. :)

Stepping out onto the observation deck was AMAZING. It was my absolute favorite site that I saw that day. And the side that pointed toward the Chrysler Building and Central Park was my favorite of all of the four sides. I really think I could have spent the whole afternoon there, just gazing, but we had a full schedule and after about fifteen minutes had to keep moving. But here is the sight that I loved:



We then decided to head for our dinner destination, Hard Rock Cafe, via Broadway and Times Square. That area was cool, but by that time my feet were aching and I couldn't get my mind off of the food I was about to experience, so I didn't come away with an overawed impression of Times Square.

Hard Rock was sooo good. It was my first time, but Heather had been often enough to know that it was one of her favorite restaurants. I chose their twisted mac 'n cheese, and after tasting that I don't think that I will ever be able to go back to the Kraft kind. It had juicy pieces of chicken and the greatest spices in addition to all the cheese. OHHHH, so good.

Ok, now another glimpse into the fickle life of Hayley....while we were waiting for our food to come Heather and I decided to take a trip to the restroom, and unbeknownst to her I brought along my makeup bag. After ten hours in metropolitan New York, I was determined to finally try and look the part. When I came out of the bathroom I confessed to Heather what I had done, and she just laughed at me.

We did not get any dessert at Hard Rock, so when we finished our entrees it was time to stand up again and begin our exploration anew. My feet were VERY cranky with me that I had allowed them only an hour to rest, and they gave me a whole bunch of trouble the rest of the night as we walked what seemed like a bazillion of miles. Our next adventure was in Central Park. All we did was walk through it a little bit, but just enough to observe little New York families letting their kids vent their energy after having had to store it up inside their little New York apartments all day. I think the whole time we were walking through the park Heather and I were both imagining what it would be like to raise a family in romantic New York. Here's me in Central Park:


Our next target was a little but very popular dessert place called Serendipity. Its a cute and romantic little cafe featured in some of our favorite movies such as One Fine Day and, of course, Serendipity. We walked probably two miles from Central Park in order to get to the place, and when we finally arrived my feet were giving me their thanks for promising rest for at least a short while. However, it was much more busy than we imagined and keeping in mind that we had to meet my mom and dad at the airport in only a few hours, we decided that it would not be prudent to endure the one and a half hour wait to get our seat. :( Poor feet. (Not to mention poor tastebuds...I got a glimpse of one of the desserts that was being served and promised myself that I WOULD come to Serendipity again at one point in my life.)


Instead of dessert at Serendipity we decided we would stop at the Lindt Chocolate store and each get a truffle, and then our last stop in the city would be the Godiva Chocolate store where we would each get one of their delicious chocolate drinks. We traveled on foot like three more miles it seemed to get to these places, on the way stopping at F.A.O. Schwarz (that popular toy store seen in movies...remember the huge piano in Big?) and probably our third Sephora for the day (Heather loves Sephora). When it was finally time to head for our last destination, the Godiva Chocolate Store, we had trouble finding it, and it was getting kind of late so I was worried about missing out on the yummy dessert. But Heather is just like a man, she will NOT stop to ask for directions. We found ourselves back in the Rockefeller Plaza area, and our eyes caught the NBC Experience store. It dawned on Heather that the store might sell The Office memorabilia, so we went inside and Heather bought an Office shirt for herself and we chipped in on a "World's Best Boss" mug for my younger brother. Thankfully Heather was able to 'lower herself' enough to ask the cashier where the Godiva store was, and he gave us good directions. So we finally made to the site of the store. Was it closed because of the late hour? It was a nail biting time as we approached to shop from the side.....fortunately for us, it was open!!! Glorious chocolate drinks.

After that, our day in the city was done. We actually looked forward to our subway trip back to the airport to meet our parents, because it meant sitting down. Well, unfortunately, the subway was much busier at that time of night than we would have imagined, so the majority of the trip we were standing. When we finally got to the airport and were traveling on the AirTram to get to the right terminal, Heather and I were kind of slap-happy and started making fun of my hair cut. I had just had it done the night before and the day in the city apparently wasn't good for the styling, so we ended up thinking I looked like Jim from The Office. Here's my Jim picture:

When the picture was over, we frantically started re-styling my hair because we realised that this would be the first time my parents would see it. So in order to avoid a "HONEY, you cut you HAIR off!" we had to make it look cute. Thankfully our efforts were a success, my parents loved the cut.

And our New York City trip was done.

Next to come, a narration of our weekend at West Point.