POSTCARD FROM HARRISBURG, PA – SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 2009

Finally!  We had a rain-free day – well, most of it anyhow!  Our group, along with about 500 others at the Holiday Inn Express enjoyed a nice breakfast in their breakfast area, and fortified, stowed all our luggage in Mr. Thorn’s and Aaron’s room, met in the lobby and all of us hit the pavement in search of H&M!  We walked up to Fifth Avenue, and then 12 blocks uptown where there was an H&M about 6 times larger than the kids are used to in Madison.  After an hour of that – and some very, very, very patient non-shoppers, Jim Dandy Driver swung the Badger Bus right up to us on W. 42^nd & 5^th Ave. where we hopped on for an express shuttle to Chinatown!

It’s Sunday, and on top of that, Father’s Day – what better reason to celebrate with the Chinese at the Golden Unicorn with dimsum!  Quite the experience, and for many of us, a first time with this celebratory meal.   I’m certain that each dish that was presented to us had a name, but except for Peking Duck, I don’t have a clue!  I would get out of the servers who came our way if it was vegetarian (but sometimes that includes shrimp!), pork, beef, or shrimp.  What troopers we had!  Each and every one of them was a good sport, tried extremely unusual and new things!  The place was packed, but man alive that host got the 40 of us seated within 10 minutes of our arrival.  That’s service!

Next onto Chinatown shopping.  Another new experience, and although I dragged your children off to a side entrance of a building, up 2 flights of stairs, down a hallway past office type rooms to a secret shop full of rip-off bags, there was no danger, but yet another adventure!  The kids were prepped with bargaining tips and not one of them left without getting a price they were happy with.  Watch for those new bags they’ll be sporting.  The third group of ours headed to Soho for some cool, extremely cool, fashions. 

Again, we had a couple of visitors to our group:  A Szalkowski cousin and a good, long time friend of mine.  Fun to catch up with them! 

We all gathered at the designated meeting spot, gave Jim a call and waited for him to come, just in time for a cloudburst.  No damage done – we were ready to go.

So, after a wonderful introduction to New York City for most of the kids, they know they can come back and fill in the blanks.  We had a swell time!  I think we’d all highly recommend the Holiday Inn Express on W. 29^th St. too!

We said goodbye to Mr. Thorn as he has to head to Germany for work.  We’ll miss him and of course his talented abilities at the computer.  Sorry to say, that’s the end of the picture part of our trip journal until he returns.  If I forget to remind you to check the website for the complete postings in a couple of weeks, make a note to do so to catch up on the final days.  I will continue to send postcards, though, so use your imagination!

We’ve arrived in Harrisburg/Hershey, will get a good night sleep, even get to sleep in a bit later tomorrow, and off for those activities.

Til next time,

Sue