January in New York

I found myself working in New Jersey twice in January this year. When I’m there I try to make it over to Manhattan for museums and shopping, but this time I visited Brooklyn for the first time. Meeting up with a friend who grew up there he laughed at the fact that I picked Williamsburg, since he doesn’t consider it real Brooklyn. Next time I’m out East with nice weather I’ll try to make it further into Brooklyn.

I Heart NYC but…

Traveling Through 2012

Despite my lack of updates, I managed to take quite a few trips this year. Only a few were non-work related but I try my best to spend a little time in each city I visit. Both St. Louis and Detroit trips were in and out in one day, but I always arrange extra time in New York and D.C.

Who knows what sort of travel is in store for me in 2013, but I hope for at least one international trip. I’m still toying with the idea of biking around Iceland but, for now, all I know is I’ll be visiting New York and Atlanta.

January: Washington D.C.

Air and Space Annex Museum at Dulles Airport, Virginia

February: St. Louis

Daytrip to St. Louis

March: Virginia, Syracuse

Small plane from D.C. to Syracuse

We had Dinosaur BBQ twice in Syracuse

Cartwheeling at work in Syracuse

April: NYC, Jersey City

Manhattan by air

Visiting with Sema (who I last saw in Kyrgyzstan), cartwheeling on the High Line

Jersey City sunset

May: NYC, Jersey City

Afternoon spent in parks and museums in NYC

Have I mentioned how much I love the New York High Line?

I managed to get my client to go with a Star Trek theme this trip

Chicago Twilight

July: Washington D.C., Detroit

Modern art, including “The Art of the Video Game” exhibition, in D.C.

Museum hopping and seeing friends in D.C.

My first time in Detroit – one day in the suburbs

August: Denver

My first ever overcast day in Denver, visiting my sister

September: Connecticut, Houston

Connecting flights to Connecticut

Sunrise on the way to Houston

November: Sydney, Pittsburgh

Who knew Sydney was so gorgeous? I can’t wait to go back.

My time in Sydney was way too short, and the flight way too long with no TV in my seatback

SYD > LAX > ORD > PIT

A dreary first visit to Pittsburgh, testing the limits of my carryon with a 16-day trip

I finally reached the lowest level of status on United, halving my boarding number and scoring me an exit row

December: Boston

Business trips to Boston mean cookie cutter hotels and plenty of lobster

Boston’s topography is totally different than I thought

Flying home to Chicago for the last time in 2012

Jersey City Cartwheel

The “Where I Slept” series will return, I promise. In the meantime I’ve been working and recently spent a week in New Jersey. Despite walking by a PATH station to NYC twice a day I never made it to Manhattan. However, I did manage a new cartwheel in front of the financial district and new “Freedom Tower” under construction.

Jersey City Cartwheel by Mary Scanlan Smith

All I Could Jet 2010

After more than 39 hours in the air and nearly 19,000 miles flown across 15 flights I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of Jet Blue’s All You Can Jet promotion. With that much flying I had the in-flight commercials memorized and had no problem deciding what snacks to choose (plantain chips are interesting but you can’t go wrong with the Munchies Mix).

I touched down in eight states and three countries over the course of 29 days this fall. Although it could be argued that this promotion is environmentally irresponsible, I’ve been consoling my guilt by remembering that these flights would have left even without the additional AYCJ passengers. You can see my route below—highlights were definitely Washington D.C. and Colombia but I enjoyed seeing family, friends and sights in all of my destinations.

All You Can Jet Layovers at JFK

There is a reason I haven’t flown jetBlue before—it has very few direct flights from Chicago. I’ve already connected through Boston and New York a number of times and I will admit that the jetBlue terminal at JFK is gorgeous. I certainly didn’t mind waiting for an hour surrounded by modern design, an extraordinary number of electrical outlets and free wifi. If I have my choice of connections in the future I’m definitely choosing JFK.

NYC for a Day

Originally I planned to spend a day in Baltimore and fly to Chicago in the late morning. Once I decided to spend that day in D.C. another plan presented itself—New York City. Although this trip was meant to be about seeing new places flying out of Dulles gave me the option to connect through JFK instead of Boston. The friend I was staying with was flying out early in the morning so everything fell into place and I switched myself to a 6am flight to JFK.

I needed to get back to Chicago that night for the Meet, Plan, Go! talk the following day but flying through New York allowed me almost 14 hours before my connecting flight to Chicago. After checking my bag for the day in the international terminal I took the metro into the city. I’ve been to NYC a few times so the aim of my day was not to visit Times Square or Central Park, but just to walk around and take in the city for the day.

My first stop was the new High Line Park, one thing that has opened since my last visit. It was beautifully designed with modern architecture, native plantings and great spaces to sit and eat a bagel. Coincidently, David happened to be in NYC for the week and although we had just spent time together in D.C. we decided it would be funny to meet up in a 5th city. He was aghast that I had never had dim sum so we made our way to Chinatown for my first dim sum experience. If I could eat party appetizers for every meal I would so I instantly loved the concept of dim sum. Women in orange uniforms wheeled carts full of steaming food around us and we chose what we felt like at the moment—everything from shrimp dumplings to custard deserts.

Most museums were closed the day I was in town so after a bit of shopping and a beer with David we said goodbye and I headed back to JFK for my flight home. If you’d like to see more, I’ve added a few photos from my day in New York to my gallery here.