A day in Queens

One of the reasons my Mum and I made this trip to NYC was to hang out with our American relatives. My Grandmother's sister, Dottie, married an American and has lived here since 1946. She had a daughter and now has a bunch of grandkids and great grandkids. We've been hanging out with them a lot, and today we went to visit Dottie at her house in Fresh Meadows, Queens.

Everyone kept telling us that Queens was far far away and an attempt to travel there by PT would be crazy. Really, it was fine. In fact we caught an express bus that took us right there. We collected all our quarters so we could make the bus fare.

This is Tyrone, our bus driver.

He's been driving the bus for 32 years. He gets five weeks leave per year and enjoys sunny holiday destinations like Bermuda. He dislikes laziness, and the poor driving habits of his fellow bus drivers. He also dislikes his neighbour George, but I'm not entirely sure why. I don't know whether it was because he enjoyed our conversation or didn't like the look of our pile of quarters, but he let us ride the bus free. Thanks Tyrone!

We were a little early, so we stopped off at Starbucks so I could have a coffee. I asked for a small latte, but they misheard me and gave me a tall one. Check out the size of it:

It was gross.
Anyway, when we got to Dottie's house and she had a couple of slices laid out for us:

Yes!

For the next few hours, Dottie told stories of being a war bride in NYC. The woman is seriously hilarious. Highlights included the time she told her boss what her plans for the afternoon were when he made the rhetorical statement "What are you going to do?". Turns out that she used to work at an advertising agency on Madison Avenue and if her stories are anything to go by, Mad Men is totally real.

Anyway, no story of a visit to Dottie's house would be complete without acknowledging the specialness of her bathroom. It's wallpapered with a silver and pink clam shell print.

That's the wall and the roof. It's everywhere. See?

And as if that isn't good enough, she also has a cushioned toilet seat.

So comfy.
Anyway, we had a delightful day. As we were leaving, I managed to take a snap of this novelty kitchen wall decoration.

Nyuck nyuck nyuck.
Dottie lives alone, mind you.