The Zereps

On Monday night, Candice, my dad, and I took a trip to Staten Island. I thought it would be a smooth trip, but boy was I wrong. First of all, the stupid trains skipped about 5 stops through Manhatten and Brooklyn. After we got off that train to go back to downtown Manhatten, that train also skipped the stop we wanted to go to, Whitehall St–where the free Staten Island ferry leaves from. We then waited and took the same train going back the other direction, and that time it didn’t skip our Stop. So we finally made it there. The ferry is supposed to leave on an hourly schedule on the half hour starting at 9pm. We had originally tried to catch the 9:30pm ferry but by the time we tracked and back-tracked to our stop it was closer to 10:00pm. So, we waited for the 10:30pm ferry in the terminal.. Waited and waited. Then, to our surprise we hear an announcement over the intercom telling us that the 10:30pm ferry will be 10 minutes late–OK, fine 10 more minutes…that’s not too bad right? But we did need to catch a ferry back to Manhatten, so we wondered if this would make us miss our connection back, so we asked one of the security personnel and he said it was the same ferry, so there were no problems–right. We took the 25 minute ferry to Staten Island at 10:40pm. We arrived a little bit after 11:05pm. The ferry itself was enjoyable–we got a nice view of the city skyline and the Statue of Liberty at night. So we arrive in the island and expect to be able to leave right away–uh huh. We then hear another announcement disclaiming that the next ferry off the island wouldn’t be until 12:00 midnight–great. So we waited and waited until midnight, sitting in the terminal waiting for our ride back, eating snacks from the snack bar, and reading, talking, whatever to pass the time. OK. So, 12 midnight rolls around, we get on a smaller ferry with more people on it than the first–lots of noisy, noisy people. It’s midnight, and it’s louder that it is in the daytime. The ride back was nice, but loud, but we make it back to Manhatten–excellent. We then make our way back to the subway station we came from only to find out that that there are no uptown trains operating from there (which incidently is what we need to get back home.) So we go to another station, wait, and wait, and wait, and then take a different train back to Times Square, where the transfer to the train we needed originally is. So, we get to Times Square and by this time its around 1:30am or so. The noisy, annoying teenagers and 20-somethings are getting back from their night of holiday weekend partying. Then we wait, and wait, and wait, and wait for the uptown train that we should have gotten where we first started coming back at Stanwell st. Finally, around 2am our passage back to Astoria arrives in all it’s silver splendor and takes us back to the place we call home. Luckily, since my dad is here, we had a car waiting for us to save us from the additional 1-mile treck from the subway stop to our house. Finally, we got to our abode around 2:30am and promply crashed. Today, it’s Coney Island…. and we’re taking the car.

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