Day 2.1: Morning in Manhattan

We woke up to a beautiful view of the skyline and the river. Checking in so late last night, all we saw was lights.

Since we were up late opening presents, we had a lazy morning getting ready to get out to the city.

My first order of business was adding money to our MetroCards. After all these years of coming to NYC, I think I finally understand the system behind the MetroCard machines. The key thing, which we didn't realize until probably our last trip, was that you can only do two transactions on the same credit card at one time. Plus, (for reasons I don't understand) each card has to be a separate transaction. So in the past, we'd update two cards and then go into a panic when we couldn't do another. Now we know.

I would absolutely love it if, one day, I added money to a card and it asked, "Would you like to add money to another card?" One day, I guess. So, this time I had everything in a different pocket (wallet, cards) and worked like a machine to update all three cards. My only hiccup was after I did the first card, I accidentally put it in the same pocket as the remaining two. When I went to do the next card, I wasn't sure which one was the one I'd just done. Luckily, the machine gives you the balance first, so sure enough, I'd picked the card I'd just done. I swapped it out, updated the other (knowing this time to switch credit cards in between), and answered questions from the people behind who were trying to learn. Just paying it forward.