♫ "New York, New York!" ♫ Part 2 - Getting off the plane - Or - The misadventures of finding Penn Station

Hello again! :) I hope to not put you to sleep as easily as that first post most asuredly did.
I last left off when I was in the air to NYC. Once landing in Newark Liberty International Airport (yeah, say that 5 times fast! LOL) debarking from the plane and finding my luggage was a breeze. Walked right to it like my husband had shown me how back at DIA. So to make things easier in my opinion, I decided to look up @BeCullen's flight as well, so I could just get my luggage, go wait the 4 hours there at the airport at her baggage claim and when she got off the plane it would be easy breezy and we would be on our way. What you really need to understand at this point is it is 5:30am NYC time. I am from CO, so to me it really feels like 3:30am and at this point I have been awake for 23.5 hours with no sleep and a hella lot of stress. I actually thought I was doing pretty good. I was able to find a coffee place, freshen up in the restroom and sit on my luggage at baggage claim 4 - where the Charolette baggage was coming at 9:30am.
As I was sitting there daydreaming on and off and reading while also having my headphones in listening to the iPod, this damn pigeon - which, yes! is inside the airport - keeps dive bombing me.

JFC the first time it happened it scared the bejesus out of me and I literally screamed - out loud! I'm thinking this must be a common occurance because the 4 or so people that I did see around me, who had uniforms on so I assumed worked there, just kind of looked at me and went about their business. After a while the bird just sort of wandered around on the ground.
Well, 9:30 comes around and I get a text from @BeCullen
"Plane just landed"
Cool, I told her I was waiting at baggage claim 4 and would keep an eye out for her. When I got off my plane it took me roughly 5 minutes to get to baggage claim. So at 9:40, I texted :
Me - "where are you?"
Be - "right around the corner"
Me - "Okay, see you in a few"
Be - "where are you"
Me - "at baggage claim 4"
Be - "it says my luggage is at carousel 10"
Me - "really?"
Be - "yes"
Me - "okay, I'll come down to 10"
So I bebop my way down the luggage carousels and come to 9 and it stops. What? Where's 10? So I ask an attendant, where is Baggage Claim 10? He proceeds to ask me if it was an international flight. I know Charolette may seem like another country, but no, it is in fact part of the US. He told me there was no "10" that they stop at 9 for Continental.
So I look at the little arrival/departure board and clear as day says baggage claim 4. I call Be this time and tell her it can't be 10 there is no 10 and there is a piece of luggage just waiting for her at carousel 4.
She was like, "Well, I don't know where you are, but I'm at baggage claim 10 and have my luggage with me"
LOL - Turns out she did not fly in on Continental - which if I would have READ and REMEMBERED her email she sent me with her flight information, it clearly stated that she flew in on United Airways. In terminal A. I was sitting for 4 HOURS in terminal C waiting for her. SMFH
I had to find and take the train to terminal A which once I figured all of that out it took me about 25 minutes to get to her. I was never so happy to see anyone in a very long time!
Once we get out hugs, kisses, hellos, nice to meet you's, and the how was your flight's out of the way we try to get our bearings to see where we need to go and call @zeewriter to tell her that we have landed and are on our way to Penn Station.
So, after some bumbling around and talking with a really sweet foriegn family, we found our way to the New Jersey Transit train that would take us to Penn Station and get boarded. We couldn't find a seat anywhere so are kind of standing in the middle where people come aboard and get off. Standing there it was really hard to hear which stops are which, but we heard what we thought they said was Penn Station and asked a guy standing next to us and he said "Yes, this is the Penn Station stop" so we book it off the train. Umm, we look around and see nothing but platform. It looks nothing like a "station" at all, just a platform with some doors, so I decide we should go into one of the doors and ask someone. We lug our huge luggage bags down a flight of stairs and ask a lady behind a pizza counter if this is the NY Penn Station. No, this is the New Jersey Penn Station (who knew there was 2 stations named Penn Station? LOL), so we have to lug our luggage back up the stairs and get back on the train to get to the NY side.
We see a train coming and are about to get on when we hear that it is for Washington D.C. Nope, not our train. Thank God @BeCullen was paying attention! LOL I would have us going clear across the country! :)
Finally we get back on the correct train, and make our way to getting to Penn Station - the NY Penn Station that is.
Once we are off we call @zeewriter and let her know we are there. A few minutes later - there she is! Our best tour guide ever and I was sooo happy to finally see/meet her in person!
She is just as cute and petite as she seems in her twitter pictures.

As we walked out of Penn Station it dumped us out right at Times Square/Madison Square Garden! 

 
And that's when the real adventure began!

Part 3 - NEW YORK, NEW YORK - THE ADVENTURE!