Globe Corner Blogs

My parents had never been to New York City. I am not sure why, I guess that it just seemed too far away from the state of Washington and being small business owners they never had enough time to get away except for a long weekend. However, my parents are now retired and apparently have spent a lot of time discovering the joys of HBO On Demand and catching up on the TV show Sex and the City.  My Mom loves the show so much that her only request for her birthday trip to New York City was to on on the Sex and the City Tour. Well, that and to see the Statue of Liberty.

Since I was put in charge of planning the trip for us,  I started to figure out where we could dispose of my father while we went on the tour and when I discussed the possibilities with Mom the conversations went a little like this:

“So Dad can sit at a cafe and read the newspaper while we go on the tour,” I said.

“Oh no!” said my Mom. “Buy him a ticket too.”

“But Mom, Dad doesn’t want to go on the Sex and the City Tour,” I protested.

“Your Father probably won’t even realize that he is on a Sex and the City Tour,” was the curt reply.

“But Mom, he will be on a bus of women, looking at shoe stores and drinking cosmos. He might figure it out. Did you ask him what he wants to do? ”

“He never asked me if I wanted to spend my time looking at Civil War sites across the South. Or go on a golfing vacation in Florida. (Mom hates golf.) He will be fine. Besides, if we leave him alone for 4 hours he will get lost and we will never see him again. Buy the tickets.”

So I bought the tickets for the Sex and City Tour, and mentally tried to prepare for the trip. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE the show and was eager to go on the tour. But then I started to think about some of the places that we would visit, and I realized that I did not want to go to see where Charlotte bought her “rabbit” with my father. It just seemed kind of icky and I got a little nervous. I really did not want to go to an adult toy shop with my dad.

However the tour itself was absolutely fabulous and took us to a lot of the show’s locations. Anyone who enjoyed the show will love the tour, but maybe not with their Dad along for the ride. It was a bus full of fifty women, four guys looking to shop, and my dad.  While he was adjusting his hearing aids, the tour guide even said “Oh, honey…this isn’t the Soprano’s tour!” But my father was a good sport about the whole thing and even though he looked a bit out of place, he was savvy enough to  point to a street and exclaim “Hey! That’s where Carrie got mugged and the guy stole her strappy sandals!”

But he joined in on all the sights and events: enjoyed eating cupcakes at the Magnolia Bakery, bought my mom a Cosmo (he opted for a beer), laughed at all of the video clips from the show, and looked at a lot of shoe stores in the Meat Packing District. Mom and I had a great time too…and then while we were still slightly buzzed from the cocktails and on a sugar high we headed off into the sunset to get a great view of the Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry.

Read more: Eastern US, New York City, Sex and the City, Touring with the Parents, Tours, Travel, Women's Travel


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