cant find days 1-3, startin with 4 harharhar

I took a 4-day hiatus from writing while we visited all our relatives these past few days. On Tuesday, we biked from my grandma gloria's house in seaford long island to my grandpa jack's house in queens, ny. he took us to lunch at the cross bay diner, which is the only place we ever really go, and a short burst of rain passed over while we were eating and hangin out with gramps. it stopped around 5 just as we were ready to leave... good karma. biking toward manhattan was cool because we could just watch it looming ever closer as we approached it for about 10 miles. it didn't look as intimidating as it normally does, not as imposing for some reason. we sang the 59th street bridge song while we thought we were crossing the 59th street bridge (also called the queensboro bridge). we thought we had the right to comment on how ugly the bridge was and how we couldn't understand why anyone, let alone 2 people as great as simon and garfunkel, would write a song about it. turns out we were just on a bridge that approaches the 59th street bridge, which ended up being much more legit and actually crossing over water (we seem to have forgotten about that on the other bridge hahaha).we biked over to central park and i got to travel through it for the first time, in my memory at least, which we all know is faulty. it is huge and peaceful and definitely has a totally out-of-the-city feel to it. we crossed thru it and came out on the west side, where phil's uncle marvin lives at 100th street. it is a super nice neighborhood and we decided not to even take the wheels/seat posts off our bikes overnight. phil even accidentally left a bag with a lot of his valuables on marvin's neighbor's windowsill, but it was left untouched from about 7pm to 11pm and it was even unzippered the whole time hahaha ridiculous.marvin's apt. is basically a museum sitting on top of a synagogue. he has collected more cameras, clocks, artwork, model cars, photos, etc than he can fit in the apt anymore. he loves to drink orangeade, the closest thing to orange juice without potassium (he only has one kidney and he can't have potassium). he showed us old photos and told lots of stories... let's just say he's a ladies' man who has traveled far and wide, maybe had a 2-day affair with a supermodel, you know things like that.the next marnin we biked over the George Washington bridge, which is absolutely ginormous yet still shakes and sways a bit with all the traffic and the wind. i guess that's what bridges are supposed to do but it still makes you feel a bit uncomfortable. we stopped in the middle to look around... on our left was a really good view of the cityscape, to the right the hudson river, behind us the bronx, in front of us NJ. we had to carry our bikes and all our shit up and down a lot of stairs, but i think i'm stronger for it.it started to rain as we got into nj and weaved our way across the random streets that google maps recommended pedestrians should take. it was my 1st taste of biking in the rain and it really wasn't that bad. we went to dunkin donuts for the 2nd time on the trip, which has by now led to a 3rd time since yesterday was national donut day. got to phil's house around 4.... his parents are wicked nice and it has been really good just chillin here for 3 days. i went to my cousins' house one night in scotch plains which was wicked fun and got to see julia's chorus conert, which she was wicked enthused about, and borrow her pants which fit me so comfortably that i was wicked enthused too. their dog benji is a job and a half to manage and so is their 11 year old dog Murphy nowadays because he is so sick, but they seem not to mind each other and they're both good dogs in entirely opposite ways.on friday i met phil's grandma, Omi, who used to be a pediatrician, but is now 86. she is still on top of her game though, that's for sure. now it is saturday, one week from the day i started. and we're off to philly WOOHOO!