Our summer vacation

So, my family went to New York for our summer vacation. It was my first time there.

We took the red-eye flight on a Friday night. Figured that'd be the best way to travel with our 3year-old son, who doesn't like to sit more than a minute. So my wife and I packed up the car, grabbed the boy and headed down to Bob Hope Airport in Burbank.

We got to Burbank a little early so we could eat dinner. My son, who can't drink soda because it turns his already hyper personality into an amphetaminelike frenzy, asked for a cherry cola.

"Sure," my wife and I said. "We're on vacation. Let's live it up."

Come 10 p.m., we're boarding the flight, and our son was juiced up on sugar and caffeine, bouncing off the walls. The other passengers, who desperately wanted to sleep, were eyeing my wife and me like we had just brought an earthquake into a glass shop.

Luckily, my son fell asleep as the jet rolled down the tarmac, and everyone else was able to sleep. My son didn't even stay conscious until liftoff.

My wife fell asleep with the rest of the cabin. I, having never flown on Jetblue before, took great pleasure in watching the cable TV on the back of the seat in front of me during the duration of the flight. So much for sleeping. I paid for it later. But, oh well. I was on vacation.

The next day, we arrived in New York before most people wake up. We began exploring immediately. And we immediately saw the differences between New York and California.

Now, being the child of New York and New Jersey natives, this stuff shouldn't have been such a surprise to me. But it was. Let's take a closer look:

In New York, people are very, very straightforward.

"How are you?" you ask.

The typical New Yorker would respond, "Terrible. I've been in this heat too long. Been at this job too long. Been alive too long. Who are you?"

In California, people tell you what you want to hear.

"How are you?" you ask.

"Great," they say. Then they ask how you're doing. But by the time you answer, they're already halfway down the block.

Everything's a question in New York. Let's say a New Yorker is with someone he doesn't like.

"What am I, a jerk? Why am I with you right now? You wanna tell me?"

In California under the same circumstances, people would say, "Love to chat longer, but I'm late for a meeting, gotta go, 'bye 'bye."

And in New York, dozens of strangers touched my son- you know, patting his hair and such. One guy even dropped his cellphone and broke it in the process of patting my son on the head. "What a good boy," he said, even though he had just dropped and destroyed a $200 cellphone. In California, if a stranger patted a kid's head, he could be accused of child molestation.

One night, while strolling down Mulberry Street in Little Italy, my family came across a restaurant owner who hit it off with my son. The two of them got to talking about women, so my wife and I were prompted to dine at his establishment.

A little later, the owner came over to our table, grabbed my son and took him over to meet a group of goodlooking female customers at the other end of the room. In California, that'd be called kidnapping. But no harm done. When he came back, my son said he got a kiss from each of the girls. Mind you, all of these "girls" were over 18. In California, they'd all be on the 6 o'clock news for having kissed an underage boy.

At that same restaurant, my wife asked our waiter which he preferred, a certain seafood dish or a certain chicken dish. The waiter said he preferred neither.

My wife then asked what he'd recommend. The waiter was stumped. He had to look at the menu again to even find a dish he liked. Before he could say anything, a discussion that could've lasted the remainder of our trip, my wife said she'd have what I was having. Not a good sign. But luckily the food was great.

In California, my wife always asks waiters what they prefer. California waiters usually respond with, "Everything on the menu is excellent." Then we get the food and it's terrible.

Here's some trivia for you: Did you know that New York establishments don't have paper seat covers in their restrooms? Not cool.

And Big Apple restaurants don't use a lettered rating system like we have in Los Angeles, where an establishment's cleanliness grade- A or B for example- is posted on the front window. We probably went to at least three places that deserved a D rating. That's another not cool.

Let's talk about driving:

In New York, people consider their horn as important as- if not more important than- the gas or brake pedals. They can't drive two car lengths without honking.

In California, drivers are told to drive with their hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel. In New York, motorists keep one hand at 10 and the other on . . . the horn.

But one thing's for sure- people move fast in New York regardless of the driving conditions. Coming from the land of rubberneckers, I was in heaven.

As for what my family saw in New York, we submerged ourselves in nontourist places, which is how we discovered the city's heart.

We did check out the usual stuff- the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty. My son actually found the seaweed around Liberty Island more engaging than the statue. The uncultured swine.

We also had to see the site of the 9/11 memorial, where the Twin Towers once stood. During the whole vacation, the three of us were very talkative, especially my son, whose chatter sometimes blends into the background noise because it's so constant.

But when we got to Ground Zero, we all became quiet. And we didn't have any family pep talk ahead of time, saying we'd be quiet and respectful. We just all stopped talking. Even my son. Seeing that hole in the city was very sad.

When it was time to head back home to California, we were ready. It's like that lyric from a Frank Sinatra song:

"It's very nice to go trav'ling to Paris, London and Rome

It's oh, so nice to go trav'ling, but it's so much nicer, yes, it's so much nicer to come home."

But I do have to admit I'm going through a little postpartum depression. Just writing this column makes me depressed. I'm ready for another vacation. Anyone wanna take me on theirs?

E-mail Michael Picarella at pic@nappic.com.