I Heart New York!

I'm sitting here, agonizing over where to begin. How about at the beginning?

L and I left on Wednesday morning-ish, drove to New Jersey, left my car at some great friends' house, took the train to Penn Station, hopped on the Subway, and somehow found ourselves in the heart of New York City! (Or, if you're cool, "the City")

I've only been in the City (hey, I'm cool) once before for a day. I was a little nervous about navigating, but I just tapped into my inner City Girl. We tooled around like locals, throwing around words like "four blocks west" and "uptown". [Okay, technically, it was some tooling, with a little dumb luck thrown in there.]

The best thing we did was to stay in the City... and I do mean IN the city. Our hotel was about five blocks from Times Square and two blocks from the theaters we went to. It was great to be right there and not have to waste time going in and out of the City every day.

.... On Broadway ....

I wasn't willing (or able) to pay $135 to buy a ticket ahead of time online. So, we took a chance and went to the walk-up, same-day, half-price ticket booth (how's that for three hyphenated words in a row?!) I thought we would be in line for at least an hour, but we got tickets for Mamma Mia in about fifteen minutes.

Mamma Mia was a typical Broadway show-- lots of music, costumes, choreography, etc. Sometimes over the top, sometimes nonsensical, but really fun. Whenever I see a live show, I'm always mesmerized by the performers' abilities.

There's nothing like seeing a Broadway show... it's definitely a typical NYC thing to do....


--- Times Square ---

.... Especially when you combine it with walking out of the theater at 10:00PM, right into the bustle and lights and flair that is Times Square. Who thought just walking around could be so cool? Unless you've been to Times Square at night, I'm not sure you can understand it. There's just something amazing about it-- the billboards, the lights, the people, the cabs, the giant pictures, the restaurants, the stores, the pedicabs, the languages you hear, the screens, etc. An unforgettable experience for sure. It's weird to see everything so alive so late at night.


In fact, L and I loved the Broadway + Times Square experience so much that she treated me to another show (for my birthday) the next night! We went to the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. This was a different sort of show-- still a musical, but absolutely HILARIOUS. I laughed and laughed and laughed. It was a smaller theater and they had four audience members comes up to play parts. What an awesome birthday present! Thanks, L!!!

Multi-Cultural City

L and I heard so many languages in NYC- we were amazed. On Thursday, we took a jaunt down to Chinatown and Little Italy. Chinatown didn't quite meet our expectations-- it was dirty and smelly and basically full of vendors selling knock-off purses. BUT! We did have some awesome Chinese food in Chinatown so all was not lost!! :)

Little Italy was absolutely what I expected-- full of quaint little Italian restaurants, friendly people speaking Italian, Italian men calling you beautiful to try to get you to come into their restaurants. We were too full from our Chinese food to have Italian food, so I suppose we'll have to go back! :)


On The Avenue... Fifth Avenue

We hopped over to 5th Avenue, and after walking for what seemed like MILES, we ended up at FAO Schwartz-- this unbelievable toy store. I should have taken a picture of the giant rocking horse that was over $5,000. Do people actually buy that stuff? I couldn't imagine taking a kid in there-- I'd be afraid they'd keel over from the sheer amount of toys in one place. I confess the nieces take priority now when buying souvenirs. There was no lack of choices in FAO Schwartz, just a serious lack of funds. I couldn't believe how much some of the toys cost!!


My New York Attitude

L and I wanted to visit Serendipity, the quaint little restaurant made famous by at least one movie and their frozen hot chocolate. We tried to get in Thursday afternoon, but the wait was an hour and a half. We decided to try to make a reservation for the next day, which also didn't work. Our last option was to try to walk in, so we arrived at Serendipity at 11:00AM on Friday morning. The restaurant didn't open until 11:30AM, so we just decided to walk down the street and come back.

When we came back, there was quite a crowd bunched together. We walked to the other side of the restaurant, away from the crowd, and waited. They first called in those with reservations, which wasn't really that many people. Then, all the walk-ins were called in. I had sauntered over toward the door and went in with the first wave. As we were walking in the door, I heard "There's a line!!" behind me. :) Maybe it wasn't the nicest thing to do, but we were in New York and starving and had been there before all those other people. L thought it was quite funny, but she was grateful that we didn't have to wait at all. Don't worry, all the other people in line got a table as well, so I didn't have to worry about someone trying to hurt me on my way out. :)

As a side note, the maitre d' was the SNOBBIEST, most RUDE person I have ever seen. He acted like every one of us was an imposition and he was so bored with us all. I wanted to say, "Hey buddy, all these inconvenient customers are paying your salary!"


House Of Wax

Madam Tussaud's was one of the places I specifically wanted to visit, and it turned out to be the most disappointing. The building had nine floors and I assumed all the floors would have exhibits, but only three floors and the lobby had wax figures on display.

Seeing a wax figure is an eerie experience, I must admit. First of all, you're not sure it's a person or a wax figure. Then, it's strange to think you're seeing a "celebrity". And finally, when you walk up to them, you expect them to come alive and freak you out.

The Park in the Middle

We strolled through Central Park on Friday-- the day of perfect weather! L had her portrait drawn (though not a very good one!) and I people-watched at the Mecca of People Watching. I understand now why people love Central Park so much. It's just a beautiful oasis of trees, water, grass, sky, and space in the desert of concrete, asphalt, confinement, and steel.


As you can probably tell, this was a GREAT TRIP! I had so much fun!!! I was practically jumping up and down, and I know I said to L more than once, "I am so happy to be here!" We saw and did so much more than I thought we would.

I'll post again with other details, but wanted to give you an idea of some of the things we did. I'm trying to add pictures, but it won't let me, so I will try to add them later.

- JP -