One of my best friends, Melissa from Seattle, came to visit Wed night and is staying thru Sunday afternoon. Since she got here we have been going non-stop--barely stopping for sleep. Well-thats not true. We both love to sleep in so we did ok there.
Wednesday night she and I hit up the favorite East Coast department store, Century 21. They have designer fashions at a discount and we took full advantage of that discount---both scored beautiful leather jackets. We also tried on a $4K, yes $4K, skirt by Valentino that both of us found hideous...but since it was marked down to a mere $669 we thought we'd try it just in case it was the perfect fit.. ha.
Tom met us for dinner at one of our fav Italian restaurants, Pazo Pazo in Morristown, which has the best risotto ever, and we had so much fun!
On Thursday Melissa and I caught the train to the city and our adventure really began. After finding our very cool boutique hotel near Times Square, we headed to the 'half price same-day ticket sale office' for Broadway plays. As we closed in on the very long line, we were approached on the street by an honest looking young guy that had GREAT tickets for the hottest play in NY right now: Young Frankenstein. Both of us, used to negotiation as it is our profession, began basically breaking down the entire ticket right there making sure the price we were working with was valid. As we glanced to the ticket line, which didn't open until 3pm and it was already 1 30 and the line was long, we weighed our options: 1) we wait in line for probably 3 hours at a minimum to get hopefully good seats so some Broadway play for around $80 each, or 2) we risk the small amount of money he was asking for the hippest play in town and figure we are taking a risk (even theough the tickets looked very real and we negotiated the heck out of them) and the money is worth the chance for us to have 3 hours of our life back in the city as tourists...
So we did it. We bought them.
(You have to keep reading to find out if it was a go or no-go...)
After our gamble, we headed uptown towards Central Park. We shopped at some "designer fashion for less" stores, stopped at Bryant Park, window shopped at stores that we would max our credit cards out at with one purchase, ate lunch from a hot dog vendor at Rockefeller Center (checked out the skating rink that was open for skating!), took a self guided tour of the most beautiful church in America--St Patricks Cathederal and then finally made it up to Central Park.
Central Park is so beautiful! We walked and walked--yet in all only made it through about 1/3 of the park. We passed "The Pond", the "Ball fields", the skating rink and beautiful bridges. We took a break at the 'Tavern on the Green' and then got our hurt feet back on the road to head to the Metropolitan Museam of Art.
As we stopped at the "Lake" in the park, Melissa had a great idea to hire a rickshaw! The best $20 we ever spent! We rested our feet and risked our lives a bit as we traveled the wrong way on many of the NY roads dodging taxis. But it was exciting!
The MET was AMAZING! They had many exhibits but the Egyption exhibiit was the latest and greatest and----it was. We loved looking at the artifacts and then found our way to the Roman and Greek sections which were equally as great in my opinon. We will definetly go back there.
We were getting close to theater time (or not) so we needed to get back to the hotel fast. The best way: the subway. It was rush hour and the subway was everything you'd expect a NY subway to be at rush hour, but we pushed and shoved our way with the best of them and we made it back to the hotel with time to spare for a quick drink and snack at the nearby Hilton Hotel. (We had to take the Service elevator to the bar... but thats another story).
As we approached our theater for the 8 show time, we were a bit nervous, and preparing ourselves for possible disappointment---but as we cleared the ticket taker---we knew we were golden!
The play was one of the best we each had ever seen----it was amazing! We loved every second! What a deal!
I can't possibly say enough about this play--so, just go see it if you have a chance.
After the play we hailed a taxi back to the hotel and were ready to power down until we realized that it was only midnight and the Empire State Building was open until 2am, so of course we headed there for a late night viewing of NY. WOW! It was cold--and a bit windy, but so beautiful! What a day!!
Our second day in the city was filled more with shopping (soho, chinatown, Macy's-the World's biggest store) and some great time spent in Little Italy including lunch at the 1st Pizzaria in America and some spots where they filmed the Godfather. We went into a very authentic italian cheese shop, which was probably Melissa's favorite part of the trip (see pic) and a bakery with world famous canolli's.
It started to rain just as we got our cupcakes at Magnolia bakery (which made the taxi hailing especially fun as we were both drenched and standing in the middle of the street trying to hail a cab--but it was great!)
We got home at around 8 and Tom greeted us at the train station! Nice to see him of course! :-)
GREAT DAY.
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