Girls Gone BROADWAY!

Bate your breath no more – here is my NYC blog!

Back in January, my mom decided she would like to take a girls’ trip to NYC for her 60^th birthday. We started checking prices and found a really great day for our flights and hotel. We flew out early Thursday, May 13 and came home the following Sunday. There were eight total in our group – my mom, her bff, bff’s sister, my aunt, my sister, my s-i-l, Miss A and me. It may seem daunting to travel with a group that size,  but it worked out great when we wanted to see different things. We could easily split into groups of 4 or 5 & 3 and safely see the sights.

Thursday

We landed in NYC at about 1:30 and took a limo to the hotel. Miss A thought that was way too cool – mostly the neon lights and “starry” ceiling. We arrived at our hotel a little before check-in. If there was one disappointment in the trip, it was that the hotel information we had was deceiving at best. The pictures online made it appear to be right on Times Square – literally next to the theater hosting The Lion King…in all actuality, it was 3 blocks west and 2 blocks north. Not a ruiner by any stretch, but it did make us more aware of our surroundings since the area was far less crowded than we anticipated. When we checked in, we requested lower floor rooms – which turned out to also be a good idea. They had two elevators and 35 floors. One elevator broke Friday afternoon and was not fixed by the time we left Sunday. In order to get our luggage downstairs, I went to the first floor (stairs) and rode the elevator up to come back down. My s-i-l asked how I planned to keep people from joining me in the elevator car. I promised to fake a rash or fever if that’s what it took. Thankfully, it didn’t come down to that.

We had lunch at a little sandwich shop around the corner, went back and got our bags situated, then boarded the subway to Ground Zero. When I was there 2 years ago, there were still some makeshift memorials standing as well as displays of the memorials that were being designed. This time, they had moved everything to a building a block over. They also had set up a separate tribute area, but it had an admission fee. Since Miss A is 6, she didn’t have any concept of 9-11 and what happened that day, nor did she need to know all of that at this point. So I walked her through the memorial, but we focused on the souvenirs and building plans more than we did the video and stories. The last thing she needed was another reason to not be a fan of flying (ear popping was not fun for her!).

After visiting the WTC site, we worked our way up to Canal Street and Chinatown. Our mission – bags and watches. Apparently, there has been a major crackdown on this as we had a hard time getting people to share their wares with us. One guy had watches, but he got mad at the middleman we were working through and ran off shouting expletives. We did manage to go into a secret-knock room. I found a few purses and bought watches for a friend. It’s such a rush to be there and shopping “underground.”

We had decided to have dinner in Chinatown before we got there, and all of our covert shopping worked up quite an appetite. We found a place that others recommended for their noodle bowls and went in. Of course, none of us ordered noodles. We ordered super adventurous stuff like sweet and sour chicken, egg rolls, fried rice and general sao’s chicken. It was all really good and Miss A and I excitedly utilized our chopsticking skills.

With full bellies, we got back on the subway to head to the hotel via Times Square. Times Square is truly breathtaking at night when it is all lit up. After a good night’s sleep, we were ready for day two.

Friday

We purchased 3-day hop-on/hop-off bus tour tickets. These tickets included admission to the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty and a few other things. The nice part is that the tour is designed to be at your own pace. If you came to a stop you wanted to explore, you got off, spent time there and then waited for the next bus. We got off at the Empire State Building first. After we made our way to the elevator – they told us visibility was only 2 miles. This was a total bummer and had we known sooner, we would have probably aimed to do it on Saturday. But it felt too late to turn back so we went on up. Even with fog, the view was spectacular. Sadly, due to the fog, my pictures don’t do it much justice.

From there, we headed to Battery Park to get on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Our tickets did not provide monument access (another thing we wished we’d known ahead a time – for this to not be our first trip, we still have learning to do!). The Statue of Liberty is such an incredible monument. I am awestruck each time I see it. Ellis Island is more of a reverent tribute (in my opinion) to those who wanted to be Americans no matter the cost. It’s humbling to see how many people still feel this way and immigrate here while knowing how many of us take it for granted.

After getting back to the “mainland” (though still an island), we split our group up. The more adult half wanted to take the night tour and see the city lit up while the younger half wanted to visit Dylan’s Candy Bar and do a little uptown shopping. Dylan’s Candy Bar is quite an experience. It’s three floors of nothing but candy. Chocolate, gummies, fudge, international, domestic, you dream it they have it – gummy bras included! We loaded up way more than we needed but had a blast looking at it all. The stairs are illuminated to appear as if they are filled with gummy candy. They had a huge claw foot tub full of gumballs. And the bathroom had wallpaper resembling the wallpaper in the original Willy Wonka – though we resisted taking a taste. The third floor was a café/sundae bar and we skipped it knowing we needed something more nutritious than ice cream for dinner (darn being an adult!).

From there we headed to H&M to check it out, walked into Bloomingdale’s (long enough to utilize their facilities) and then headed back to Times Square for dinner at Hard Rock Café.  At this point, we were all more worn out than we realized – my poor niece fell asleep  while we waited for our food!  We had quite a walk ahead of us and we were trying to figure out how to get a sleepy girl there without a fight.  As we waited for my sister to check out – I saw salvation in the form of a bike taxi.  I asked the guy how far he went and he asked where we were headed.  I gave him the address of our hotel, warned him there were four of us and he said he could do it.  So we loaded up and off we went.  At points he seemed to struggle a bit and my s-i-l kept apologizing.  Finally, A (who woke up in a good mood – miracle!) said, “Momma, he got this.”  I tipped the guy the same price as the fare and I kid you not when I say it was the best money I spent the whole trip.

Saturday

We got up, walked down the stairs and headed to Rockefeller Center for our Today show debut.  We waved and hollered as the cameras panned the outside audience.  Then, while in “story” mode, my sister, s-i-l and I headed to Dean and Deluca for drinks and breakfast.  Of course, while we were waiting there, the Today show interviewed a couple near our sign and the rest of our group made it onto the show.  I’m good with missing that though.

 

(Mr. Cantore – see how good I’d look in your jacket?)

We took quite a few pictures and shopped the NBC store before heading uptown on the bus to Strawberry Fields.  This is the memorial site in Central Park for John Lennon.  It’s really neat.  There’s a guy who has been decorating the site with flowers arranged in a peace sign everyday for nine years.  He works for donations (lots of folks on the  streets do).  We had a hot dog lunch in the park before heading back to the hotel to refresh. 

Once we’d freshened up, the 5 us (mom, s-i-l, sister, niece and me) went to see Mary Poppins.  It was really good!  There was a lady in front of us who was a total anti-bac overuser and that was entertaining in and of itself.  After the show, we went to the American Girl store where my best friend, Jason and his girlfriend, Melissa met us. 

We put my mom in a taxi to meet the others in our group to see Wicked.  And then we were off…we walked through Times Square just hanging out and enjoying the sites.  We had dinner at Junior’s – they are famous for their cheesecakes and it was delicious.  A was sweetly jealous of the attention I gave Jason – she was all in my lap and loving on me the whole time.  She’s normally sweet, but this was to the extreme (though I still enjoyed it!).  We saw a group where an older man was wearing an Aggie cap – so I stopped to say hi on my way to the bathroom and of course ended up talking to them for awhile.

It was a great night of souvenir scavenging and laughing/talking with Jason and Melissa.  I’m so glad they were able to come up and hang out with us.  They were troopers as we walked all over looking for 7 for $10 t-shirts and when A and I rode the ferris wheel inside Toys R Us.  By about 10:30/11 though, we were done for the day.  They headed back to PA and we headed to bed.

Sunday

We pretty much just flew home this day.  All in all, it was a wonderful trip!