Weekend in the City

This past weekend the husband and I took a trip to NYC. I have not been in about 14 years and James has NEVER been so we decided a trip was in order. Here is a list of what he hoped to accomplish and what we actually accomplished:

1. visit 9/11 memorial
2. see a show
3. go to the top of the empire state building
4. have a wonderful dinner
5. go on a tour of NBC
6. visit the Today show during taping
7. shop
8. visit Central Park
9. see someone famous 
10. buy fake Uggs (my list not James)

So our adventure began Friday night when we drove down to Conn to spend the night closer to the train station. It was going to take about 3.5 hours to get there and a little more than halfway we decided to pull off the highway to find something to eat. Mainly because I was beginning to get delirious and hungry and Kim do not go well together. We can across a cute little pizza restaurant that I wish we could pick up and move closer to home. I must say they had the BEST sangria. 

At Napoli's! Please don't pay attention to the no make up extremely tired look.

Amazing pizza

We were up bright and early Saturday morning, made it on the 8:45 train and we were in NYC before 10. After exiting Grand Central Station and turning around 3 times, we made our way to Times Square, dropped off our luggage and began exploring. However I did have to do a little convincing to have the front desk employee to upgrade our room so that we were facing Times Square, score! I must say we did a LOT of walking over our short visit. I think my feet will be sore for a few days but we saw a lot. I squeezed in some shopping before heading over to NBC for a tour. On our tour we got to witness some of the SNL cast practicing their skits for the show that night which was pretty exciting.

Hanging with Matt before the tour

 Following the tour I came across a bakery, Magnolia Bakery, that had a line out the door and around the corner. I immediately knew if the line was that long I had to have some. When I finally made it inside it was hard to decide what to get, and I don't do well making decisions under pressure, but it seemed everyone else was going for the cupcakes, so I followed their lead and decided with red velvet and a snickerdoodle. These cupcakes were the most unbelievable cupcakes I have ever had. The frosting was so light and complemented the cake perfectly. My plan was to have one right away and the other after dinner. Well they were both gone in about 30 seconds. Hello self control. 

A little blurry and they were gone before I could take another

After finishing up a bit more shopping and walking to the empire state building we finally got to our room at about 4 and I was in some serious need of relaxation. Unfortunately with so much stuff to do we only got to rest for about 45 minutes before we were out the door again. This time we were heading up to the 46th floor to the revolving restaurant for a pre dinner cocktail. The cocktail was so delicious I could have had at least 4 but at 18 bucks a pop, I limited myself to 1. The revolving restaurant was a great idea but I can't say I am a fan of revolving while drinking even at a slow speed.

View from our hotel room at the Marriott

At the revolving restaurant!

View from the restaurant

After cocktails we headed out to the "Strip House" (funny story, I made the reservation under James' email address so when he saw the confirmation he was trying to figure out why a strip club was emailing him, no hunny just steaks) I went with the 8oz filet and James the 15oz bone in filet. The steak was amazingly tender and had great flavor, but we both had the same complaint, too salty. I am not sure why but our steaks were drenched in salt, too much salt for our liking but that didn't stop either of us from clearing our plates. I felt like I was going to have to be rolled out the front door. 

Found this guy out front and had to snatch a pic

During the day while we were out walking we were stopped by one of the street vendors selling tickets for a comedy show that evening. I am so skeptical of street vendors and really hate them but at the time we had no plans for the evening and it did sound interesting and for $30 we figured what the hell so we bought them and into my purse they went. Well we should have just had IDIOT plastered on our foreheads immediately. There were 3 shows 8PM, 10:30PM and 12:30AM. We had planned to hit up the 8PM show, so after dinner I pulled out the tickets and in the middle it says: *RESERVATIONS REQUIRED* which of course was not explained to us when we purchased them and I can probably put money on it that the shows were already booked when we purchased but we called and found out the only show that had openings was 12:30AM. Well if you know me, you know that 12:30 is not something I see often and knew that it was just not going to happen. So really bummed we started to head back towards Time Square trying to think of something else to do. I knew if we went for more cocktails it would send me to bed pretty early so we tried the box office at The Lion King. James has never been to a musical before and I figured that would be a good one for him to see. The nice lady at the door informed us that each ticket would be $140 and I could not fathom spending $280, so we thanked her and headed out. Well luckily around the corner was a scalper who offered to sell us 2 tickets for $180. SOLD! The way our luck was going I was sure we would buy these and be turned away at the door but luckily they worked and we saw a great show! 

At The Lion King

As the crowd exited the building there was a large group of people congregating across the street clearly waiting for someone famous to come through the doors. Since this was on the list of things to do over I went! James was beyond "thrilled" and even more thrilled when we found out this person was Ricky Martin!! I tried to get James a little more excited by singing a few lines of "livin la vida loca" but judging by the look on his face, it didn't work. We stayed for the excitement as he walked towards his car and people were screaming and yelling how they much they loved him (I thought maybe I would have to remind these people it was only Ricky Martin!), Being on the shorter side I couldn't see a thing except for the man videoing on his IPad so close enough for me!

Ricky Martin is some where in there.....

We were up by 6:30 Sunday morning to make it over to the TODAY show. I thought we were standing in a pretty good spot but unfortunately we did not make it on TV clearly. During an inside interview I snuck over to the window so you can see me for a little bit standing behind the woman but not too clear.  However I did talk to Dylan Dryer and told her we were fans of hers from Boston! I am glad we went and would love to go back during a weekday taping. We had brunch reservations for later that morning but neither of us could fathom another massive meal after the one we had the night before so we canceled and settled on a some pastries from a coffee shop. I may have also tried to go back for more cupcakes but unfortunately that bakery was not open yet.

Following the show we headed downtown to the 9/11 memorial. We waited in line for almost 45 minutes to get in but we entered just as they were doing a Veteran's Day service with members of the Army. The whole crowd applauded and thanked them for their service as they walked by. It was great. The memorial is amazing. You can't help but just stand there and say a prayer for all the lives lost during such a tragic event. I think they did a wonderful job paying respect to the nearly 3000 lives lost that tragic day. The museum however is still not open so I will definitely have to make a trip back. Another very interesting piece of the memorial is a tree that was present at the Twin Towers and after the attacks it had been knocked down to a mere 8ft. It was transferred to a nursery where it was able to grow back to over 30ft and was returned back to the memorial site. They are also in the process of rebuilding the area with 4 more towers and I think that the end result will be beautiful. 

One of the new towers.

We finished up at the memorial a little before noon and figured it would be best to head back to the hotel, grab our luggage, and begin our journey home. With most of our list accomplished we felt that it was a successful trip. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the train station and as I turned the corner to head to our train, there it was, a piece of heaven. A smaller version of Magnolia Bakery! Of course I took this as a sign for needing more baked goods. One cupcake and chocolate chunk blondie please! With my goodies packed we boarded the train and made the 3.5 hour drive home. 

All in all it was fabulous weekend with the one I love. 

xoxo,

Kim