Two Seconds of Fame--NY Day 3

This morning started early--we were up and ready by about 7:15. We headed down to the subway and took the train to Chelsea Studios to see if we could get stand-by tickets to see a Martha Stewart Show. We got in line and waited until about 8:30--they gave us paper and told us to come back at 9:00. We went to a little roadside vendor and I got a bagel and Brian got a donut. We grabbed some hot cocoa at Dunkin Donuts, then we headed back. We were able to get in to see the show! It was a blast. And it was really surreal to be there watching a taping since I enjoy watching it at home. We went through security, checked out coats, then waiting in a room for a little bit. Joe came out and went over what was going on that day on the show. He is just as funny and lively as he is on TV. He is great! Pretty soon we were able to go upstairs into the studio and get our seats. We were in the third row and it was just amazing! The set is just beautiful!! It looks just as great on TV as it does in person. I loved all the decorations for Christmas. It was fun when Martha came out. She looked good--just had a LOT of make up on. I know you have to for TV, but it was a lot. It's crazy to me how calm and good she is on camera. I would be all over the place. That is why she gets paid the big bucks. They did a total of 7 segments. The "big" star on today was Rufus Wainwright. He is a singer songwriter and he and his family are performing at Carnegie Hall tomorrow night. The family was actually on, and they were a little scattered, but it was fun to see. They made some ski biscuit cookies. We didn't get to try them. Then Martha did a segment about saving food with Food Savers. We were so lucky because everyone in the audience got a nice FoodSaver! It was pretty exciting. Then she had a guest on who made some cute Christmas tags and everyone got one of her punches. When they went to commercial break, you could see Brian on TV. So funny! I didn't get on, but you can see the camera pan past him as he is clapping. There was also a guest doing essential oils and bath salts. Overall, we had a blast! It was such a fun experience and I'm so glad we went. We were tempted to go to her next taping, but we figured we'd better do something else.

In the afternoon, we went on our City Sights bus for the uptown tour. We got to see uptown--the Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center and we saw the temple. It's right in the hub--Columbus and Broadway. It was so cool to see it smack dab in the middle of prime commercial real estate.

From there we got to see Central Park. It was beautiful and so huge! We went past that, by Grant's Tomb and into Harlem. That for sure is a different place than just a few blocks south. Crazy!

Apollo Theater in Harlem


St. Paul the Divine

I wasn't about to get off there. We drove back down 5th Ave. and saw some cool housing and all the museums. We got off by the MET and we walked/ran to the other side of Central Park. We wanted the Shake Shack for lunch, so we found one there. The burgers were great! We topped it off with a shake (Brian) and a concrete (me)--kind of like what you get a Nielsen's. We did some shopping on Columbus Ave. There was a Rachel Ashwell store there, so that was kind of fun.

The MET


Guggenheim (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright)


Look out of a shopping center in Columbus Circle.

We walked all the way back to our hotel and relaxed for a bit before heading out to see Phantom of the Opera.

It was part of our trip, but we didn't mind--we were excited to see it. It was great--the music, set, costumes, everything--Brian really enjoyed it--it was his first Broadway play. I had seen it before, but it was probably 14 years ago, so it was fun to see it again. After dinner, we thought we would do some shopping on 34th St., so we walked down there, but we didn't last long--it just was more scary people than we wanted to deal with, so we came back. I am ready for bed!!!


Brian at the top of the TKTS steps--a place where you can buy discount Broadway tickets. Too bad Wicked tickets never come available there!

The Purse Experience--NY Day 2

This morning, Brian got up first and got ready, headed down the the breakfast and went to his meetings. I got up a little bit later, got ready, went down to breakfast, then headed to the spouse's meeting. In my meeting, we basically just did introductions, then they had a NY travel guide tell some ins and outs of NY and answer questions and basically give us some ideas of what to do while we are here. After the meeting, Brian and I went back to the room and tried to figure out how we'd spend our day. We decided to do a bus tour through CitySights. We booked our tickets on-line and got a $5 discount, then we picked up our tickets just down from the hotel. The kiosk was inside Madame Traussad's, which is a wax museum. Out in the lobby, there are three of the wax figures--Morgan Freeman, The Rock and one of the Rockettes. Talk about freaky!! Morgan Freeman was the best. I was just waiting for him to come alive any minute!!



We got on the bus and took a downtown tour. Basically we went all around downtown Manhattan and learned so much and saw a really great overview of that area. I am so glad we did the tour. We saw so many things--shopping on 34th St., Empire State Bldg., Soho, Greenwich Village, Ground Zero, Statue of Liberty, Battery Park, Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Trump Tower, UN building, Rockefeller Ctr. and more. The pictures aren't great because it was though the top of the bus.

Tiles that a lady turned into a tribute to victims of 9/11.

Bull on Wall St.

Wall St. It's called Wall Street because originally NY was New Amsterdam and it belonged to the Deutch. They built a wall to keep out the Indians, so they call it Wall St.

Empire State Building

Madison Square Garden

We got off at a stop and walked through Chinatown and through Little Italy. Both are true to their names--in Chinatown, there were stores and stores of fish on ice, fruit and just really random stuff. In Little Italy, it was restaurant after restaurant. We made our way to Canal Street where I was really excited to hunt for purses. I had looked it up a little bit online before we went and how people will take you into back rooms and such to show the purses, so I knew a little what to expect. But here is what happened. There are "store" after store of people selling purses, glass, jewelry, perfume, etc. The purses in those spots look really, really fake to me...like the "C" on a knock-off Coach bag is really a "G". So those weren't something I wanted. Then all along, there are oriental ladies quietly saying, "Coach? Gucci? Prada?" etc. I said no for a while because I was kind of scared...like where would they take me. What would they do to us when we got there, etc. Then we figured--how could they keep doing this if people really got hurt or something. So we said yes to one lady and she took us through a door, up some stairs, through a bigger empty room and in a small room with lots of purses. As we were going up the stairs, I was praying the whole time, "Please help us to be safe." We saw other people go in and out, so I thought we'd be okay. We looked around and I really didn't see anything I wanted. I was kind of afraid to say no thanks, but I just said, "Not today," and we left. We went back onto Canal Street and we decided to try one more. This next lady took us a couple of blocks around and back where we met another lady who took us into her store. I felt a little better here since it was just in the back of her clothing store. We were back there and there was another couple in there getting some purses. I wanted to buy a few--the intent was to get some Christmas shopping done. He told me the price for one purse I really liked, but I didn't want to pay that, so I asked what kind of deal he would do if I bought 6 purses. So I picked our 6 that I liked and he told me the total, which of course, was too much. Then we heard someone knock on the door and talk fast in Chinese. Then he got a little beep on his phone. He grabbed a bag and was going to put the purses we wanted in them and throw us out of there, but we told him we only could do a certain amount. He declined our offer, opened the door really fast, then another door and got us out of there quick. I think they have to watch for police or something--I didn't think that would happen! I was bummed because he had some really cute purses that I would have loved to get. But it isn't worth the scary adrenalin rush to me!!! From there we stopped into Daffys--kind of like a TJ Maxx type store. Then we headed back to our bus stop--I did snag some D&G glasses for $5. Oh and we were FREEZING today! A local said this was the coldest day so far this season. Perfect! We had planned on about 40 degree weather, but today was about 24. The bus was a double decker and enclosed on the top, but it was still COLD!! We got off near our hotel and went to our room and thawed out. I smoothed out my hat head, then we went down to a lobby area. One of the product partners on our trip--from John Hancock--took seven couples out to dinner and we were lucky enough to go. We went to Bond 45--an Italian Restaurant in Times Square. It was great! It's definitely not somewhere we would have eaten at if we were paying, so it was a nice treat! I had the Rib Eye Steak with potatoes and Brian had seared tuna. It was all delicious! We finsihed up with dessert--Brian had these pastries filled with gelato and when they brought it to the table, they covered in chocolate. I had the chocolate mousse. It said on the menu it was for 2 and they weren't kidding. It was huge! And it had a huge dollop of whipped cream next to it. It was so good. Everyone laughed at me since I had a huge rib eye (although I didn't finish it all) and a huge dessert. We sat by a really nice couple from Austin, so it was great conversation, too.





After dinner, we hurried back to the room--for good this time--no more cold today!!

Baby It's Cold Outside--NYC Day 1

And I'm not kidding! It was in the 30s here today. This morning, Brian and I got up early, early! My cousin Jodi was over about 4 AM and I went over some last minute things with her, then we were off to the airport. Our plane left at 6 and it was a nice flight. I slept some of the way and read some of the way. When we landed at JFK, we got off and instantly felt the chill! I don't think I've warmed up since. We had to take a taxi from the airport to our hotel in NY--the Westin Times Square. I was a little disappointed (j/k) that the Cash Cab didn't pick us up, but oh well! Brian says I am too nice. A couple people asked if we needed a taxi, so I thought we should go with the person who talked to us. He turned out to be $60 when I think the other guy would have taken us for $50. OK--maybe a few days in NY will toughen me up a little bit. What they say about NY taxi drivers is true. I don't know what they say, but they drive fast, crazy and scary! Wow--I am surprised he didn't scrape his van a few times. We got to our hotel and checked in and got settled. We bundled up in our "winter" gear--which is not great for NY weather. We are kicking ourselves for not bringing thermals. And I wish I had some boots or some Uggs. We walked around--checking out Times Square mostly. We went into some stores--mostly to warm up. We split a sandwich and a yummy Reeses brownie from Europa Cafe. We walked around more--we saw lots of interesting people, saw lots of people dressed up like Elmo (at least 6 or 7) and Doras. They'll take their picture with people, then ask for tips. We went into the Toys R Us in Times Square. It was enormous! There was a ferris wheel inside the multi-level store. So fun. We braved the bitter cold and walked down to Rockefeller Center and saw the huge tree, saw the window displays at Saks and saw the snowflakes dance to music. We peeked inside the American Girl Place(read: Mecca). We went into Anthropologie. The store was huge!! I loved the window displays. One I thought my mom would love--just a TON of boxes of vintage ornaments and one that reminded me of my dad--oodles and oodles of knotted up strands of Christmas lights!

We went back to our hotel and tried to warm up. We changed clothes and went down to the dinner. They had a buffet of salad, meats, cheeses, pasta, fish and chicken. Yum! We met a few other FAs and their spouses. After eating, we headed across the street to Ben & Jerry's for some dessert. I know--who else goes out in FREEZING cold for some ice cream. Luckily it's just right across the street from our hotel. They had dessert at the dinner, but it was either Tiramisu or Biscotti. We opted for getting ice cream.

So now we are in the room and I am trying to thaw my feet out. Brian is watching some TV while I type, then I will move on to working on my lesson--I teach the Sunday we get home!
The window display for my dad!
LOVED this one!
Inside Saks 5th Ave.
Window display
A hair salon for the dolls in the American Girl Place
Radio City Music Hall
Anthropologie
Yummy brownie
Lunch

Fun at the Hershey's store.

Elmo and Dora trying to get tips.

Ferris Wheel in Toys R Us
Times Square
View from Hotel. We could actually see the tower where the New Year's Ball is dropped. That is One Times Square. The building is actually vacant except for a Walgreens on the bottom floors. The owners decided they could make enough from the advertising on the outside of the building, so they didn't want to deal with tenants. I think they make something like $250,000 a month on advertising. Crazy!

Gingerbread Houses

On Saturday, we did one of my girls favorite Christmas traditions--gingerbread houses with grandma and grandpa. My mom constructions the house before we come , then the kids decorate it when we go over. This year, Eliza and Libby were so creative and spent a long time on their house. They both had great ideas of what to put on the house. Eliza made the cutest wreath with green Dots and red mini jaw breakers for the holly. Libby put some candy on the eaves to look like Christmas lights. Then there was Ellie and Hattie who couldn't shovel the candy in their mouths fast enough! It was so funny to watch. They thought they'd never see candy again! They certainly got their fill!

After gingerbread houses, we went to Libby's soccer game. I guess Libby is just a great practice player and helps her team get better during practice. One day she'll surprise us, I'm sure. I just hope it's before she's a teenager! After soccer, we went to Brian's parents' house where Brian and E&L helped move some wood. I left for a bit to take Rachel's family pictures, then we grabbed some pizza and came home to eat. Jason and Kari brought their kids over to play while they had a date. My kids enjoyed playing.

After everyone was finally in bed, I started packing and getting ready. It took longer than I expected as we didn't get into bed until a little after midnight.