Easter in New York

I hope all of you had a pleasant and/or memorable Easter. As many of you know, I went to New York City over the long weekend. We left bright and early (not exactly bright) at 5:30am. We got to Staten Island around 10:00am and caught the ferry to Manhattan. We went to Staten Island because it was cheaper to park there.

I met up with Camber and we found the YMCA in Harlem. Yes, I stayed in Harlem...in a YMCA... and I'm still alive. There were a couple of times when I might have regretted the decision to stay there, but over all it worked out quite well. The biggest plus was that we had our own room - even if it was the size of a closet, there was a mean draft from the window and we only had 1 blanket per bed.

After dropping our stuff at Harlem, we went down to the Village (Greenwich Village) and had some pizza at Two Boots. Two Boots is named after the "boot" of Italy and the "boot" of Louisiana. Their pizza's are unique and named after famous characters. Camber had a "Newman" named for the Seinfeld character and I had a "Cleopatra Brown" or something like that. It was awesome.

After Two Boots we headed to the Magnolia bakery to get dessert - cupcakes! It was an interesting process since we had to wait outside in a line to even get into the bakery. They would only let four people in at a time. Camber has the picture of us consuming our Magnolia cupcakes in a nearby park. Thanks also to Kristen for recommending the place!

After our meal we headed to the infamous Times Square. What a crazy place! The buildings are covered in larger than life advertisements for shows and products. Some buildings even had scrolling marquees for up to the minute news. It was like the whole area was a large tv screen or something.

Some of the highlights for Times Square was the Hershey's store and the M&M's store. It was difficult to leave without buying some chocolate, but I managed to leave both stores empty handed. The coolest thing about the Hershey's Store was that it was featured on an episode of Project Runway. The designers had so much money to buy things in that store and make dresses out of the stuff they bought. Sadly, I do not have a picture of these dresses. In the M&M store they had this machine that would tell you your M&M personality. Sadly, I couldn't do that because there were about a hundred kids surrounding the machine.

However, Camber and I did manage to get a picture with the Yellow M&M which is my favorite of the M&M characters. Up until that point, I hadn't thought about the characters enough to have a favorite, but once in the store, I decided yellow was my favorite.

Also, I saw where David Letterman does his show and got my picture taken with that. Afterwards we walked down some other street and came across the Radio City Music Hall. That night the queen of soul herself, Aretha Franklin, was performing. Pretty awesome. After that we saw Rockefeller Center, which deserves its own paragraph.

On this trip I realized that every show I have every truly enjoyed watching on television has been on NBC. Think about it: Friends, Seinfeld, Will & Grace, The Office, 30 Rock, Heroes, Days of our Lives (that one's for you, Mom) were/are on NBC. So, to see 30 Rockefeller Plaza was pretty much an amazing experience. Not only did I see the ice skaters and the weird fountain that looks like it should be a Midway ride at the State Fair, but I ended up taking a tour of the NBC studios!

Short story: Friday we decide we would like to take the tour. We stand in line, but the Friday tickets are sold out as well as Saturday. Okay, we think, we'll go Sunday afternoon. We settle for the 3:15 tour, get our tickets and leave. Sunday rolls around, we are enjoying ourselves after church and get to the NBC building at about 3:00. I pull out the tickets and notice that it says 10:15 am on the tickets! WHAT! It also says: No Refunds. No Exchanges. Not good. Camber goes and talks to one of the cashiers and she goes and talks to her manager. They work out a deal that if at least 2 people don't show up for the 3:15 tour, we can go. If they do show up, they will refund our tickets. Pretty nice right? So, 3:15 comes and 3 people don't show up so they let us go to the introduction video. The security guard, who has tried to make it our fault, reminds us that if these people show up during the video - they will get to take the tour and not us. The video is about 5 minutes long and the whole time my stomach is turning. How horrible would it be to think I've come so close to being on this tour to have it taken away at the last minute! We come out - the security guard hands us our tickets and says in the most sarcastic tone you've ever heard "you girls are LUCKY." And so we were! I saw studios for Brian Williams, MSNBC, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and Saturday Night Live! Funny enough, after the tour we got on the Subway and who did we see? The security guard. He remembered us and asked us if we enjoyed the tour. He was much nicer when he was not working.

So that was on Sunday. Back to Friday. Before meeting up with Camber's friends at a Mexican restaurant, we hung out at Strand's Bookstore. It was this huge bookstore and pretty famous I guess. Also, while we were waiting outside the restaurant for Camber's friends, I saw a famous person! Peter Dinklage ( I had to look up his name) was just walking down the street. Most of you will probably remember him from the Will Ferrell movie "Elf." He was the midget (sorry, I'm not sure what the PC term is) that Ferrell thought was an elf and called him an "angry elf." I recognized him from the movie "Penelope." We didn't get back to the YMCA until after Midnight, which was a long day for me, considering I had been awake since 5:00 that morning.

Saturday we slept in, had a New York bagel for breakfast and walked to Central Park. I saw where John Lennon lived and Strawberry fields. Very misleading name since they aren't fields and there are no strawberries. It was cool anyway. Then we tried for the Wicked lottery, but didn't get tickets. We walked around after that - saw Bryant Park (where Fashion week is centered), the New York Public Library, and I got pictures of the Chrysler building. After that we got in line for tickets to a Broadway show. We ended up seeing a show called "Passing Strange" which was new. Any of you who watch the Tony Awards, keep your eyes open for that one! We ate in Little Italy that night and went to the show. Afterwards we had some New York Cheesecake in Times Square and called it a night.

Sunday we went to church at Camber's Methodist church. It was a great service. Afterward, we went to the "easter celebration." Basically it was a bunch of people in the street wearing homemade Easter hats. Some of them were pretty elaborate! There was also a random dog that was getting a lot of attention - not sure why.

After that I had my second black and white cookie, which was awesome. Then we toured the NBC Studios. After that we just hung out and then waited in line for tickets to the Upright Citizen's Brigade. While in line, we made friends with a group of students from Boston who went to the Berklee school of music. They taught us a new card game and just entertained us for the 2 hours we waited in line. That time was well worth it because we got really great seats for the show. The Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater is a place where people do improvisational sketch comedy. The show we went to was free, which was awesome. 2 of the people are currently on SNL: Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers. That show was probably the highlight of my trip - even more so that the Broadway show. It was so funny!

Camber had to leave super early Monday morning, so I didn't stick around the YMCA that morning. I found my friend Natalie and hung out with her at her cousin's apartment - which was amazing! Then we caught the Staten Island Ferry and drove back to MA.

Overall it was an amazing trip. This post is super long and I left a lot of stuff out. Enjoy the pictures!



Or find my pictures at this link:

NYC