My trip to the Big Apple

Well it has been a week and I am now able to make the time to remember and think about my birthday trip to NYC. I keep thinking that last week I was doing "_____" at this time. Well, literally, last week I was ice skating at this time!

But to start at the beginning, Catherine Bell! You think that you might see someone famous in a big city, but I got to sit two rows in front of someone we spent years watching on JAG, who now lives in the Old Village in Mt. Pleasant (I overheard her conversation!), and stars in Army Wives. But even though my bag sat beside hers, I never talked to her. Sigh.

Well everything went smoothly on the trip up. I met Jenn without a problem; we made it into town without a problem; and started our evening around 5. This meant dinner! We found an awesome pizza joint and split a pizza and antipasta salad. Everything was delicious. No complaints in the food department thus far!

John's Pizzeria

We stopped in Times Square to look around after dinner. What is so cool about things in NYC is that everything is so big and so bright! The M&M store makes me want to eat M&M's just because! And everything is so tall! I felt like Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember when she got hit by the car because she was looking up! Fortunately I did not get hit by a car, but I almost ran into many things because I was looking up!

The Statue of Liberty M&M style

Another giant M&M!

Times Square in front to the sign for Wicked

Since we both have always thought it would be really cool to skate in Rockefeller Center, we headed there. The walk wasn't too bad and we got there in time to skate for about an hour before they closed for 30 min to resurface the ice. It was around 8:30 by then and we had had enough skating for the night. So off to Serendipity 3 for dessert. We both have seen Serendipity and liked the movie, so this seemed reasonable.



The ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center

Getting around NYC isn't too hard because all the streets are numbered, but sometimes I do get turned around and a little surprised with where I am. Like that night when we ran into Central Park when I didn't think we were supposed to! But we made it to Serendipity and got seated right away. (You tend to not have as many crowds when you visit places in the middle of winter!). I ordered a caramel sundae that was divine. Jennifer got the "famous" frozen hot chocolate. She was glad she tried it, but was not too impressed.


The decor was very cute inside!

The best caramel topping!

Jennifer's frozen hot chocolate

Well we decided that the hotel was too far away to walk back to at 10:00 at night, so we got on the subway. But it was only 10:00, so we decided instead to take the sub to the Empire State Building. We were very happy to run into 2 nice Jewish young men who instructed us to "get off here" before we missed our stop!


View from the top!

We paid our fee and rode the elevator to the 86th floor. It was a great view and I braved my fear of heights. Well almost! I did tend to stand behind the higher walls when looking over. After walking around the top of the tower several times, we made our way down and walked back to our home for the weekend. Everything seems so close in Manhattan on paper, but when you start walking, things are not as close! By the time we got back to our room, I did something I usually don't do. I fell asleep right away the first night in a strange place. And I didn't wake until 9:00 the next morning! But that is another day...