N-Y-C

It is crazy to think that I was in New York just 2 weeks ago, 2 weeks before Sandy hit the big city. My thoughts and prayers are with the families affected up North in the tri-state area.

If you are a reader of this blog, you might remember last Christmas (here), my mom surprised my sister and I with a trip to see NEWSIES on Broadway! Well almost 11 months after my mom, sister, and I hopped on an airplane and finally made our trip a reality. To be honest, I thought it might not happen, we all did. However, it was such a fun weekend to get away from the 'real' world and visit the Big Apple.

We flew up early Saturday morning and started the day taking in the sights of Broadway and times square. Saturday night was also the MAIN EVENT: NEWSIES! Let me tell you, I have been a fan of Newsies for a LONG time, I had the soundtrack from the movie years before the Broadway family picked it up, so my expectations were pretty high! There is one word to describe the play: FANTASTIC! It was such a fun show, a little different than the movie line, but the performance was absolutely amazing! Definitely worth the 11 month wait!

We also took in some local sights on our 3 day trip.

 This was my 3rd time visiting NYC, but it was my first time making the trip to Grand Central Station. It was gorgeous and so large, it is crazy to think that it was built so many years ago in such grandeur. I am so glad we saw it at night, because the lights gave it an even more picturesque setting.

Our hotel was in a great location about half way between Central Park South and Times Square, so we spent our first afternoon visiting the park.

The fall leaves and weather made for great pictures and a nice day for walking. We saw the carousel but opted out of the ride. We found many, many tunnels and bridges and took in the sights of the locals on a Saturday afternoon at Central Park. Of course we had to see Lady Liberty, we were lucky that she/he was hanging out at the park that day with a silver robot!

On Sunday morning, we lucked into finding the 7th avenue market around times square. It is pretty much like China town but with pop-up tents and Broadway theaters surrounding you.

LB and I picked up some fun 'Tory Burch' purses, plenty of fun scarves and Mom was able to pick up some fun glass pendants for herself and for us to send to our kids we sponsor in the Philippines. Fun Fact: During the day Times Square is now filled with your favorite movie characters. People now dress up in costumes (Minnie & Mickey, Buzz Lightgear, Hello Kitty, Spider Man, Batman, & Ironman, etc) and walk around Times Square waiting for you to take your picture with them, but wait they CHARGE you for it! It was so crazy because people were actually paying to take pictures with the people ha. 

Before we left on Monday we took the Behind the Scenes NBC tour and LB got to make her television meteorologist debut. We walked out of 30 Rock only to see the great Tina Fey and Tracey Morgan filming!

We couldn't visit the big city without eating some great food. We stopped by Little Italy for some Italian, the Shake Shack for a good burger and delicious peanut butter & marshmellow shake, and we made it to Juniors for some great cheesecake. (Fun Fact: the last scene of Sex in the City the Movie was filmed there!)

We also got to walk the Brooklyn Bridge and visit the 9/11 memorial, check back in next week for a post about those events, they were breath-taking!

~Happy Saturday!
Rachel