Building on the Rock: NYC!!!

This trip has been a long time coming! I wanted to take S to NYC for her 13th birthday, but, COVID...ugh!! So, 15th Birthday Gift it was!!

We arrived Friday after a serious delay due to fog in New York and ended up flying out of a different airport than we'd planned to and had to sit on the tarmac in NYC for two hours! We ended up missing our first Broadway show of the trip, Wicked. I wanted to cry!! But, we made the most of the time we had on Friday night and after checking into our hotel, made our way through Times Square and then had a very entertaining dinner at Ellen's Stardust Diner!

Saturday we were up early with a full schedule ahead of us! The NYC Marathon was happening on Sunday, so we knew we wanted to do things on that day that were not close to where that was going on! However, they were doing a practice 5k or 10k on Saturday morning and had all the roads closed so it was so neat to see the streets empty as we walked to our first stop of the day, Rockefeller Center! It took us a hot minute to find breakfast on the way, but we finally found a place that served smoothies and bagels in the Subway under the Rockefeller Center! We were so turned around down there that when we finally made our way out, I could not have found my way back down there if you'd paid me! After breakfast overlooking the ice rink at Rockefeller Center, we went up to Top of the Rock and got our first aerial view of the city! Beautiful!! We walked to St. Patrick's Cathedral. We thought about doing the official tour, but instead opted to just walk around and look at it all and leave instead! It was then back to Times Square where we caught our transportation for the day on the Big Bus Tour! It took us down 5th Avenue all the way to the 911 Memorial. Because I'd been told it was really heavy and we were short on time and the fact that S was not even alive during the 911 attacks, we decided to not do the tour, but just check out the memorial instead. We then went to One World Observatory for an aerial view of the other end of Manhattan! We rode the bus down to Battery Park where we saw the Statue of Liberty from land and were entertained by some street performers! We wanted to take a ferry out and go up to the top of the Statue of Liberty, but we were running out of time and had dinner reservations with one of my college friends so we had to forego that! One day, hopefully! We went back to the hotel, freshened up, and met Susan for dinner! Oh my gosh, it was so good to see her! I don't remember the last time we hung out was! We enjoyed such a fun dinner with her before saying goodbye! We walked back through Rockefeller Center and had a couple of sweet treats back at the hotel that we'd picked up earlier that day before finally letting our heads hit our pillows!

Sunday we were up and ready for another full day! We landed at a breakfast place that we decided was our favorite little hole in the wall coffee shop, Bluestone Lane, and even walked by the headquarters of my first job, Marsh & McLennan, to get there! We then did a little shopping in Bryant Park before making a stop at the Empire State Building! I wasn't sure what to really expect at a wax museum and had very low expectations, but Madame Tussaunds Wax Museum was actually quite entertaining and I'm glad we gave it a chance! S took pictures with every wax celebrity in there! LOL! We'd had a light lunch of smoothies before the wax museum in anticipation of our reservations for tea at the Russian Tea Room! To be such small little bites, it sure ended up being a lot of food! We were stuffed when we left! We took a little time to regroup back at the hotel and then went to get on the ferry for our Harbour Lights tour around Manhattan! It was a loooong walk to get there(we took an Uber back!) but we finally arrived and had a beautiful night for a cruise and a hilarious tour guide! It was one of my favorite things that we did while we were in NYC! On the way back to the hotel, we were hungry again and stopped at a pizza place that was in an old church, John's Pizzaria! It was good! We ate a lot! And then we crashed!!

Monday we were getting ready in the morning and I had the Today Show on and saw that Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell were there! I made S get moving fast and we ran down to the outdoor viewing area! We had fairly good spots considering we arrived just before they walked out! We saw Savannah, Hoda, Carson, and Dylan! It was so neat!! We didn't see Ryan and Will, but we saw the cups that they'd had during their interview segment through the window;) This was another highlight of the trip for me! When the show was over, we went and found a bike tour through Central Park where we saw several of the iconic spots throughout the park. I would have loved to have spent more time exploring Central Park, but maybe another visit! We had our bike guide drop us off at the Museum of Natural History. We were in search of displays that were seen in the movie, Night at the Museum. We then found a little place off the beaten path for lunch and took a LONG walk back toward the hotel! We passed the NYC Ballet on the way which was a little bitter sweet since S is no longer dancing, but neat to see nonetheless! We also took another stroll around Bryant Park since more vendors were open now than they were early on Sunday and bought some macaroons while we were there! We stepped into Grand Central Station, did a little shopping on 5th Avenue and then went to see a show on Broadway, &Juliet. It was okay, but I was really upset about missing Wicked. S liked it though!

This morning we were TIRED!! We checked out of our hotel, but still had some time before we needed to leave for the airport, so we left our luggage in storage and headed to Times Square for one more look around and then FAO Shwarz before getting a ride to the other side of the city to check out Chelsea Market, walked the High Line and saw The Edge(but opted not to go to the top of this one!). We could not make ourselves walk anymore so ducked into a coffee shop and read for a while before finally heading toward the airport to come home, sweet home!

It was an amazing few days! S loves NYC! I love NYC! One day we will go back again!

Friday 11/4