One Big Juicy Apple

Now I know why Eve was so tempted!  If New York City was a man, I'd marry him.  I admit...I kind of wish I would have blogged about this a while ago when it was all fresh and exciting and I could have really rubbed it in.  Le sigh.  This will have to do.  Luckily I took my handy little One Line a Day journal with me, so now we can all relive my adventures and wish we were there.  Or you could all pack your suitcases and come visit me when I move there!

Alright, I'll try my best to give the Reader's Digest version, but we all know I can be a little long-winded sometimes.  Here goes the run down of the greatest birthday yet!

The first night we got to the city our hotel was lovely, but the a/c wasn't working and they were having record highs.  Awesome.  It wasn't so bad at night, but we sweated our balls off whilst we got ready the next morning, then headed out into the world of air conditioning.

So...Day 1:  We got up early and headed down to the theater district to stand in line for Rush tickets to "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" starring Daniel Radcliffe (<3) and John Laroquette.  We got the tickets (partial view, but who cares??), went down to Times Square to hang out and people watch for a minute, headed to Radio City Music Hall, Rockafeller Center, did a bit of shopping on 5th Ave, walked to Grand Central Station where they were filming something, but we didn't know who the so-called "famous" people were.  We went to Madison Square Garden from there, stopped in at Macy's, then met up with Michael and went to the Broadway Production!  On the way down there, this really nice local woman was sitting on the bus next to me and told us of a few fun restaurants to hit up after the show.  So, we took her advice and headed to Ellen's Stardust Diner.  Best. Decision. Ever.  All of the servers are Broadway hopefuls and they serenade you whilst you eat.  It was amazing!!  The food was good, the milkshakes were superb, and the singing was phenomenal.  Love, love, loved it!!  If I ever see that woman again, I will kiss her on the mouth!  (not really...but it was a good restaurant suggestion).  We got back to our room later that night and the a/c still wasn't fixed, so they moved us into a grander, much cooler room.  Score!

Day 2:  We got up early again and hurried down to see if we could get Rush tickets for Wicked.  We waited an hour for the box office to open and found out that they don't, in fact, do Rush tickets.  If only we would have done our homework.  So we scratched that and headed to Anything Goes to see if we could miraculously catch some of their tix.  Gone when we got there.  Rats!  So...no show tonight.  We headed down to China Town and SoHo to do a little shopping.  China Town was sheer chaos, as usual, but I feel like I was a pretty good little barterer.  I even got to hear a little Asian woman say "Sun-g-lass" and it made my day!  We saw the store with the mannequins with large....hands ;)  that my brothers spotted a couple of years prior when they were there...so naturally I had to take a picture and then check out their sweat shop goods.  P.s. it was SCORCHING that day, so we were really ducking into any little shop just to get out of the heat!  Anyway, we had a bit of an adventure trying to catch the right train (I had us waiting on the wrong platform for like 20 minutes...oops) to meet Michael down at the World Trade Centers site.  We saw the new buildings going up - incredible - and then went to the 911 Memorial Center.  There were a lot of really neat things in there, but I honestly didn't realize how emotional I would get.  There was a timeline on the wall and pictures of the events of the day, and at the very end was a picture of all of the hundreds of missing persons posters from families who were hoping for their loved ones.  That got me a little veclempt, so I excused myself and sat outside with mom for a minute...glad to be wearing dark sunglasses!  From there we hit up Lombardi's pizza, which was oh so good, and then had a little dessert at Rice to Riches right across the street.  We savored that whilst meandering down to Little Italy.  There was a legit older Italian guy down in front of a restaurant with a bandage around his head and ear (maybe he snitched and someone cut off his ear??), driving an old Cadi, and as he was heading out to his car he did the classic hand gesture and said "fuhgeddaboudit!" to his pal sitting on the patio.  Sheer bliss for me.  In Little Italy??  Come on!

Day 3:  We tried for Rush tickets again, but alas...we did not do our homework so we didn't realize that RENT didn't start until July.  Woops.  So mom and I headed to Anything Goes to join Michael in line.  They were all sold out there when the box office opened too.  Horrible luck!  So, we headed to the Harry Potter exhibit at the Discovery Museum.  Mom didn't want to go, so she people-watched in Times Square.  Michael and I were in hog heaven in the museum though!!  I could seriously write an entire post on all of the magical things we saw and did.  It was Nerdfest 2011, but it really was amazing.  Props, costumes...the whole lot.  Anyway, we put mom to work to get tix for a show while we were nerding out.  She got us matinee tickets to Mamma Mia and it was awesome!!  I've seen it in Vegas, but Michael hadn't seen it yet and absolutely loved it!  Not gonna say I didn't enjoy it too...that Sky character was pretty easy on the eyes...  After the show we headed out to Brooklyn, walked to a little park between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge and just hung out for a bit looking at the city.  It was actually cold and rainy that day (total bi-polar weather while we were there), so it was cool to see the city across the river where the sky scrapers disappeared into the mist.  Kind of like Gotham City!

Day 4:  My birthday!  We headed to the MET first thing in the morning to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit.  I'll be honest and say that I didn't know a ton about his work before we went.  I mean, I'm as familiar as the next girl, but it was so astounding getting into his mind and the theory behind his designs.  He was incredible!  I was blown away by so many things outside of each particular art/clothing pieces.  I also wasn't sure mom and Michael would be that into it, but being a seamstress of sorts, my mom was in awe of all of the intricacies of his work, and Michael was totally into the art concepts.  Anyway...it was awesome!  After that we rushed to Michael's singles' ward for church.  I know what you're thinking...church on vacation??  You're in New York!  Yes, I know.  BUT it was a big YSA Regional Conference that weekend and Elders Perry and Cook were going to be speaking there, so we spent two hours of our day being enlightened, and I scoped out the goods :)  We went to Michael's apartment for a minute, changed, and went to Central Park after we got some amazing cookies at Lavain Bakery.  I loved everything about the park!  We met up with Ralph, a friend of Michael's from the mission, at the Boat House and went for a little row on the lake.  It was so pretty and so much fun!  After that we strolled through the park to Belvedere Castle, got a cupcake from Crumbs bakery, and headed to the Flat Iron building.  We also saw the Empire State building while we were down there.  We were going to get a cupcake from Magnolia too, to see which one was better, but we ran out of time.  Mom and I headed back to the hotel and had a little birthday song extravaganza, and then I ate the cupcake...all by me onesie!  It was delish!

Day 5:  Slept in a bit and then headed out to Soho and China Town again to do some last minute shopping and grab some final souvies.  Apparently, my mother thought she was starting a small purse business and we ended up going home with a few extra suitcases full of them.  Ridiculous!  We said goodbye to the city and headed for Newark.  I was really sad to leave and honestly wasn't ready to be done yet.  We got to Denver for our layover and it poured for like 30 minutes and they wouldn't let any planes in or out, so we just hung out for a bit.  Apparently though...our luggage was on the cart during the little storm and a few of our purses got a little rain damaged.  Sad day!  All in all it was a fantastic vacation though!  I was so glad I got to share it with my mom and to have a little bonding experience, and I was glad Michael knew the ropes and could show us around a bit.  We keep talking about "blah blah blah...when we move to NYC" and I can't wait!  If any of you have seen Bridesmaids, we keep quoting to each other "It's kind of silly for a grown up brother and sister to be living together..." in our fake English accents and we laugh every time.  :)

And because I'm too retarded to figure out how to add and move pictures on here...try this link to my facebook album!  I love technology