Part II: I <3 NYC

Our Amtrak train ride from DC to NYC was so comfortable and quite pleasant. I’ve always wondered why we don’t have trains out here?  Seems so practical.

We booked a hotel close to the station we were arriving at so we could quickly drop off our stuff and then race off to make our Broadway show. We lucked out with our location as it was directly across the street from Penn Station. Within walking distance of Times Square. Fantastic.

I was so excited to be in New York City. I’d been on a trip to upstate NY as a kid with my family but never to the city. We walked through Times Square on our way to the Broadway theater. We chose the show, How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying. We decided on that show for three reasons: 1. Because it was a newer show 2. Our co-worker that lives in NYC recommended it and 3. Because Daniel Radcliffe was starring in it. I’ll be honest, number 3 was the only reason we chose it. We love Harry Potter.

The show was great and Daniel was excellent on stage. We were so impressed. I was getting so worried beforehand that we’d get an understudy but we lucked out and got the real deal! The show was hilarious. Daniel is short.

The rest of the day was spent walking around Times Square, shopping and eating junk food. We went to the “Top of the Rock” and had a great overlook of the city. And yes, I pretended like I was Liz Lemon walking into the Rockefeller Center.

The next morning we took the subway up to Tom’s Restaurant, aka Monk’s Coffee Shop from Seinfeld. (For those who don’t know, we love Jerry as much as we love Harry Potter.) We ate lunch there and I ordered the turkey wrap. Wasn’t that good. Probably should’ve stuck with a big salad or bowl of Cheerios. From Tom’s we headed over to Central Park. I’m proud to say we walked the entire way through the park. It’s so beautiful. And big. It’s really big.

That spit us out a few blocks from David Letterman. Did I mention I got us tickets to David? To get tickets to the show, you request them online, if there is availability you will get a phone call where they ask you a trivia question about the show. If you don’t answer it right then sorry Charlie, no tickets. I was SO nervous when I got the call. I was studying on Wikipedia beforehand so I could be prepared. But, I got the answer right and scored us tickets! Woot! The few hours before the show were spent being herded around from line to line and lots of waiting. The interns that work there expel all their energy to get everyone waiting as excited as possible. We had to practice our laughter and our clapping (everything you hear on the show is live, they don’t use a laugh track, hence they want us to practice so it doesn’t sound pathetic). Once we got into the theater and sat down everyone was so pumped they didn’t even have to tell us to clap. At least at first, my hands were so sore from clapping after the first 5 minutes! The stage was very cool in person. A warm up comedian came out to get the audience ready then the band came up and played a few songs for us. Awesome. Then Dave (we’re on a first name basis now so from hereon out I will refer to him as “Dave”) came out and chatted with the audience for a bit. Then the show started and after that things moved so fast. It’s an hour show but it felt like fifteen minutes and they were already closing up. It was so fun to watch the crew scurry around through commercial breaks and running back and forth setting up before the cameras started up again. The guests were Seth Rogen, Poppy Montgomery and Fleet Foxes. Sorry Poppy, but I didn’t know who you were until you were on Dave. It was funny though because after the show we saw signs and posters for her show, Unforgettable, everywhere. Seth cracked us up and Fleet Foxes were great, I wish they could’ve had more than one song. It was a really fun experience. Thanks Dave.

The next day we met up with the research analyst from our company for lunch. He works at the Chrysler building so we met him near there and had a great chat over lunch. He’s grown up in NYC his whole life so had some interesting views/facts about the city.

We were lucky enough to snag some 9/11 Memorial tickets before we left. By lucky I mean the only tickets that they had available were the afternoon of the last day we were going to be in NYC. (Good job getting those, Doug). When we got there the guards said they were out of tickets through November. The memorial was beautiful.

We headed over to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty and relaxed for a bit. We’d walked countless miles around the city and seen so much, but at the same time felt like we hadn’t seen a fraction of what New York has to offer. We had one evening left and couldn’t decide what to do. I suggested we see Wicked. Doug wasn’t enthused. So we decided we’d see what other shows still had tickets for that night. Somehow in all the commotion I convinced Doug to go with Wicked. I saw Wicked five years ago in Chicago and was blown away. Seriously blown away. I’ve wanted to see it again ever since. Doug was sure I’d talked it up too much and it’d end up being a disappointment. Then I started to get worried that I’d enhanced that memory and maybe it wasn’t as good as I was remembering and we’d both be disappointed not to mention that we’d have wasted a fair amount of cash. Well, it was as good as I remembered. It was better even. I think Doug might have even liked it more than me. We loved it. What a great end to our week!

If there anything we learned from this trip it’s that you can’t see DC and NYC in one week. I guess that means that we’ll have to go back.