The Big Apple -- Part 2

Continuing on ...

Wednesday

We had initially planned to go to Ellis Island this day, but after our big dinner (and the wine), we decided to sleep in. :) It was wonderful! Since Hubby is a platinum member at the hotel where we stayed, we were able to partake of the hotel's complimentary breakfast buffet each morning. When we went down this particular day, we happened to run into one of Hubby's close business associates who regularly works in New York; after talking for a little bit, the Associate offered to take us out to lunch - yay! This only left us with about two and a half hours to walk around, so we decided to amble over to Central Park. That place is huge! We watched a group of high schoolers play softball, little kids riding the carousel, and a group of people setting up to film a scene for a movie or TV show.

We could not have asked for a more beautiful day.

The tulips were amazing.

Strawberry Fields, a tribute to John Lennon

If you look directly over my left shoulder, you can see this weird guy who was dressed up like a wizard.

After Central Park, we met Hubby's buddies for lunch at Bobby Van's Grill; I was so glad I changed to get a little more dressy for lunch! We had the best steaks of our entire trip here (although I honestly do prefer Hubby's steaks -- my boy can grill like none other). After we finished lunch, we walked over to Rockefeller Center and perused the NBC gift shop for a bit; Hubby later ended up getting this t-shirt as a sign of his devotion to one of our favorite tv shows. We did a little more shopping, and I finally found a pair of black high heels that is narrow enough to fit my little heel. I was so excited! We were both getting pretty tired from all the walking and dodging, so we went back to the hotel for a nap before the evening. We had tickets to see Wicked that night, so we ate dinner at a little restaurant right around the corner from the theater. Can I just say that Wicked was amazing? WOW, I was so enthralled! It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip!

Thursday
After breakfast, we wandered back to Rockefeller Plaza to watch the taping of the Today Show. We actually made it on TV! We got really tired of having this group of pre-teens screaming in our ears over Fran Drescher (the Nanny? really?), so we left and went back to Greenwich Village to get more pizza at Joe's Pizza. The restaurant itself is extremely tiny, so we took our slices and sat out in a little park across the street. It was yet another lovely day, so we had a really good time! Afterwards, we walked down to Ground Zero and looked at some of the historic buildings in the area. We were craving sushi for dinner, but unfortunately the concierge was out that evening, and the girl at the front desk obviously didn't know what she was talking about when it came to recommending sushi (she was sweet, but a boring California roll is not my idea of great sushi!). Thanks to my iPhone, we found Kodama and were able to have some very interesting rolls that I'd never tried before. After dinner, we went to Serendipity 3 for their famous frozen hot chocolate. It was good, but I have to admit that I was a little let down after all the hype (plus I was slightly annoyed that the waiter made us each order one as there was an $8.50 minimum per person -- I only drank about a third of mine, and I knew ahead of time I couldn't come close to finishing one!).

9/11 memorial

9/11 memorial

Like I said, these things were huge!

Our last two days soon ...