NYC and Equus!

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Mom, Matt, Danyel and I flew up to NYC. Earlier this year, before I knew I was moving back to FL, I bought tickets to see a show, Equus, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths. Since I absolutely refused to miss the show (very typical, huh?!) we all made a weekend trip out of it (minus Dan, who stayed home to take care of the "zoo").

Since I had Continental vouchers and they had Delta vouchers, we flew into different airports (I flew into Newark and they flew into LaGuardia). In an effort to save money, I told them to take the M60 bus from the airport into Manhattan and get off in Harlem, where I would be waiting for them. You should have seen the look on my mom's face when I said that! I assured her it was fine and I promised I would there FIRST. Of course, all went well, and we jumped on the subway to the hotel.

By the time we got everything settled in at the hotel, we were running out of daylight, so we didn't have too much time to play. I knew, however, my mom really wanted to take a tour of the ASPCA. Not only is she a big fan of the show, Animal Precinct, she also wanted to see where Einstein "came from." She was of course thoroughly impressed (the "A" is one of the largest humane societies in the world.) After getting a tour of the "A", we went down to Rockefeller to see the tree. Although we missed the lighting by two days (grrr!) it was still really beautiful. I was also excited because I knew Magnolia Bakery had a new Rockefeller location, so I was able to get my cupcake fix, yummm! After Rockefeller, Matt and Danyel wanted to walk down to Times Square. I know this sounds really weird, but when they came up earlier this year, they were really disappointed they missed the holiday Charmin restrooms (it's amazing how hard it is to find a bathroom in NYC!). Charmin really makes a big production of having to "go" and I have to admit, not only was I pretty amused during the whole experience, the bathrooms were really nice!

Saturday was supposed to be the nicest day of the weekend so we tried to fit in as much as we could. We started the day out by taking the subway to Brooklyn and walking the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan. Then we went up to Central Park and went ice skating at Wollman Rink. It was a ton of fun, and I'm proud that I never fell!



While we still had a little bit of daylight, we walked through some of Central Park, up to the Mall and Bethesda Terrace (my absolute favorite spot in all of NYC). There's always some sort of performance going on in that area, but I have to say that the people there that day take the cake! They were the weirdest people I've ever seen and after watching their 10ish minute "prayformance" I was even more confused as to what was going on. I wish I could have a picture of the look on every one's faces watching! Here is the website if you're curious.



After that, we walked up to the Gin Mill on the Upper West Side, which is pretty much known to be the Gator bar. The game had just started, and Danyel really wanted to check it out. It's definitely a 21+ bar, so I had to talk them into letting us all in, but they agreed, so we hung out for a bit and watched some of the game. We ended up standing next to a girl from Altamonte Springs who graduated from Lake Mary High School and went to UF - what a small world! It was ridiculously crowded though, so we didn't stay long and went back to the hotel to relax and watched the rest of the game there.

Sunday was a really disgusting day - cold and rainy. It worked out well that it was the day of our show, Equus. That morning we went to the theatre's box office about an hour before it opened to wait in line in the hopes of getting 2 more tickets (at student rush price of course!) since there were 4 of us and I had originally only bought 2. Once we got them, we went up to FAO Schwartz for a bit to play around, then came back to see the show. It was awesome! Mom and I had row A in the front mezzanine and Matt & Danyel had elevated seats on the stage (very cool!). I'm a huge fan of the Harry Potter books and movies, so it was cool to see Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths live on stage. Since it was such a disgusting day, after the show we headed straight back to the hotel and relaxed for the rest of the evening and flew back to FL the next morning.

I had such a wonderful time and it really makes me miss NYC so much! I know I say it all the time, but I'm so grateful I got the opportunity to experience living there, even if it was only for 1 year. I know I'll be back often, hopefully at least once a year! :P

NYC Pics