Saturday, October 28, 2006

Wicked Weekend!

Life has been really crazy lately, so I apologize for not posting regularly and for taking so long with this posting. But I had to share the amazing weekend I had in NYC. It was really such a blast. The only thing that could have made it better was having my Mom there, as planned, but I called and bugged her enough, it was almost as good. So I ended up going with my friend Blair, who was so great. We just had fun doing whatever we felt like. Seeing "Wicked" was probably the highlight of my weekend, I'd been wanting to see this for forever!! It *almost* lived up to all my hopes and dreams, and it was great to finally see the whole thing come together. I really enjoyed it. So sit back, here are some pictures from that awesome weekend:

Mom and me checking out the beautiful Fall Foliage before heading to the airport.

Look what I got to drive around for a day!! A Mini Cooper! I want one!!!!

Ok, so now the NYC pics begin. We went first to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Egyptian rooms were my favorite. This is a temple they brought here and reassembled. The architecture around it was amazing too. There was a great view out that window there.

Another beautiful setting for some beautiful art. The museum was a lot of fun, there was no way we were going to see all of it, but we saw the "important" stuff.

Before going to the theater on Friday night, we at at this awesome place called V*ynl. It was such a great little find! The food was awesome and cheap and the ambiance was unbeatable. It had a music, record theme, which they'd used in the decorations, and even the menus, which were in record sleeves.


And the best part, other than my heavenly French Toast with sauteed apples and caramel sauce, were the bathrooms! When I first walked in the thing that hit me, apart from the huge wall mural of Cher, was the fact that they were even playing her music, just in that room!

And they had four of them! All decorated differently including Elvis, Dolly and Nelly. It was so funny!

Then it was onto the Theater for "WICKED"!!! Ahhh, it was awesome, I had it stuck in my head the entire weekend. The only complaints I had were about Elphaba, who was a little awkward, more than I would have liked, and Fyiero, who was not quite right for the part. But the costume, the music, everything else was "wicked sweet" as they say in Boston.


Anyway, it was great and the theater was just a couple blocks from the hotel, so we walked back to see all the night life in Times Square, which of course is always crazy!


So that was all Friday. On Sat. we first went down to "Ground Zero", where the Twin Towers used to be. It was really interesting to see the area first hand. We went into the World Financial Center right next to it and read about the plans they have for the spot, which was really cool. It was also interesting to me because one of my favorite movies was filmed there, that I didn't even know until I walked in! "Mad Hot Ballroom" was filmed on the stage here, during the finals, so that was kind of fun!

After that we decided that we would try to find the little restaurant "Serendipity" for lunch, which ended up turning into a late lunch/early dinner thing since there was a 2-3 HOUR WAIT! We put our name on the list, then headed off to see more of the city.

On the end of the block was this "sweet" candy store, called Dylan's Candy Bar. It was seriously HEAVEN! I felt like a kid in a candy store... oh wait, maybe that's because I was in a candy store, that seemed like it was geared towards adults almost as much toward kids! Anyway, it was awesome. They had the hugest cupcakes I've ever seen, stairs with candy in them, huge suckers everywhere, clothes made out of candy wrappers and autographed candy dishes with celebrity's favorite candies in them! It was seriously the coolest candy store I've ever been in, and let me tell you, I know my candy stores! Heck, this is the girl who worked in a chocolate factory for 3 summers, that had a 20 foot chocolate waterfall!



We then walked on down to Bloomingdale's and Central Park, I bought a bag from the "Strand" and we saw some seals in the Central Park Zoo. This view, is from right across the street from what once was the Plaza Hotel, but is now being made into luxury apartments. I was so bummed I wouldn't be able to see where "Eloise" once lived!!

Finally, after about an hour and a half of wandering, we headed back to Serendipity, where it was almost our turn to be seated. It's another restaurant with a lot of charm and ambiance.

They are famous for their Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, which was really yummy!

After Serendipity, we headed back to midtown and checked out Rockefeller Center. We saw Radio City Music Hall, the skating rink and had fun in the American Girl Store (I'm glad Blair is a little kid at heart like me, we had fun watching all the cute little girls just going crazy!).


It was then time to say goodbye to the Big Apple, we picked up our bags from the hotel and headed for the bus, which wasn't as bad as I expected. So, that was a ton to pack into two days, I had a blast, and I can't wait to get back to see more! I feel like I barely scratched the surface!

More updates coming soon of my fun Halloween weekend!