On the Town...(great movie by the way!)

Ok, so - New York...

You can watch the slide-show above for all the pics. Meanwhile, here are the details...

Let me first explain how it came to be that the poor-house peeps even got to go on this trip. Last summer when I had to travel to New York on business, one of the raffles my employer had was for a three night stay at the Hilton Times Square and I won! Of course, it did have an expiration date of June '07. Meanwhile, we also took a trip to California last summer to see my family and on the return flight, we got bumped from our flight and then bumped again from the next flight. To say they had oversold was an understatement. Needless to say, we got $1200 in airline vouchers that expired in July '07. Low and behold, we now had free airfare and hotel to go to New York and my theater teacher hubby had never been to Broadway and seen an actual Broadway Show! The HORROR! So, we decided it was now or never - and since typically hotel and airfare of the most expensive parts of vacationing, we decided Spring Break was the perfect time to go and that we weren't going to miss this opportunity to have some fun!

We got in last Saturday and had a car pick us up at the airport. (fancy schmancy!) It took us to the Hilton Times Square, where we checked in and had a great room overlooking the Square and the city.

After unpacking and changing, we decided to head on out and see what we could find. Five seconds out the front door of our hotel, we realized that was going to be a lot harder than we thought. The streets were PACKED with people - literally inches apart from one another. Anton had to hang on to me and I to him, or we would have lost each other easily in the crowd. Turned out we had wandered out at the exact time that all the show has just let out on Broadway. So we were in a sea of people and I took one look at Anton and could tell that he was overwhelmed. Anyone would be...

After milling around for awhile, we finally settled on eating at "The Playwright Tavern". Later we went to see the amazing show "The Drowsy Chaperone". It's simply fantastic, and I highly recommend seeing it if you are in New York.

Day two we set off for The Museum of Natural History. What an amazing place! We spent hours there and had a marvelous time exploring this amazing four-story place. Everything from Space to Dinosaurs, and Cavemen to Birds and Reptiles. If you've seen "Night at the Museum" with Ben Stiller, it's based off of the Museum of Natural History. It's a must-see...the museum and the movie.

Sunday night we made our way over to see "The Lion King", which was a breathtaking show with amazing sets and wonderful costumes. Truly amazing...and the singing!

Monday we gave ourselves kind of a free day. We slept in, lounged around town, and eventually ended up at 5th Avenue, Rockefeller Center (where we saw the famous Ice-Skating rink!), The American Girl Store, and Grand Central Station. We also were able to visit a street vendor and snag a yummy hot-dog.

Monday evening we got dressed up and went to Gallaghers Steakhouse and had a wonderful meal. The ambiance was old-school New York - and it was a very old restaurant steep in tradition. We thoroughly enjoyed that meal and each other's company. Anton insisted we go from there to the obscenely romantic Central Park for a late-night buggy ride, which we did. It was cold and brisk out, and the weather was beautiful. The moon was out and the city lights were lit up all around us. Our buggy driver was such a great guy and our horse, Simba was gentle as a lamb. It was the perfect ending to a perfect night.

Tuesday we knew we had to leave, but we spent the morning busying ourselves with a yummy breakfast and packing. Afterward, we headed over to AB's publisher's office - where we got to meet all the staff and sit down and chat with the bosses. It was such a rush to see Anton's play on the shelf in their office. My baby is a playwright!

We decided to be spontaneous and jump on a GrayLine Bus Tour. It's a double-decker bus that takes you all over the city and shows you all of the landmarks. We got to see Ground Zero, The Empire State Building, China Town, and many more places. Places that now we feel might require a second trip to actually be able to see and enjoy them all.

We got an early start back to the hotel and had to miss the last half of our bus tour, which was a bummer - but you don't want to be missing your plane! The car picked us up (this time a black stretch limo...double fancy schmancy - it was all they had available, so we got it for no extra $$) We got to the airport and our gate with plenty of time to spare, only to find out that our flight had to be delayed and when all was said and done, our flight took off almost two hours late. We got home at 1am and were exhausted! And to think, we could have finished that bus tour and then some!

All in all, a great trip and even though we were glad to be home, we had a wonderful time exploring New York together. Next time, we're taking Keira and getting her one of those darned adorable American Girl dolls. AB promised!

Hugs,
Cb