NYC Trip

This is my second draft, as an inadvertent touch-pad swipe somehow deleted my first 2 days' summary, which blogger couldn't recover. Ugh. Still my biggest pet peeve of laptops, those over-sensitive touch pads. I had picture links and everything. Since I just wasted 30 mins., I'll just provide some links to pictures here. Sorry.

Shortly after I moved here, A had some corporate meetings at Ikea in Philly, so we decided to take a weekend trip to NYC. She took a train into Penn Station, and I flew in to LaGuardia on Friday night (Mar. 2). I decided to save money, and took the Super Shuttle to our hotel in Times Square. While a responsible financial decision, the 6pm Manhattan traffic made my shuttle ride longer than my connecting flight from Cincinatti. After checking into the Renaissance Times Square, we headed over to John's Pizzeria for a delicious brick oven pie. Then we hiked to Caroline's Comedy Club to see former SNL-er Tracy Morgan. Although a bit too vulgar, we enjoyed his goofy style and a great MJ impression for a verse of "Man in the Mirror".

Saturday turned out sunny and 50, a great day to bump around Times Square and get some walking in. We headed over to Rockefeller Center and took the long elevator ride to the top. The clear day gave us great views of Central Park, the Empire State Building, and even a tiny Statue of Liberty way off in the distance.

After a quick beer at the Pig 'N Whistle, we got in the TKTS line at the Marriott Marquis, where you can get 1/2 price Broadway tickets. You have to wait in line, and it's cash only, but after about an hour in the queue, the line moved quickly and we got our RENT tickets, 11th row center, at the Nederlander Theater. Great seats and great show. Heavy subject matter, but it was amazing to see people performing at the top of their craft. Throw in a quasi-celebrity cast member in the form of Frenchie, from American Idol infamy,and you've got "five-hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes" of memories. Before the show, we were treated to Italian goodness at Cascina, in the Hell's Kitchen area. A five-foot-nothin' old man, as big around as he was tall, was our kindly waiter. I had some sort of homemade wide noodle dish, and A had gnocchi. An excellent outcome considering we didn't have pre-show reservations, and caught the last open table in the bar area.

Sunday, our flight home didn't leave until 8pm, so we took the opportunity to explore more of Manhattan. We started with a cab ride to the World Trade Center site. Other than a few picture memorials, there isn't much to see. Sad memories and lots of construction. We were on foot the next 3 hours or so, walking north through Chinatown and Little Italy. We stopped at a corner pizza shop called Pomodoro, and tried their signature Vodka Sauce pizza. A said it was the best she'd ever had. I think it's because the waiter was flirting with her. He 'happened' to deliver the pie while I was in the closet-sized men's room, presenting it with some 'Mickey Mouse ears' just for her - it was 2 paper plates sticking out from under the tray. HILARIOUS!

From there we did some window shopping in SOHO and somehow avoided spending any money. We probably saw 5 Sephoras that weekend, and A bought: nothing. There's a first time for everything I guess. While trying to catch a cab back to the hotel, we passed a huge throng of protesters in front of a Starbucks, saying the chain was killing the Greenwich Village local shops. We would've grabbed a non-fat grande mocha latte, but we couldn't get in the door. Oh well.

That's about it..., okay not quite. We took a cab to JFK and flew JetBlue back to SLC, our first flight together and our first experience with that airline. I wish I could say the flight was uneventful, but that just wouldn't 'fly' (har). A 1-hour tarmac delay made us jittery due to JetBlue's recent highly-publicized problems. Once we got in the air, we settled into our seats, flipping channels on our personal TV monitors. Shortly thereafter, I started feeling a little light-headed, got up to use the bathroom, and promptly passed out in the aisle. I was probably dehydrated and the plane was extremely hot, and I went down like a ton of bricks. After filling out a short medical report and drinking 12 of those teensy bottles of water, A and I had a laugh about what a great impression I made as a travelling partner. Thankfully, the rest of the flight was uneventful and we made it back safe and sound.

New York City is a great place to visit. Despite some claims that the people are 'rude', we experienced nothing but great service, and people willing to make recommendations and help us find our way around. Here's some pics from the trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/sj.gingrich/NYCTrip