Part 2 - NYC

Okay, part two. Basically, we got up the morning after Christmas, drove ten and a half hours (well, with a breakfast stop, a nap stop, a gas station stop, and a McDonald's stop) to my aunt & uncle's house in Fishkill, NY, and crashed for the night.

We got up on Tuesday morning, and ran a few errands with my aunt, and really just chilled out, which was nice. On Wednesday, we ran a few more errands, and had dinner, and then packed up what we needed for the morning, aka our trip into the city.

The next morning, we got up, got ready, and my aunt took us to the train station. We got our tickets, and waited around for the 8:57am train to pull in, and then we jumped on. It took just over an hour to get to Grand Central, and then we hopped off and started our adventure. We took a few minutes to admire just how pretty Grand Central was, and then we made our way outside. We ended up walking a couple blocks down and looking around at H&M, and then went down a few more blocks to get in line for the Empire State Building.

The line itself stretched around past the corner of the building, but we did it anyway. It ended up taking close to two and a half hours to get to the top, after getting into the building, going up the escalator, going through what I now refer to as "accordion lines" because basically you're just moving back and forth and back and forth in the same room for forever, then going through security, more accordion lines, getting our picture taken, more accordion lines, taking the elevator to the 80th floor, more lines, taking the elevator to the 86th floor, and finally getting out onto the observation deck. But, it was all worth it once we got out there. The view is gorgeous.

We came back down, bought our picture, Quinn picked up a souvenir, and then we walked over to Macy's just to look around. I really just wanted to get an idea of the size of the store...I mean, it has eight floors! It was pretty awesome.

Then, since it was like, two o'clock, and we hadn't had anything to eat since having breakfast bars on the train, we started looking around for a place to eat. We found this little place called W Cafe couple blocks from the Empire State building, where they have everything from soups, to salads, to pizza, to sandwiches, to paninis, all laid out behind the deli counter, and you just pick what you want. And it was so awesomely good. I had the chicken fajita panini, which was amazing. Mom had a mozzarella and tomato sandwich (also very good), and Quinn loved his chicken romano sandwich.

At that point, we decided to check into the hotel, so we walked about ten blocks up (not as long of a walk as I expected), checked in, and then went up to the room (22nd floor...as high as we could go), and basically crashed in the room for a little bit. We went back out at 6:00, and walked up to Rockefeller Center to see the tree and the ice-skating rink, and then walked through Times Square, where they were already setting up the stages for the performances on New Year's Eve, and testing the countdown graphics on the building. We walked down to 42nd Street, and entered the New Amsterdam theater to see Mary Poppins.



The theater itself was gorgeous...it was built in 1903, making it (and the Lyceum Theatre) the oldest house on Broadway. It was home to the famous Ziegfeld Follies shows in the 1920's, and it was at the New Amsterdam that Fred Astaire and his sister, Adele, performed their final show together (The Band Wagon) before Adele got married and Fred went to Hollywood. So, there's quite a bit of history in the place, too.

So, onto the show itself. It was amazing. I loved every minute of it. It was definitely different from the movie, but in a good way. They focused a lot more on the parents, Mr. and Mrs. Banks, which was neat, and switched around the order of some of the songs like "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (yes, I just spelled that from memory...booyah) and "A Spoonful of Sugar", but I thought it worked well. The new songs written for the show blended well with the old standards from the movie we've come to know and love. And oh my gosh, the sets were gorgeous. The Banks' house was like a giant dollhouse...so cute.




This is why I can spell "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious". It's a shortened version though...the song is quite a bit longer.

The funny part was, we came out of the show all agreeing that Bert was our favorite character, not Mary Poppins. My guess is that Gavin Lee really made an impression on us, while Steffanie Leigh did not. Or maybe it's just because Bert gets the better (and funnier) lines. Anyway, I ended up buying a t-shirt on the way out, because I loved it, and then we walked back toward the hotel, grabbing hot chocolate from McDonald's on the way, and then went to bed.

We got up the next morning, had breakfast at the hotel, and then walked up to Central Park. We took a carriage ride, and then went over to FAO Schwarz. We didn't end up playing on the piano...the line wasn't that long, but everyone looked so dopey bouncing around on the thing, and they let six people on at a time, so you really can't differentiate between what you're playing and what everyone else is playing. But, we hung around for the little piano show, which was cute. They played Chopsticks, Heart and Soul, Fur Elise, and Jingle Bells.

And then, we walked down the block to Tiffany's, just to look around. I didn't find anything within my price range for my charm bracelet, but they really didn't have much "NYC" stuff anyway. I was looking for something like the Empire State Building or Statue of Liberty or a taxi cab or an apple or something, but no luck.

Anyway, then we walked to Rockefeller Center. The line for the Lego Store was super long, so we decided to not bother. We did go into the Nintendo Store, Quinn's one request, and he ended up buying a bunch of stuff. And then, we went over to the NBC Experience Store, but all their studio tours were booked for the day, so we just left. Then, we walked to Times Square and went into the M&M's store, and did the "fill your own bag" thing from the tubes on the wall, which was fun, but really expensive. $12.99 a pound...so totally overpriced, but I guess you pay for the experience.

Then, we started heading toward Grand Central. We had a quick lunch/snack at McDonald's (I would have rather had pizza from the place next door, but Quinn was cranky, so I ended up with a chocolate shake at Mickey D's), and then walked the rest of the way to Grand Central, and caught the 1:46pm train back to Beacon.

Part 3 below - New Year's at my aunt & uncle's house!