Gotta Get Me a New York Slice! DAY TWO

We tried to waking up early in the second day but that didn’t work out really well. We were still really tired from the red-eye we had taken the night before. I think we still got up at a reasonable time. On this day, we did the Uptown Tour. So many places to see, so little time. We bought the 48 Hour Red Bus Tour ticket which was a great idea. We got to ride on the top of a double-decker bus and we could get off and stay at whatever destination we wanted for how ever long we wanted and we could just catch the next bus. I think the wait time in between buses was something like 15 minutes or so.

Our Tour Bus

We did the tour for awhile and then we decided to get off at the Museum of Natural History. We spent half of the day in there and we didn’t even see everything. It was huge and very interesting. This is another place we have to go back to when we go back. This and The Met.

The Museum of Natural History

Dog dolls found in the Tombs of Colima in Mexico

Dinosaur Food

After spending half the day walking around in the museum, it was nice to get on the top of the bus and finish off the rest of the Uptown tour while we sat. It took us to Harlem, the Met, the Guggenhein, Central Park, Fifth Ave and many other places that I’m sure I’ll remember later.

We also did a night tour on the double-decker that took us to see all of the lights of NY. It picked us up in Times Square, which is named for the good times you have when you're in it. You know I couldn’t pass up a chance to quote Michael Scott. Speaking of Michael Scott, there’s no way I could pass up this photo op in Times Square. He'd be proud of us.

Gotta Get Me A New York Slice!

This part of the tour freaked my freak. Let me preface this by saying that I have never really been afraid of heights. I mean, I’ve done worse things like been on the top of the Stratosphere ride in Las Vegas. We went over the top of the Manhattan Bridge, though, and I got the strangest freight of heights. I was paralyzed. We were on the top of the bridge on the top of the double-decker and when you looked off the side, you couldn’t see any of the railings or anything. It just freaked me the hell out. I couldn’t look over. I don’t know what happened. I got over it when we got off the bridge. The one thing that sucked about this part of the tour is that our camera battery died and we forgot the backup battery in our hotel room, so we didn’t get any pictures of the rest of the night.

For dinner that night, we took the subway out to SoHo and ate at this little organic restaurant. The food was good but I liked the Italian place better. The saving grace on this meal was that this restaurant was a few blocks away from a Pinkberry. Have I raved to you guys about Pinkberry before? It’s this deelish yogurt place that they have in LA and Lee took us there once when we were visiting in January. We had been craving Pinkberry for the last couple of months. I think Matt was more giddy than I was when we saw that they were in NY, as well. After Pinkberry, we called it a night and headed home.

New York, New York: The city so nice, they named it twice! DAY ONE.

In case you all haven’t heard, Dave, Andrea, Matt and I took a little trip up to NYC. It was a mini birthday vacation. We had so much fun and want to go back already. I’m going to jot down some of my favorite things about each of the days there so you guys can feel like you were there with us. Instead of posting a super long NY blog, I’m going to split it up into days. So, stand back because here goes the first installment.

Day One:
So, day one is really like day one plus a night. We ended up taking the red eye out on Thursday night. We figured we could sleep on the plane and then have all day Friday to scour the city and that way we would save on hotel costs for Thursday night. Bad idea…bad idea jeans. I think I slept two hours on the flight up. It was a good flight though, if you don’t consider the biatch that was sitting behind me. I’m trying to keep this blog PG so I won’t talk about her or else it’ll get all stupid up in here. We flew Jet Blue for the first time and I gotta say I loved it. Every seat had it’s own tv with Direct TV and XM radio, free of charge. Did somebody say free? Me likes free.

We got to NYC at 7am-ish (that would be 4am-ish Phoenix time for those keeping track). We were able to do an early check-in at our hotel, which was right around the corner from the Letterman studio. We did breakfast at this café. Everyone said I should try a bagel in NYC because they are supposed to be the “best bagels”. They tasted the same to me. No problem, since I like bagels anyway… but I’m just saying.

We spent the day walking to Rockefeller Center and going to the NBC Experience store. You know Andrea and I had to pick up some Office merchandise. I got the Fun Run t-shirt and the “Support the Rabid” wristband, which I ended up forgetting in the hotel because it was so small. Idiot. I also bought a Panther Football t-shirt from the NBC store. It’s so soft.

Aww, Steve! You know we had to take a pic of this.

We also went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was so beautiful. I fell in love with it’s architecture and all of the carvings in the walls and the ceilings and just everything. Can you imagine being married there? Next, time we go to NY, I am going to make it a priority to go to mass there.

Another cool thing we got to do that day was attend a taping of The Conan O’Brien show. It was so exciting. The first thing we all said to each other when we went in to sit down was, “Wow, this is so small. It looks so much bigger on tv” (TWSS!) but really, the studio was so tiny. We were so close. It was pretty fun because they had a warm-up guy come out and tell some jokes before the show started. Conan even came out and talked to the audience before the show started. I don’t know if you guys watched the show, but Conan did this bit about Fleet Week and the sailors he was talking to were sitting two people away from us. There are some scenes where you can see Matt, Andrea and I. The tickets were free *and* we got a free Conan tee. Suhweet! (Remember when I said I liked free? I wasn’t kidding.)

This is a screenshot of us on the Conan show!

Later that night we had our first encounter with the subways. We made it to our destination without getting lost, which was an added bonus. (I wish we had a subway system here, but it’s never gonna happen. Who still thinks the light rail is gonna work?) We ended up going to Greenwich Village in the NYU area for dinner. We ate at this lovely little restaurant called Pasta Presto. I had a delicious Tuscan Steak. So good.

Pho Ao Sen

You all know how much we love pho, right? If you don’t know what pho is or you didn’t read my last post on it, here is a refresher. In short, it is a bowl of absolute heaven. One of my favorite things in the world is going to get pho with Matt, Dave and Andrea and just chatting it up while we enjoy our little bowl of yumminess. Up until last week, we only frequented this one little hole in the wall Vietnamese restaurant by Fiesta Mall. Last week, one of my coworkers recommended this place on Dobson and Baseline. He said it had better pho than this other place that we go to. I believed him. I mean he is Vietnamese, so he should know.* Matt, Dave, Andrea and I went this place and it was visually a treat. The décor was very hip, charming and relaxing. So far, so good.

We ordered some appeteezers and some pho. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t taste the difference. It was really good. The only difference between this place and the other place were the prices and the ambiance. The prices for the items here were about 1 or 2 bucks more than at the other place. We were all able to eat (drinks, appeteezers, and pho) for around $30. Not bad. We were paying for a nicer place and a faster waiter. I think you have to wait an hour at the other place before a waiter comes to give you refills or your bill.

All in all, I really liked this place. And how can you not like a place with a slogan like:

“Pho Ao Sen: Simply PHO’nomenal”

We are going to NYC over Memorial Day weekend, so we are planning to hit up some great restaurants over there, including a Vietnamese one that I read about, so I will be posting more pho goodness.


* I feel like I need to say that I am just kidding, in case someone who doesn’t know me reads this and thinks I’m a complete ass. My friends know I was just channeling my inner Michael Scott.

T.G.I.T.

Thank goodness it’s Thursday…my favorite day of the week! I haven’t posted anything in awhile. I know it was about month ago (can you believe how fast time flies?) but I think I am still trying to get over my vacation. Anyway, why exactly do I love Thursdays? Three reasons: The Office, Lost, and I get every other Friday off so that means I get to stay up late. As you may know, I am a night owl (but I don’t have worms,) so I enjoy the times when I can stay up late just frittering time away... plus who can deny a night where we can get both our Jim Halpert and Jack Shephard on? Not I.

Here’s a picture of my favorite island that we visited on this cruise. It’s St. Johns. The only thing that would make today better would be me, Matt and the puppies lying on this beach all day and then retreating to our bungalow to watch Office and Lost. Ah, a girl can dream, can’t she?

P.S. I just wanted to throw a major thanks to Andrea for that last post. I read that on our flight back from FL and got all teary. She’s the best GD friend a girl could ask for.

Happy Anniversary!!!

Happy 1 Year Anniversary to Matt and Eunice! I couldn't have been happier that two of my best friends were married one year ago on April 14th, 2007!! Dave and I wish nothing but the best for the both of you and although you won't get to read this until next week, I wanted to post a little something to tell you guys that we love you and couldn't be happier for you! We wish you many-many more happy years together!!

Tomorrow is MY Pretzel Day!

Have you guys ever had a time when you’ve had something on your mind and you can’t do any work because you just keep thinking about that one thing and it’s like you can’t do anything else until you get this one thing out of your system? Well, I am going through that right now, except it’s been going on for like this whole week. It’s a disease that can only be cured by one thing and that thing is new Office. The Office returns tomorrow and Thursday’s will be right again and I couldn’t be any giddier! It’s like I am a chubby kid who was forced to go to some horrible fat camp by their parents and today is the last day of fat camp and all chubby kid can think about is the pantry full of ding-dongs and twinkies and ho-hos that await him when he gets home. There hasn’t been an hour this week that Andrea and I haven’t emailed each other with “squees” or speculation or just to express how extremely ecstatic we are for the show to return. I can’t wait for all the Jim and Pam goodness that awaits us (please Greg Daniels, at least give us that), the Michael/Jan awkwardness that will follow after what happened on “The Deposition”, and I’m still waiting for Dwight to show us what a warrior he is and how he will rise like a phoenix after Angela burned him.

Welcome back, Office! We missed ya.

Once

Matt and I watched the movie Once about a couple of months ago and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. It is a lovely little independent movie that deals with music, love and inspiration and was really beautifully shot. It is about meeting that person that inspires you to do more. This movie has a lot of music but is more than a musical. Confusing, right? What I mean by that is that the two main characters are musicians so we get to hear a lot of thier music but it's not a traditional musical where we hear the characters sing responses to each other which can get annoying. The way the music appears in this movie is really natural.

Speaking of the music in this movie, I have to say I loved it. About three weeks ago, Matt bought me the soundrack and I can't get enough of it. I have to admit, I'm a little obsessed with the soundtrack right now. It has beautiful songs such as the Oscar winning "Falling Slowly", which I must say, it was awesome to see them win. (Gotta love an Irish lad who says "Tanks!". I know he wasn't going for a joke there but it still made me laugh.) That isn't the only great song on the CD. The whole soundrack is a keeper. Some of my other favorites are "Lies", "If You Want Me", "Leave", "Say It To Me Now" and my personal favorite "You Must Have Fallen From the Sky".