Tales of New York!

This will be a multi part post, just way too many stories to cram into one entry.

I have wanted to go to New York for as long as I can remember, but for some reason just never made it. My family even went back east when my brother Chad graduated from George Washington but I had state tennis and had to stay behind! So it only took 24 ½ years to finally reach my goal! I got an email at work about a travel package –“The Wicked Girl’s Weekend Getaway!” Already I was interested. I kept reading, saw it was in New York, and at this point didn’t really care about the rest of the details. I was going. Turns out it was a really cool package!

Barbara Colvin and I flew out of Salt Lake on Thursday morning, and landed at JFK airport around 3:30. We started walking towards baggage claim and saw a driver holding a sign with our names! Now if that doesn’t get you excited I don’t know what will! So we started the drive to our hotel. Hit some traffic, but that is to be expected, it was almost rush hour…

We stayed at The Muse Hotel – about half a block from Times Square! It was perfect, we could walk to all of our plays and only had to get a cab 2 or 3 times for the whole weekend! Turns out New Kids on the Block were staying at our hotel - we were heading out to lunch and there was a HUGE crowd of girls lining the sidewalk just waiting for them to come out. We didn't feel the need to wait, I didn't even listen to them when they were cool...

We quickly showered and got ready for the first activity – Wicked! Our seats were great; we were 3^rd row on the Mezzanine! The show was awesome, I had seen it twice in LA but it was Barb's first time and she loved it too! After that we just walked around, sat and watched people running around Times Square until about 1am and decided to call it a night.

The next morning we had to wake up early – but before you feel too bad for me – it was for our spa appointment! We walked over to the Westin Hotel Spa and had facials, Reflexology, scalp treatment and a manicure. Not a bad start to the day! The reflexology was basically a foot massage, which I probably would have enjoyed a lot more if I wasn't so ticklish... I got my manicure from a Russian lady who spent the whole time telling me which nationalities she didn't like and why... Very educational!

On Friday the Museum of Modern Art is free after 4 so we went to that, saw some interesting stuff, and went back to the hotel to get ready for Mamma Mia. Plus, we were feeling adventurous and decided to try a sushi place the hotel recommended – Sushi de Gari. (Word of advice –when someone recommends a restaurant in New York City, be sure to ask what the average price per plate is just so it’s not a complete shock when you get there and already have reservations so you don’t want to cancel…) But it was actually really good, and I guess sushi is one of those things you don’t really want to go too cheap on or you’ll probably end up sick. I am really proud of myself though, I started with salmon – nothing was cooked AT ALL – and worked my way up to something that I’m still not sure what it was… A little chewy for my taste but I ate it. I think I had something like red snapper, or is it white? Anyway, it was great! And we were off to the play! Now, I had seen the movie and really liked it, but wasn’t really expecting too much from the musical. It totally blew me out of the water, I honestly couldn’t tell you if I liked Wicked or Mamma Mia better, it was just amazing! Such high energy, boys dancing around in wet suits with flippers and scuba masks on, it was just hilarious!

I think that's all for this post, I'll finish the trip later!