Taking a Bite Out of the Big Apple

This past weekend, we made a quick trip to the City that Never Sleeps... New York City!  It was a great weekend get away that was filled with activities!  We flew in in late Thursday night and stayed in Astoria near the airport since I had a free Marriott night that needed to be used.  We didn't arrive to the hotel until after 10:00 so we just went straight to sleep.  We needed a lot of rest before our busy day in the City on Friday.

Friday morning, we rode the Train into Times Square where our hotel was.  The weather was not very good as it was extremely foggy and cloudy all day.  However, the Intercontinental Hotel was nice and in a great location!  We weren't able to check in right away,  so we dropped off our bags and headed out to explore the town.

Our first stop was Fifth Avenenue, of course!  We walked the streets admiring all the beautiful stores in all their glory!  We went in and out of stores admiring the merchandise. We stopped at Zara, Tiffany's, FAO Schwarz, and many other iconic New York stores.  We walked and walked and walked until we could not walk anymore and needed something to eat.  After a quick bite a nice cafe, we walked to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.



It is a VERY large museum and our legs were already tired from walking before lunch that after an hour or so I started getting a little anxious to move on to our next stop.  But, while at the Museum, we saw some great paintings and sculptures.  I'm glad we went!

After the Museum, we stolled around Central Park.  This was my first time in the Park an I was amazed at how calm and serene it is!  I couldn't believe how quiet it was with all the craziness going on around it!  It was truly a beautiful park.

At the end of our journey through Central Park, we stopped by the John Lennon "Imagine" Memorial.

And John Lennon's apartment where he was shot and killed...  

Friday night, we met up with a good friend of mine for dinner and drinks before our show.  It was so good to see Mike in NYC!

We saw the Broadway musical, Memphis after dinner.  It was a really fun and entertaining show.  The actors were really amazing!



After the show we went to Times Square to take some of the usual "tourist" pictures.

Saturday, we started the day with a very tasty complimentary breakfast at our hotel to give us energy to walk the Brooklyn Bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan.  It was VERY windy on Saturday and a little chilly but the views made it all worth while...

At the end of the Brooklyn Bridge we decided to head to Soho for some more shopping!  I personally LOVED Soho!  There were so many shops that I loved: Michael Kors, Tibi, Scotch & Soda, etc, etc, and etc... We had lunch at a local pizza place called Lambardi's.  The long wait was totally worth it because the pizza was Amazing!

After lunch we headed back to Midtown and stopped by Bryant Park for a nice glass of wine...



And the New York Public library just because...



Saturday night, we went to the Ainsworth bar where the New York City Alabama Alumni Society meet to watch football games.  You wouldn't believe how crowded it was with Alabama Alumni!  I was amazed.  We decided not to stay after waiting in line at the bar for several hours minutes.  I mean, we could do this back in Tuscaloosa and I did NOT want to spend another New York minute in an overly crowded bar.  We still had an hour or so before dinner, so we found a small bar that had one T.V. They changed the channel to the Bama game just for us!  The people at this bar were so friendly that it was hard to leave.  But I was hungry so we went to went to a Tapas restaurant called Boqueria for dinner.  The food was pretty good and the atmosphere was great.

After dinner we went to a very small Jazz Club called Smalls (the name was given for the obvious reason).  I think Erol was in heaven since the lead musician at this club that night was a well-know drummer.  Just after midnight, we headed back to the hotel.  What a fun night we had!



Sunday, we woke up and went to the noon Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral.  This church was absolutely beautiful!  It was packed with Christians from all over the world coming together for Mass.  What a beautiful experience!



Mike met up with us again after Mass for lunch before we had to head to the airport.  We had an amazing weekend in NYC.  Erol and I both thought it was a lot of fun and we vowed to return sooner than later.  I loved how busy the City was at all hours of the day.  It's a great place to visit for a long weekend but I'm very glad to come home to a more quiet, less busy City of Birmingham, Alabama...