The Big Apple

NYC Skyline from Circle Line Tour

On Thursday morning we took a train ride into NYC and arrived at Penn Station.  After a short subway ride to 57th Street, we walked on over to our hotel.  We had tickets for a Thurs. night Broadway show called "Promises, Promises".  The show was hilarious (mostly because of Sean Hayes and Katie Finneran) and very, very good!   

Click on the link to see Katie Finneran in the show...  Promises, Promises!

On Friday, we did a bit of walking... went down to the World Trade Center site and walked into the World Financial Center, through a park on the water, and visited the 9/11 memorial site preview.  That night we took 6 hour bike tour!!  We started in the lower East side and made our way through East Village, Greenwich Village, West Village, up the Brooklyn Bridge and back down again, up about half the length of Manhattan by the new Harbor Park and back down Broadway through the heart of NYC.  We stopped about half way through for pizza at Bleeker Street (GREAT pizza) and gelato.  The tour was really great (Red Apple Bike Tours) but I would say 5 hours would be enough.  The last hour was pretty tough and tiring.

On Saturday we set out to get discounted theater tickets.  We started by visiting the "Wicked" Box Office and signing up for the matinee ticket lottery (basically we put our names in a lottery for a chance to win 2 front row tickets for $26.25 each).  We lost that lottery, but learned from another person in line we could go to another theater and get discount tickets by saying that we lost their lottery drawing... so we got $40 tickets to the show "In The Heights" (with Jordin Sparks).  Sat. night we tried again for the "Wicked" lottery, but this time there were about 200 people in the lottery instead of the 50 that were there for the matinee.  We lost the lottery again!  This time we had a plan... we went to another theater that was holding a lottery right after the Wicked lottery and we had just enough time to throw our names in the bucket.  We lost that lottery also!  But this show had "lottery loser" tickets, so we got $40 tickets again and saw "Next to Normal" (a good, dramatic play).

Sunday was check-out day from our hotel and we ONCE AGAIN tried for the Wicked lottery.  We lost again!  After that, we spent the rest of the day walking in and around Central Park.  The weather was perfect, and the park was hoppin'!  There was even a retro skate dance party where people of all kinds were dancing on rollerskates/blades.  "If you're not dancin', you're in the way!"  In case you are wondering, we got out of the way, but enjoyed the show!  Photo slideshow below...