New York City: Day Three

5:30 am -- (yep, 5 freakin' 30 in the am) We receive our wake-up call. One that I PURPOSELY set up. Why, you say? Because we are headed to see Norah Jones this morning! For free! ABC's Good Morning, America holds a free concert in Bryant Park every Friday morning and it just so happens that one of my favorite singers will be there. Yippee! (except we have to wake up at O Dark Thirty in the morning to get there. On the busiest day of our trip. It turned out to be pretty much worth it. Even the standing in one spot for 2 hours straight(with sun in our eyes) to listen to 3 songs.



She's sooo cute!

10:00 am -- We have a reservation for the NBC tours at NBC studios at Rockefeller center. Got to see Conan O'Brien's studio and Saturday Night Live studios. No pictures were allowed so you'll have to take my word for it. It was cool to get an insider's view of how SNL is produced. On the tour with us were a large group of school-age kids. They always come up with such great questions. Here's Ron's question for the SNL portion of the tour. "What happens to all of the sets after the show?" It turns out that they have them transported in from Jersey, arriving on Wed. or Thur., and then they are painted rather quickly for the Saturday show. Afterwards they're shipped back out (hopefully recycled in some way but who knows). Another interesting tidbit: the audience during the dress rehearsal performance gets a part in deciding what skits stay and which ones get cut. If a skit gets very little positive feedback (ie: laughter), it gets cut before the live performance.




12:00 pm -- We grab lunch from a street vendor (not a hot dog or pretzel) and bring it back to the room to get prettied up for the second half of the day.

2:00 pm -- Time for one of the most anticipated activities of the trip (for me at least).



Yep, that's David Hyde Pierce in the Broadway musical, "Curtains". It was very entertaining. Of course, I'm partial to the dance numbers (I was a dancer in a local production of Oklahoma way back when). Fun plot, rousing song and dance, and excellent acting. Who could ask for more?

5:00 pm -- We make our way to the SoHo area. Quick trivia: What does SoHo stand for? ........South of Houston....Houston is pronounce How-stun named after some dude (can't remember his first name) Houston who was too pretentious to pronounce his name Hew-stun. You can thank me later for that bit of useless information. Our dinner reservation for L' Ecole (the French Culinary Institute resaurant) is not until 8 pm. We decide to just wander and see if there's anything interesting to entertain us for the next three hours. Hmmmm. After aimlessly wandering through the crowded streets, we decide to take the train over to the J&R music store to purchase a new battery for my cell phone. Even though I don't use public transportation on a daily basis, I would like to think that I'm not a complete idiot. No such luck. I've always been creeped out by revolving doors, especially the metal gate ones. So when I come up to the revolving gate door entrance to the subway, I'm hesitant. Long story, short. I get stuck on the wrong side of the gate after passing my card through the reader and it won't accept my card again for another 18 minutes. Yay! (sarcasm) Frustrated, we decide to hoof it.

Not really planning to, but because we were in the vicinity of, we visited Ground Zero. Not much to see as it is basically a huge construction area. For me, it was a moving experience just standing back and imagining what used to be. I hope the new building serves it's intended purpose.

7: 30 pm -- With a half an hour to go before our dinner reservation, my bladder is about to burst. I quickly realize that it is almost impossible to find a public restroom unless you are a patron of a restaurant. Most of the shopping establishments have no facilities. Finally, we pop into Bloomingdales and they have not just one, but three glorious restrooms - one for each floor. I'm tempted to use each of them just because I can, but I refrain myself.

8:00 pm -- Our Frenchy dinner was yummy. I'm sure the chef would not appreciate that type of review. Not ever having experienced an authentic French meal (yes, I live a sheltered life), it was nice to be in a facility where the servers spoke plain English and the menu items were listed in both English and French. Very user friendly! I won't bore everyone with the details of all five courses, but here are the highlights. Ron had this one dish with a dark, very black sauce that turned his teeth black. Of course as soon as I mentioned this fact to him, he had to display his black chompers to me with a big grin. Very flattering indeed! I had a super yummy (kudos to the chef) Asparagus cream soup. Dessert was, by far, the main event. I ordered the blueberry lemon tart that arrived with a sugar wafer thingy (again, the chef is cringing). I would have to say that although it was good and I loved the experience of having these dishes delivered to me that have such a lovely presentation it makes it extremely difficult to mess it up by taking a bite, I no longer feel the need to spend that much money on one meal. Been there, done that, moving on.

10:00 pm -- Riding the train back to our hotel there is an interesting mixture of people (more so than the usual). Directly across from us, we witnessed an obviously drunk man who had wet himself sitting next to a well dressed young woman who was oblivious to the too-close-for-comfort ickyness. I suppose it's not officially a trip to NYC until you see either A) someone urinate on themselves B) someone urinate on a friend or C) someone urinate in a parking garage due to their condition of Uromysatisys.

Thus ends a very busy day. Onto the next!