Concrete Jungle Where Dreams are Made

Settle in.  Grab some popcorn and maybe a glass of wine...because this is my long ass blog about NEW YORK CITY!

   

I don't know how I have gone my entire life without visiting New York.  But as my 30's approach, I figured it was time to stop thinking, "Maybe next year" and just do it!

So Diana and I bought our tickets and reserved an Airbnb for my first trip to NYC!  

Diana found us some New York Passes at a disount price, which allowed us into a ton of attractions for free and most of the time we got to skip the line.  And we crammed as much as possible into three and a half days!

First ride on the subway...so far so good.  

After arriving in the big city and getting settled in at our (super sketchy) airbnb, we headed to Red Roosters to eat the best chicken sandwich of my life.  

I seriously didn't know chicken could taste like that.

Then we headed to Times Square!

And I can quite honestly say this might be my least favorite place in the whole world. Don't go. DON'T DO IT!  You will get squished by the crowd of stupid people who keep taking pictures, walking the wrong way, and don't know their way around. (Whether I fall into this category is beside the point.)  And you will get other human sweat on you. Not your own...other people's!  I repeat. DON'T GO!  
Unless you want to see a Broadway play, then you are pretty much stuck walking through Time's Square no matter what. So yeah, we were there like everyday getting tickets for our shows. 

I had to take a bow on Broadway!

The first night we went to Matilda which was so cute!  

It's nice traveling with this chick because we entertain ourselves so well during long waits.

The next morning, we headed out early to stand in line for rush tickets to the color purple!  We missed it by about five people, but decided to splurge a little and got tickets anyway.  

And it was so worth it!

Except can someone explain the significance of the wall of chairs?  It looks cool and I get the function of using the ones on the bottom for everything from sitting to weapons...but a whole wall of chairs.  We couldn't figure it out.  What are we missing?  

Anyway, after snagging those tickets we headed to Madam Tussauds to pick up our NY passes. And while we were there, we hung out with some celebs.

I helped Steven direct a scene, fought some ghosts with Melissa, sung a tune with Whitney (miracles do happen) and got to touch JLo's butt.  No Biggie.

Then we went to this exhibit called "The Body" which was so interesting that neither of us took any pictures. But here is one from the internet.

It's an exhibit of people who donated their bodies to science and their bones, muscles, and organs are on display in a ton of different positions.  My explanation isn't doing it justice by any means, but we both loved it. 

Then we went to MOMA!

And saw a lot of really cool and weird art.

How does that make you feel?

Name that Artist!

My favorite.  I super love it a lot a lot a lot. 

A little Monet.

Okay, it was a HUGE Monet

And of course this totally insignificant piece of art...

Ugh...a photo of a painting is just the WORST! ;)

Then we headed to the top of the rock to get a different view of NYC

It was super duper pretty!

After that, I wanted to see the skating rink in Rockefeller Center.  But it's August.


So we hung around that area, took a walk by Radio City Music Hall, and then ended the night at The Color Purple.

The next morning we woke up sorta kinda early, ran to get our tickets to Fun Home, then hopped over to the Met.  

Now you could easily spend a whole weekend in this museum.  It's so huge.  But we decided to limit our time to two and a half hours. Totally enough time, right?

 Oh! Sorry, these I are just pictures of my closet.  I have no idea how these got on here!

Van Gogh himself ladies and gents!

Oh Hayyy Jackson, I love seeing you again.

Then we zoomed through the Guggenheim 

And last, we headed to the 9/11 memorial and museum.  I wasn't sure if this was something that I wanted to do.  Our trip was so fun, I didn't feel like getting too serious about life. 

But it was Beautiful.  It was touching and respectful and I learned so much about that day.  I want to go back to spend more time there someday.

 Then we caught a cab and half rode half RAN through the streets of New York to catch Fun Home!  Which was so, so good!  Like, every play should be done in the round.  And someday I will work at Circle in the Square Theatre.

Sunday we woke up to catch the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.  I love myself a good ferry ride and this one didn't disappoint.  No matter where you look, there is a pretty view!  And here are some pictures of my pretty view. 

Then we headed to Central Park to meet up with our friend, Micaela!

I haven't seen her since her wedding two years ago! So it was great to hang with her for the rest of the day.  

Turtles in the pond

Oh no biggie.  Just a few guys casually walking around with huge snakes.

 

 Photo Credit for this beautiful picture goes to Diana Coates

Later that night, we checked out Washington park.  

I took a little dip in the fountain!  The cold water felt so good.

After hanging out there, we all went out for some yummy New York pizza.  Then Diana and I had one last stop for the day! 

 
The Empire State building!

Night pictures never turn out very well.  But trust me, it was a great view.  And I'm so glad that we went at midnight because we didn't have to wait in line at all!  

 

Our last morning, we woke up early enough to do one more thing!  We walked across the Brooklyn bridge.  

And that was the only time I stepped out of Manhattan.  Yep, we did all that stuff and I never even visited another borough.  

We had to hustle to catch our flight.  The epic story of catching our plane back could be a whole post in and of itself. But just know that we are awesome and still made it back to Chicago.  Home sweet home.  For now ;)

Whew!  Did you make it through that whole post.  Kudos.  Give yourself a pat on the back, because woah!