Home from NYC!

[Lindsey]

I made it home safe and sound! I had a long two days of traveling, so I talked to the admin assistant at my office yesterday, saying I was going to take the morning off today and she's like "Don't worry about it, I'd take the whole day if I were you. In fact, nobody's even expecting you back until next week!" :D
I have sooooo many stories to tell, but right now I need to get dressed and buy some groceries because my tummy is grumbling and I have no food here! I just wanted to check in quickly. I'll be back later with stories and to read the 900+ posts I missed while I was gone lol

[donna1990]

Can't wait to hear your stories.

[Janet]

I bet you had a great time...don't forget the pictures.

[Gina]

Lindsey I know that you had a blast . NYC is beautiful esp. this time of year... Hurry back and post.

[Lindsey]

Ah sorry guys I got a little busy today! I'm going to hit the hay and post my stories tomorrow!

[celstu1]

oh yay! welcome back! I hope you loved NYC! Its one of my favorite places in the world! So fun and fast paced! I almost think I could live there! :)

[judy]

I can't wait for your stories and pictures! I bet you had a wonderful time.

[Lindsey]

Okay I'm going to do a day-by-day breakdown of what we did!

Monday - drove 6 hours to Red Deer, Alberta, to spend the night at my friend's house!

Tuesday - left Red Deer at 3:30 am to get to the airport in Edmonton at 4:30 am. Flew out at 7:30 am. Got to snowy, blizzardy Ottawa at about 1:30 pm. Waited for FIVE HOURS because our plane was delayed an hour. Got on a tiny little plane finally and flew out in bad conditions and hit lots of turbulance and thought I was gonna die. Finally made it to NYC in one piece :D We checked into our tiny room with no room for even our bags and black mold in the bathroom! :eek: But then we went out to eat at a little irish pub and checked out Times Square.

Wednesday - Sex and the City tour!!! It was my favorite part of the whole trip. Then in the evening we saw the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. When we got back to the hotel I told the front desk that we didn't have internet connection in our room, and he said we could upgrade to a bigger room for $30 more a night but with internet and access to the lounge with free breakfast and snacks all day. So we went for it.

Thursday - Macy's parade! We stood for hours before and my back and hips and knees were killing me. Then we went to central park to walk around, then a carriage ride (where the driver said we missed David Beckham by TEN MINUTES!!!) Then we walked down 5th ave to window shop and plan out everywhere we were going to shop the next day!

Friday - SHOPPING! I got a super cute $300 jacket for $100. And I got a few other things too. Can't really think of it all right now! Then we went to Mesa Grill for supper and we met the chef, Bobby Flay, and got pictures taken with him. My friend just loves him and she was all flustered, it was cute! We were going to go out that night but after the bottle of wine with supper, we all passed out!

Saturday - Outlet mall shopping! We actually got to go through New Jersey on the bus so that was pretty cool. I got a ton of stuff at the outlet mall and got most of my Christmas shopping done! Saturday night we had VIP at a nightclub (Webster Hall) and Run DMC showed up to perform which was pretty awesome, I got some video of them. The table next to us in the VIP section was a bunch of NYPD :D okay not so much :D but it was pretty cool. They were like 40+ and trying to pick us up. The one guy was telling me about all the gruesome murders he sees every day and I was like "um we have like 3 murders a year" but I think he was trying to seem really tough. Our waiter had a thing for me so we were chatting all night and they let us stay past close. He was only 21 but he's going to school for acting and said he just finished filming for a movie with someone famous (I can't remember who!) in a movie that's coming out in 2 years.... we'll see! Anyways, we rolled back into our room at about 6 am.

Sunday - At about 10 am we got a call saying they had plumbing problems in a room next to ours so we were being upgraded to a suite instead at no extra cost. We walked into the room and saw a LIVING ROOM... then a dining room and a kitchen and two seperate bedrooms with a bathroom in each!!! It was gorgeous! Then we did the uptown tour. We saw Harlem, Strawberry Fields, the Guggenheim... other places that are escaping my memory right now!

Monday - Downtown tour. We saw MADISON SQUARE GARDEN (and stuck out as typical Canadians... the only people on the bus taking pictures of MSG lol), went to scary Chinatown, had the best soup of my life in Little Italy, went through Soho, did a water taxi ride around the Statue of Liberty, went through Brooklyn, and then I was so tired I can't remember where else we went. We decided to skip the night tour just because we were all exhausted. We went back to our hotel room and packed up.

Tuesday - Had smooth flights to Toronto and then Edmonton. My friend's fiance picked us up and took us back to Red Deer. We ordered pizza and I went to bed at 8:30 lol

Wednesday - Woke up at 7:30 and drove home again. Kandace and I got into the city right when we had booked massage appointments so we went straight there and had the most relaxing hour of the whole vacation!

And that's my trip! I will add pictures eventually :)

[2tiredmom]

That was one busy vacation. So glad they up graded your room. I'm to old for all that that you did. Glad your back.....;)

[judy]

Wow! It's good to be young! You really saw more of NYC than I've seen in the past 5 years. It sounds like you had a wonderful, fun filled time. And...don't let anybody fool you - Everyone who goes inside MSG is thrilled to be there!

What hotel did you stay at? You really upgraded. Good thing - the first room sounds yucky. What is the Sex and the City tour? How did you get VIP tickets?
Where are the pictures?

Enough questions for now. You need to sleep. I'm glad you had a safe, wonderful trip.

[Lindsey]

I told the girls at the end of the trip that my next vacation is going to be a week of laying on a beach somewhere lol
We stayed at the Milford Plaza on 8th. It was really close to everything, and the upgrade was great, although we didn't spend a lot of time in the room anyway!
The Sex and the City tour was a tour based on the show, and they also included places from the movie. We saw Carrie and Big's apartment building, the Magnolia bakery (and we got free cupcakes!), Steve's bar (where we went in and drank cosmos!), the Pleasure Chest (lol... I didn't buy anything but a lot of people did), and the place that did all the makeup for the show (one friend bought about $150 worth of makeup there! :eek:)... and a ton more places! Our tour guide was also at the premiere of the movie and met a few of the characters so she had a lot of info about them and behind the scenes stuff on the show. All of us loved the show so we really enjoyed the tour! Oh and we stopped at the HBO store at the end, where I bought a Sex and the City t-shirt for myself, and a Single and Fabulous frilly t-shirt for my single and fabulous dog :D :D :D
As for the VIP... I was looking into nightclubs a long time ago and thought this one looked pretty cool... 4 floors and 6 dj's! I looked into it a little further and saw they had VIP packages for $125 per person. It's expensive but come on, how often are we clubbing in NYC? :D So we went for that, and the bottle service was included in the price. $300 for a bottle of Crown Royal :eek: But damn we were NOT spending that much and leaving more than half the bottle there! So the NYPD guys helped Jeni smuggle the bottle into her purse to bring it back with us lol!
Pictures will come! I want to put them all on photobucket so you guys can see all of them... it's kind of a pain to upload them 4 at a time into posts!

[Lindsey]

http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii154/lindseyleah/NYC%202008/

[pope1982]

:coolsmiley:

[Janet]

Great pictures Lindsey, I want to see NYC before I die. I would love to go there and see everything.

[judy]

What great pictures! It is a beautiful city, isn't it? Nice place to visit, but would you want to live there? It looks to me like you saw most of the really great spots. Was that the Arch in Brooklyn? How did you get to Brooklyn? Isn't The Statue of Liberty something to see? You saw Central Park, which is so beautiful.
I can't believe you went to the parade! You got good pictures of the floats and balloons. I have never gone to a NYC parade. Too crowded. I love the wax museum pix. I really love the views too.

I'm so glad you got to see New York. It is an amazing place. I'm glad I got to grow up there.

[Lindsey]

Judy, when we first got there, I thought it would be such a cool place to live! Things to do and see every day, and everything is always so busy! But by the end of the trip, I was ready to leave. I'm a small town girl and it really made me realize what home is to me. I always wanted to live in a big city but after being in NYC for a week I was so happy to get back. I couldn't deal with the skyscrapers and crowds every day. I think I'd go crazy! And I also really really missed Canadian food. There were just a lot of little differences that I don't think I would like long-term, but it definitely was a great place to visit! I'd love to go back to see all the things we didn't have time for this time!
The arch was by NYU I think... at least there were some buildings that said NYU on them and then there was the arch lol. I can't even remember what area we were in, we just got off the bus and started walking!
We went to Brooklyn on the Brooklyn Loop of our tour :) I really wanted to go over the Brooklyn Bridge but apparently double-decker buses aren't allowed on it so we took the Manhattan Bridge. I did miss a lot of Brooklyn because I stayed in the bus instead of going on top... it was cold after the water taxi ride!
The parade was SO crowded! 4 million people there... we went early and got pretty close, but there were crowds of people pushing from behind and trying to get by and it was just really uncomfortable!

[Marilyn]

Wow, Lindsey, looks like you had a wonderful time. Things sure look different there this time of year. Some of your pics remind me of when our daughter Karen and I went a few years ago.

I think the arch is the Washington Square Arch on 5th Avenue in Manhattan. We got to see Konya West (sp?) there. He was on Good Morning America or something that morning. The stage was set up at the other end of the park from the arch.

[Lindsey]

Thanks Marilyn, that's it, the Washington Square arch!
Kanye West is one of my favorite performers :D

[Gina]

Hi Lindsey, Yep thats Washington Square... you took great photos I will look at them better later on. I have been to the Madame Tussaud Wax Museum it is awesome. I to like Judy have never been to the Macys Thanksgiving Parade. I am always cooking for Thanksgiving and I get front row seats at home.. lol One day I would like to go to the parade and eat out.

There is so much to see and I am sure it is over whelming for someone who is not use to crowds. I love NYC would I live there maybe if I had money yes or was single. lol. Teasing I like the surburbs better. My daughter wants to move there someday but it is very expensive place to live.

Janet you must go, hey maybe we can have a meet up in NYC next summer that would be great. Just a thought!

[gja1000]

Lindsay, your trip sounds wonderful!!! I"ve never been to New York - I hope to go sometime!

[DianaB]

From your pictures you really got to see a lot and do a lot!!!! It looks like it was a really fun trip!!! I don't know if I'd want to go to NYC or not because, like you, I'm a small town/country girl.