"What Happens in Vegas" Day 3

This day was probably my favorite day. We left our hotel around 9:45a (which was really 11:45 our time. I was lovin' this time change!) and headed to the Luxor for the Bodies Exhibit. This was so cool! I'm not just saying that because it was a medical lover's exhibit. I think the girl's enjoyed themselves almost as much as I did and they don't have any medical experience. I of course played the role of the information telephone. [You know, those phones you get when you go the aquarium that tell you about the selected fish when you punch in their special number]. It was good fun, and a wonderful way to start off the day. :)

We did a quick spin around Excalibur next. That's the hotel that looks like a castle with a medieval theme throughout. Next was New York, New York. I think this was the day that we learned we could cut through NY, NY much fast to get to MGM than going down the broken escalator, past Lady Liberty, and up another escalator. Hey, atleast we figured it out before we left.

We made our way to MGM to make reservations for the shuttle to the Fashion Outlet Mall the next day. The ticket guy was beyond strange. We walked away hoping that everything went according to schedule tomorrow. He seemed very shady. Oh well, he would not put a damper on my day!

Our plan for the day was to see the rest of the strip that we hadn't gotten to the day before. We had barely made it past MGM [and by past I mean directly next to] when we saw an Adidas store. You could almost hear angels singing and strumming harps. The girls feet were saved! We quickly dashed inside and made our way to the women's shoes section. The girls tried on shoes and both walked out wearing a brand spankin' new pair of tennies. Lisa's were grey [Just what she always wanted! Seriously... she said atleast 5 time "I've always wanted a pair of grey tennis shoes" ... Whatever floats your boat sis] and Holli's were white with three sporty black glittery stripes on the sides. Very chic, but strict orders were given to not include feet in the following photos. My feet were still quite adorable in my sandals, however, we were all overlooking the fact that my sandals were black and I was wearing a navy and creme dress that day. What can I say? The brown Old Navy Sandals just can't hack it in Vegas.

After Adidas we explored all four floors of the M&M Store. I never knew so much M&M items exhisted. I believe my most favorite item(s) were the baby onesies in different colors. Let's just say that you could have quints and all could have their own color. :) Adorable....
We also caught the 3D M&M movie "I Lost my 'M' in Vegas" Over all the movie was fine. I would suggest that if it is a short wait for the viewing your children might enjoy it, but otherwise it may not be worth it to you. However, the weird lady that played the "mad scientist" whoever-she-was role was rather interesting. She was talking to the movie and we could barely hear what she was saying. What you could hear was slurred. I was frankly quite frightened to be in a darkened room with her even though there were 20 other people around. We dashed out and away from her as soon as it was over.

We decided a pit stop to CVS was in order since the girls needed band aids and I was parched from the heat. We crossed the street twice only to see once we were on the other side that we were only one store away from a Walgreen's. That's just about right... We got our bandaids and a super sized bottle of water and went on our merry way. We ducked into the Shops @ Planet Hollywood for some much needed a/c time and rest. We found a bench, plopped down and ate our trail mix. We took a huge thing of trailmix and filled up baggies to take with us everyday. Best idea ever! It has protein, chocolate, and gives your growling stomach satisfaction in between meals. After all we were burning near 700 calories a day. ;)

We headed toward the Bellagio next. I'm not quite sure why we walked. I think the girls were feeling a new sense of empowerment (or numbness) from their new shoe purchase, but we walked through the scariest and dirtiest part of the strip to get there. Until that moment we had been spoiled by the Monorail that had dropped us off at Harrah's (past the construction zones). This god-forsaken zone was filled with less than clean people (you see how I tried to make that sound not so mean?), dirt galore, and card flickers [if you do not know to what I refer to, be greatful]. Once the wonderful Bellagio was in sight we crossed the street twice and made our way along the beautiful sidewalk. Just as we were walking up a round of fountain shows started. How lucky were we? I was so excited! We took a couple pictures and a little video and then went inside. I think the Bellagio was seriously my favorite place on the strip [The Venetian was a close second, but the fountains for sure pushed the Bellagio into first].

We walked through the Bellagio to to get our tickets for "O" [the Cirque de Soleil show we were seeing that night]. They had very pretty hot air balloons suspended from the ceiling amidst the shops, but we didn't get any pictures of them. Think Palazzo umbrellas, but instead they were small hot air balloons. I played the slots for the first time, because seriously, you can't not play atleast one while you're in Vegas. Sadly I lost my money. :( What could I expect though? I only played for 5 minutes. We went and got some gelato from the downstairs lobby and headed outside to see if we could catch another fountain show. We didn't end up sticking around long enough to see the show because they run on hour rotations during the day.

We headed across the bridge that connects to the other side of the street and made our way to Paris. Basically the only thing I found enjoyable was the picture I got of the mock Eiffel Tower. Otherwise the inside is boring and you have to pay to go up to the top. No thank you. Next please!

We headed over to the Flamingo to see the "Live Chilean Flamingos" that lady on the overhead speaker of the monorail had been telling us we just had to see. I'm here to tell you-- they are just flamingos. They don't do any chilean dances [is there such a thing] or act out shakespeare. They are simply a flamingo. Most of them were sleeping when we went through so the pictures were quick and then followed by "Can we go now?".

We were on a mission for lunch next. I had wanted to try Chipotle because I had heard it was good and there just so happened to be one nearby. Well, the Chipotle stand-alone restaraunts may be good, but our experience was not a great one. Chipotle was smashed in a tiny building with two other restaraunt places, and the patio was littered with birds waiting for a handout. If you know anything about us 3 girls you know we do not. do. birds. We jetted out of there and had to decide where we were going to go next. Hey, why not hop on our trusty Monorail and head back to MGM and eat at the Rainforest Cafe? Fabulous idea, and that is what we did. [Have I mentioned the $28 we spent for our Monorail passes was worth every penny, because it was. I love you Monorail.]

So we trekked through MGM yet again. We got right in and were seated near the kitchen [apparently our non-preference of choice. That's where we were seated at in the Cheesecake Factory too]. Our waiter Dustin far outweighed our bossy waiter from the CF. He was nice, a little bit of a talker, but very prompt with his service. He earned every penny of his tip. Lisa and I both got the Nachos and Holli got some grilled something or other I don't remember. I almost (for 2 seconds) wished Will had been there to warn me just how big the Nachos appetizer was. Lisa and I definitely could have shared that time. Darn you Will! Making me think I knew what was what and how much I could eat. :/ They were scrumptious, and even though I barely made a dent I would for sure recommend them and will most likely get them the next time I visit a Rainforest Cafe.

We decided to head back to the Bellagio so we wouldn't be late for "O". Back on the Monorail we went...

Ok, so to be honest I had my reservations about "O". Circus type acts, scary makeup (have I told you I don't like clowns? I think the movie 'It' scarred me for life), I was less than thrilled with Holli's choice for the night. I hereby rescind any bad thing I ever said about it. It was still disturbing but it was also thrilling, and amazing, and even the tiniest bit terrifying. I was enthralled with it from the first moment, even though I was clueless as to what the story was. The gymnastics were amazing, and the water was the coolest thing ever how the stage sunk down so low that they could do high dives, and yet rise up to where there was no water at all. A-maz-ing!

After the show we headed outside and people were crowded around the railings. We quickly grabbed a spot anticipating another fountain show. At night the shows come in 15 minute intervals and they are so much cooler at night with the lights. I honestly think I could have stood there all day and night and watched those fountain shows while I snacked on my trail mix and gelato.

After that satisfying and moving [I always tear up during that song] show we headed off toward our hotel. This was the night my dream was realized. Krispy Kreme doughnuts! We ran walked really fast through Excalibur to the Krispy Kreme and jetted out toward the tram. We didn't want to miss it like we did the first night. Lisa's feet were forever haunted by that long jaunt back to the hotel the first night. Once we reached our hotel we grabbed a Starbucks (my night was complete!) and headed up to our room. There is seriously nothing much better than an ice cold caramel lite frappuccino and a KK doughnut with chocolate icing and sprinkles. A little slice of heaven right there.

Until.................................

"What Happens in Vegas" Day 2

Our second day in Las Vegas was full of walking. We got to sleep in a little bit, which was nice. Little did we know at the time, but our little legs needed every minute of rest they got.

Our goal today was to hit the Fashion Show Mall and see as many of the hotel/casinos as we could. Our first stop was the Fashion Show Mall. The mall was located at the other end of the strip, so we took the tram and monorail and got as far as we could without walking. We were all starving by that point so we had a very early lunch (10:30a) of KFC inside the mall's foodcourt. I don't think it was our intention, but we ate super cheap on this vacation. I think my KFC lunch cost me less than $4. Ironically enough the gelato that we got at the stand outside the mall cost more than that. Ridiculous! We split one scoop three ways and that one scoop was almost $5. You would have thought we'd been eating off of golden spoons.... well atleast nickel anyway.

We shopped for a bit, not really finding too much, but enjoying being in the air-conditioned mall. We headed over to Starbucks after that. I'd been wanting coffee ever since I woke up, and couldn't wait any longer. We sipped our drinks (well Hol and I did. Lisa's not a coffee drinker) and then headed off in search of the umbrellas. A friend of ours had just been in Vegas a couple of weeks prior to our trip and she said there were colorful umbrellas suspended in the air in one of the hotels. Well, it took us awhile to find it, but we finally did. After taking a gazillion pictures outside of the Wynn's beautiful waterfall and flowers we wandered into the Palazzo where the umbrellas were. To say we were fascinated would be an understatement. We were borderline obsessed.






This day seemed to be very warm so we tried to escape into the a/c as often as possible. We hopped over to the Mirage next. They have a Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden exhibit with dolphins and lions/tigers. You have to walk through the whole hotel/casino it seemed until you go to the exhibit, but it sounded like something we would like to do to waste an hour or so. The shade made it nice to be outside. Between me and Hol we probably took a bazillion pictures of the dolphins and lions/tigers. I love animals though, so it wasn't hard for me to keep snapping away.






Also inside the Mirage is the Terry Fator store. This is where you can buy a souvenir from his show. We browsed there for awhile and then we decided we needed a rest, so we sat down and people watched, looked at pictures, and texted friends. What did we do before texting? This I do not know...

After our little break we decided to head on over to Caesar's Palace. They have several fountain/statue shows so we thought we'd catch a few on our way through to the Cheescake Factory. Word of advice: Do not stop at the first fountain show! [Mainly the one pictured]Most boring 5 minutes of my life! I thought there was going to be a cool light show or something on the ceiling because thunder kept sounding, but nothing ever happened. The statues talked a little, the guy on the throne drank our of his wine glass (which in actuality, had it been filled with wine would have spilled all down the front of him), and I lost 5 precious minutes of my life. So sad....

We arrived at Cheesecake factory and were quickly escorted to our seats. I was pretty hungry, since we had such an early lunch, so I was ready for some pizza. Little did I know that we would have the bossiest waiter in all the restaraunt. Will, that was his name, seemed friendly enough in the beginning. He chatted with us about our visit to Las Vegas, and asked if we got past security to get in [President Obama was there, you know?]. However, as soon as we started to order he went into bossy mode. Everything we tried to order he gave us this look like we were children and stupid children at that, and would presume to tell us we didn't want that. Well, Will, what do I want? Tell me... I don't want a yummy cheese and tomato pizza? I don't want a yummy salad for the side? I don't, huh? Fascinating, because I thought, you know, I was the one making decisions for myself. Hmm... good to know that's not the case. In all honesty he was right about the salad part. It was way ginormous, but the pizza was really good and I probably could have eaten the whole thing. Instead Lisa and I split (from orders of Will) and Holli had some sandwich he made her order. He also custom ordered her sandwich because the original would have been too much for her. He would know...

After eating we left as quickly as possible. For one, to get away from Will, and two to get away from where President Obama was. I didn't want to be trapped in Caesar's Palace with absurdly boring fountain shows and bossy Will. We did make a quick pit-stop in F.A.O. Schwartz though.

We headed back to the Mirage to pick up our Terry Fator tickets at the ticket counter, and then decided to rest again. From all that I've shared it doesn't seem like we walked very much, but oh did we ever. We walked over 25,000 steps! [Lisa wore a pedometer this day. I don't want to mislead you into thinking that I counted every step we took. That would be plain insanity!] Apparently that translates over into 12.16 miles, and we burned 700 calories. No wonder Lisa had blisters on her feet from her sandals. Thank God for skecher's, that's all I have to say.

We waited around a bit and then finally it was time for the show to start. If you have not seen Terry Fator I recommend you do. He'll be in Vegas for somewhere around 4 1/2 years, so if you're ever out that way you should catch a show. I've seen his act twice. Very good both times. He also lets you take pictures and a little bit of video. Now who else is going to let you do that? Super nice guy!

We pretty much called it a night after that. We found our way to the beloved Monorail and made the trek through MGM to the tram. There was talks of Krispy Kreme, but that idea was nixed when Lisa thought we might miss the tram and she didn't want to walk anymore. Can't blame her [12.16 miles people!].

Until..............................

P.S.-- Sorry these pictures are absolutely messed up, but I'm too tired to fix them right now.

"What Happens in Vegas" Day 1

I was so glad when I got my work schedule switched to Sunday day instead of night. That meant I could get a full night's rest before leaving. Glorious sleep!

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 2:20p, so we didn't have to be to the airport until noon. It was weird to be there so late in the day. There were tons of people there in line waiting to get their tickets and have their baggage checked. I prefer to fly in the early morning so there are less people to contend with.

We were more than happy to be going someplace sunny and warm because it was cool and rainy here at home. Good riddance rain! Sunny Las Vegas here we come!

The plane ride out of town was a little turbulant while we were trying to navigate through the storm patterns. The motion was making me very sleepy. I wasn't used to the whole day schedule thing. The flight was close to three hours, so we all got some good reading time in. We had a funny little man sitting behind us who talked the whole flight. The lady sitting next to him kept sneezing [allergy season] and he said, "You got the swine flu?" Haha... we started chuckling in our seats. The rest of the flight was rather uneventful and we actually arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule.

We got into the airport and found the luggage carrousel rather quickly, claimed our bags, and headed outside to the shuttle. Our first experience with Las Vegas heat. It was glorious! Of course nothing can start off easy. We got in the huge shuttle line, and apparently what we had printed out for our tickets wasn't our actual ticket, so we had to go to the ticket counter and deal with the lovely woman behind the counter. She was absolutely thrilled to help us and cleared up the speed bump right away with a smile on her face the entire time (.

We finally got on the shuttle, but the driver said there were only two seats left in back and one up front. We quickly deciphered that the "one in the front" was in fact the passenger seat. Holli got the privilege of sitting shotgun. Meanwhile, Lisa and I were crammed into the back of the shuttle with a bunch of other people. Funny enough, there was an extra seat in the back with us, but some guy was hogging it with his carry on. Rude! Lisa was sitting next to two little kids who were rattling on about all the different hotels and things to do. How is it possible that a 10 year old boy knows more about this place than I do? As we stopped at all the different hotels to drop people off Lisa and I were texting Holli in the front seat. We were laughing at something and the guy next to me asked, "Where are you guys from?". We told him and then I asked where he was from. "Meen-a-sota", he replied. To which Lisa responded, "Well I can tell." We talked a little bit more and he said he was there for a friends wedding, and we said we were just there for vacation. Once the bus was pretty much cleared out we could hear Holli talking to the driver and telling him where we lived. So our Minnesota friend piped up and said "Oh so then you know [this place]?" I was kind of surprised, but said yes. He went on to explain that he is a pilot and has been in our area before. Ah, it all makes sense now.

In the very short amount of time that our shuttle traveled from the airport to the hotels on the strip I had my fill of seeing the word "peep" on billboards, taxi cabs, and buildings. That was just the beginning of it...

We finally got to our hotel, THE hotel at Mandalay Bay. It was very nice. We got up to our suite, and let's just say it was very nice. A sitting area, two queen sized beds in the bedroom, 2 bathrooms... It was "sweet" (pardon the intentional pun).

Shortly after arriving we headed off to the tram that was at our hotel. It connected to the neighboring hotel (the Luxor) and the next hotel (Excalibar). It was kind of like a "Jump ahead 2 spaces" in a game, except this game was the game of saving our feet from mutilation. So we got off the tram at Excalibar and took a jaunt over a bridge, down a broken escalator, up a broken escalator, and through MGM Grande to the monorail.

Ok, one second on the monorail. Fan-tastic invention. Best $28 I ever spent in my entire life! You think I'm exaggerating, but until you've been there you just don't understand.

Ok, so we rode the monorail (God's gift to Las Vegasans) to Harrah's Hotel. From there we walked over to the Venetian. Very beautiful old looking building. Best part about it... the moving sidewalks. :) We had an agenda for that night-- The wax museum, dinner, and Wayne Brady show.

Madame Toussad's Wax Museum was very cool (and creepy at times). We were greeted by Whoopi Goldberg and Luciano Pavaratti. Some of the wax figures looked life-like and others didn't so much.

There is a "Scream" portion to the wax museum which is (we assumed) a scary haunted house type thing. We decided to bypass that area. Well, loe and behold right as we are passing by the doors to enter the scary area a man comes out of the bathroom across the hall. It about scared the livin' daylights out of me and Lisa. Hol had already walked by, but oh my word Lisa and I will forever be haunted by the scary man coming out of the bathroom. I'm not sure if he was being intentionally creepy or if that was just the way he was, but with the full "scary-man" makeup on it sure did what it was intended- Scare the poo out of us! Let's just say I almost let some profanities slip from my lips. Scary! [I was going to post a picture or the link to the video on the website, but frankly it scares me just thinking about it, so scout it out on your own if you want be freaked.]

Once we were done posing with the Waxies we headed off to dinner. We didn't do anything too exciting, we just went to the Venetian's food court and ate at Bella Panini. Surprisingly enough, none of us had a panini. We all had wraps. I had a California wrap and it was dee-lish! We were going to eat at Johnny Rocket's but I absolutely refuse to pay $12 for a burger and milkshake. Unless that beef and that milk came from a golden cow, it wasn't worth that much.

After dinner we headed over to the theatre for our first show--Wayne Brady. I have to admit I wasn't overly enthused about this show. I figured that it would be a little raunchy, but was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Well, when we finally got in the theatre the girl directing people to their seats said, "These tickets are all the way at the top. I'm not going to sit you there. How about I give you these three seats in the second row here?" Well, we were a little suspicious. How was it that easy to move seats? Were going to turn into some horrible joke or part of the show later in the night? We were kind of freaked there for a bit, but then we noticed that she moved about 4 other people around as well. How can they do that? Didn't anyone purchase those better seats? You would think so, but we never got booted out, so she must have magical seat moving abilities. The show ended up not being too bad. It of course had some raunch to it, but we laughed quite a bit, and he even sang some of his own songs off of his new album that were quite good.

After the show we hung around outside to catch the volcano erupting at the Mirage. It was pretty neat, but a one time only kind of thing. No need to see it more than that. We headed back to the hotel. The bad news is that the tram was closed, so we had to walk the whole way instead of taking the tram past those last two hotels. The upside is we never would have encountered the night life with those lovely Las Vegas people. They were all so informative. Apparently word on the street is that "Cocaine is bad man." Glad we could get that cleared up.

We got back to the hotel at around 1130p, got ready for bed and settled in for a few hours of sleep before we were going to get up and start the second day. Overall it was a good first day (once we got adjusted to the culture shock... and heat... and walking) :).

Day 2...coming up next....

Until........................

Vacation Fast Track

I thought I should make a fast track to my NYC recaps. It will just be easier to go back and view. Plus, for those of you just joining us it will be much easier for you to read through. Enjoy.....

NYC Recap- Day 1

NYC Recap- Day 1: Part 2

NYC Recap- Day 1: Part 3

NYC Recap- Day 2

NYC Recap- Day 2: Part 2

NYC Recap- Day 2: Part 3

NYC Recap- Day 3

NYC Recap- Day 3: Part 2

NYC Recap- Day 3: Part 3

NYC Recap- Day 4

NYC Recap- Day 4: Part 2

NYC Recap- Day 5

Until...........................

NYC Recap- Day 5

Well here is the last part. Hope you've enjoyed it.....

Day 5

This day we just slept in since we didn't plan on going anywhere. We had thought about going back to Crumbs to get cupcakes to take home, but we figured that it would be too expensive to take a cab, so we didn't. Instead, we just stayed in our room, took a few more pictures and repacked.

Right before we went down to catch a cab to the ariport we saw an infomercial on ShamWow! You really will saw Wow everytime! :) We were totally enthralled.
So, we headed down to get a cab and as we were standing outside waiting for a bellhop to hail a cab for us a man approached us and asked if we wanted a ride to the airport. He said he was part of a car service and charged similar to what a cab would cost, but he had an SUV that was more comfortable. Now, he seemed nice enough, but we had been burned before so we were a little leery. We asked the bellhop what we should do and he said that Jose (that was the drivers name) was from a reputable company and that we could trust him. So that was enough for us. We loaded our bags into his SUV and off to LaGuardia we went. He was super nice. He talked to us the whole way there. He told us about his family, and a little bit about the city. MUCH better than the driver we had when we arrived. I wish I would have gotten a picture of him, but we got his card, so if you want a good, repuotable, honest driver when you go to NY, just let us know.
So we checked in at one of the kiosk stations (which are kind of nice) and then we went through security. We had a quick lunch and then went and sat at our terminal. We still had like 2 hours to kill, but it was fine. I called mom to tell her we were there, and everything was on time. Holli and Lisa read their books and I started on some sudoku puzzles. The wait didn't take too long and then we were boarding our plane. We were on a pretty big plane going to ATL. There were like 6 flight attendants. They showed an episode of Ugly Betty on the tvs. Luckily I had seen it before, so no need to buy the headphones. I started reading my book on the plane so it went pretty fast. Before we knew it we were in ATL and getting ready to endure our 4 hour layover. :/
We walked around a little bit and then searched for our terminal. For whatever reason our flight was not listed, so that had us searching for a little bit. We finally saw it on one of the screens and discovered they had changed our gate so we headed in that direction. If you have ever been in the Atlanta airport, you now it is ginormous. There is definitely a lot to do. We ended up eating at the Atlanta Bread Co. It's basically like Panera (but Panera is WAY better).

After that we headed over to Ben & Jerry's since it was right by our terminal. We had a Ben & Jerry's right across the street from our hotel, but we never made it over there, so we finally got some in ATL. It was yummy. I had Butter Pecan, and I'm not sure what Hol and Lis had. Something chocolate.... Anyway, we ate that and then began our long wait. We ended up sitting at the gate next to ours because there were more seats. A plane had just boarded to Ohio and passengers for the next flight to Minneapolis were arriving, so we quickly snatched up 3 seats. Of course I was seated next to one of the most annoying couples ever. I think they had just been on their honeymoon. They were sugary sweet together and I just couldn't take it. Thankfully, they got up and went for a walk. May the reading of my book and people watching continue!
We sat there for about an hour and a half and then when our gate boarded their flight, we went over there to sit for the rest of our wait. The layover actually went by pretty quickly. We all read some, and talked to people. It was fine over all.
About an hour before our plane was scheduled to board they starting calling for Mrs. Garcia (Thank you Holli, for letting me know her name). Well Mrs. Garcia never answered.
Pretty soon this airport employee wheels up an older woman in a wheelchair. He asked her where she wanted him to sit her. We assumed she had trouble walking or something. She seemed kind of out of it. Just smiling and looking around. Well he's getting ready to sit her wheelchair next to us and she gets right up out of the chair and walks away. The look on that guy's face was priceless. He just said, "Uh...okay...." then walked away. We were cracking up! The lady just got up and walked away. I have no idea where she went, but it was out of the gate area. Obviously farther than that guy thought she could walk. Too funny!
About 10 minutes before boarding they called for Mrs. Garcia again. Wouldn't you know it the old woman in the wheelchair was Mrs. Garcia! She walked up to the counter and they got her ready to board. Crack me up! he had been strolling around for over a half an hour by herself.
More and more people kept arriving at our gate and this one old woman had us cracking up. She was on her pink Razr cell phone talking to someone. All of a sudden we hear her say, " What?! You must have been drunk!!" Oh my word!!!! I thought we were going to die we were laughing so hard! She kind of chuckled because she saw us laughing, but we couldn't contain ourselves. Between her, Mrs. Garcia, and our exhaustion we couldn't keep it in any longer. Shortly after that she told her friend she had to go because her husband was waiting for her so they could pre-board. She was funny though. She had spunk, and I loved it!
So we boarded the plane and got situated. Hol and Lis were sitting together and I was by myself across the aisle, so I could look out the window if I wanted. (Poor Holli said she could smell Mrs. Garcia's perfurme the whole way home. :p) Our flight attendant was hilarious. Her name was Ashley. It was her first flight, so she was a little nervous. She did a great job though. She went through all the safety stuff, and when she got to the exit doors she said "Don't worry, you won't need them." Then when she was showing us how to use the seat belt and the oxygen masks she said "You won't need this, promise." She was too cute.
The flight was pretty uneventful. No turbulence, thankfully, and it actually seemed to go by pretty fast. The only bad thing about it was that I was just getting to the best part in my book when we landed and had to get off.
It was SO nice to be back in familiar territory! Mom and Dad were waiting for us. Mom held me for the longest time! I thought she was going to crush me! We went down to baggage claim, got our bags (Thank God our luggage never got lost or damaged) and then we were on our way home!!

Overall, the trip was amazing. There were a few bumps in the road, but it was unforgettable.

Plane tickets: $420-ish
Tickets to see three Broadway Shows: $300
Staying in a nice hotel 5 days, 4 nights: $1052.52
Going to NYC with two of your best friends for the first time: Priceless

Until...............................................

NYC Recap- Day 4: Part 2

Aren't you surprised?? I worked on half of this post last night after I finished the previous one. I was on a roll I guess. :) Here is the rest of Day 4. Only 2 parts for this day.....

Day 4: Part 2

When we were done at the beloved Grand Central Station we trekked to The Empire State Building. What a bust! Seriously. Don't go inside. It's dirty and the gift shop is terrible! Just take a picture of the pretty outside and move on. Don't waste your money. Go to Top of the Rock. Much better, same view, and clean. I mean, honestly, isn't the Empire State Building you want a picture of anyway? You can't get that if you're inside the building. Just my thoughts. You can do whatever you want, just wanted to give you my honest opinion before you were going to waste money.

After we did that we went back to the hotel (I think) to drop our bags and then we went to Columbus Circle. You know, I think we may have gone back to the hotel earlier... I don't remember. Either way at some point we went back to the hotel....

So we went to Columbus Circle, because I for some reason had become obsessed with the fact that we go there and take pictures. I enjoyed myself. I spent 15 minutes trying to track down a horse and carriage to take a picture of (why...I don't know), we took a couple pictures of Trump Tower, the big globe, and surrounding buildings. Oh yea, there was also a freaky statue impersonator there. He was almost more scary than the Statue of Liberty posers because he was decked out in head to toe white. *shudder* Ick! Who would want that job?

So right off of Columbus Circle we found a Subway and got a sandwich for dinner. FYI- Roasted Chicken is Ick! Then we decided that Pinkberry was in order again and we stopped in to have dessert before dinner. This time our collective concoction was Original fro-yo with chocolate chips and yogurt chips!! I was so excited to have my beloved yogurt chips again! :) However, the picture is blurry because Lisa was freaking out! We weren't supposed to take pictures inside the store, which is kind of dumb.

Not sure why they have that rule, but I figure I was only taking a picture of my purchase which I could have done anywhere. I wasn't taking a picture of people, just my food. Do they have fugitives working there or something?? Weird....

So after that we went and hailed a cab and went back to our hotel for our delegated resting time.

This day we had like 3 and a half hours to kill before Lion King. So we ate our disgusting sandwich from Subway and then Lisa took a nap. This is when Holli and I decided to go through ALL of our pictures and write down what they were so we wouldn't forget. I'm glad we did, because it's only been two weeks, and without my cheat sheet I would be lost. Lisa was just too funny sleeping though, so I had to snap a few pics of her. :)



We started getting ready for Lion King around 6 or so and took our mandatory picture. Of course the one musical I'm not overly thrilled about seeing is the one I'm wearing my favorite shirt to and my hair was not destroyed by the elements throughout the day. Oh well....

We headed off to the Minskoff Theatre. This was probably the biggest, and nicest theatre we went to. There was a very nice view of Times Square too. Check out the traffic!




So...the Lion King. I don't know. I'm glad I saw it...so I can say that I saw it, but it wasn't too spectacular to me. I don't know if it's because I was so tired, or if it was the fact their weren't really any strong lead vocals. It was more like a "choir" performance. No one really stuck out. The costumes and set get an A++. That was of course the best out of the three musicals. I had a hard time focusing though. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to look at the real person head, the costume head, or both. It was a little distracting and the whole first Act had children singing and dancing. You know how I feel about that.... unless I know them it creeps me out. I don't know why, it's just how it is. Here's a clip of the beginning though, because it's just so cool. This is from the Tony Awards that they performed at.



Yea, so that pretty much concludes our evening. We went back to the hotel, got ready for bed, and that was it.
I'll post about our last day and journey home sometime soon... I promise. It should take me as long. I have Friday and Saturday off of work, so hopefully I will be able to post sometime then.

Until.....................................