Whirlwind Weekend in NYC

As you know, Ryan turned 30 last Saturday. As it turns out, our friend Kate, part of the dazzling duo also known as our BFFs has her birthday the day after Ryan's. So, we usually get together to celebrate at one of our houses for dinner. This year, we decided to take a little trip to New York City. Scoop used to live there, Kate has never been there and I haven't been since '99. Since Kate and Ryan were the birthday guy and gal, Scoop and I did our homework on hotels.com and researched where to stay for a decent price. We landed on a Kimpton Hotel - "70 park avenue" - at, you guessed it, 70 Park Avenue. It was great - small, but not the shoebox you get in Boston. We were able to move around and the beds were super comfy. But, onto the exciting stuff... lots and lots of photos on this post!



Arrival at Grand Central Station. Notice the sign above the escalator - the MetLife building otherwise known as the mother ship. For those of you who don't know, this is my place of employment. Nothing like company loyalty, we stayed just afew blocks away.

Here is the actual building...pretty impressive as it looms over Grand Central.
Hailing one of many cabs on night # 1.

We are clearly very HAPPY to be off work for a bit.... even for a day!
Ryan in Times Square.


Terra Blues on Bleecker Street. We saw Ray Schinnery who was amazing. This is just Ryan and Scoop being goofy at our little booth.

Our means of travel during the daylight hours - the double decker tour bus. So touristy but so cool. They have a deal where you can hop off and on at each stop and the busses come in 15 minute intervals. So, we hit Ground Zero, Little Italy, Greenwich Village, Chelsea Pier, Central Park, Harlem and SoHo. It may have only been for 1/2 hour at a time but now we know where to spend our time the next time we go. The photo above was taken on Harlem as we approached the historic Apollo Theatre up on the left.


Squirrels where I come from run away on the sight of a human. This was a Central Park squirrel who grabbed a chip out of the hand of a lady next to us and proceeded to enjoy it just feet away. Amazing.The boys at O'Brien's, just a few blocks from Times Square. They had the best Pomegranate Cosmo and the best view....there is nothing like people watching!


Happy girls!

We had the best time with Kate and Scoop in all of the 32 hours we spent there! Next time, we will stay longer as we missed seeing so many people while we were there.