I <3 NY Part I

I landed in Toronto about 3.5 hours ago and I should be crashing in my bed just like Mel is. I had about 3.5 hours of sleep and we had to get up at 4:30 am to get to LaGuardia in a downpour. Then again, I'm not the one who got air sick. Haha.

What can I say about New York, except that it was A-W-E-S-O-M-E? I'm so so glad I went through with the trip, as last minute as it was. How about that? Turns out I am capable of doing grown-up things like buying plane tickets and traveling by myself to a strange city.

We got to NYC at about 5 pm on Monday. We stayed with my aunt and uncle in Long Island and the first thing I realized was that there was absolutely no snow on the ground. I had left Toronto in about a foot of fresh snow and I set foot on a dry, yet dirty, New York City street. Everyone said it had been an unseasonably warm winter (hello, Winter '07 in Canada!).

The next day, Mel and I took the train by ourselves into the city. The train we took I would say was equivalent to the GO train we have here. It only took about 40 minutes and we ended up in front of Macy's on 43rd (?). I admit, it took me a good while to figure out how to make my way around the city. All those numbers, all those one-way streets. Thank goodness I had Mel.

We went to the sights that were 'touristy' and what my family and everyone else had suggested: 5th Avenue, Trump Tower, Empire State Building, Madison Square Gardens, etc., etc. I won't bore you with the details, but whatever you want to do in NYC we probably did it. We even had our first of several celeb sightings at NBC Studios with Keenan Thompson of Keenan and Kel (and now, SNL)!

My cousin works in advertising, so she has many connections. It's too bad she didn't realize how many things we were into, otherwise I'm sure she could've done more for us, but what she could do at the last minute was hook us up with tickets to see the Broadway show, Xanadu and got us some VIP seats to see The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Not too shabby. She could have taken us with her to see Matchbox Twenty but my aunt was taking us to see Rent that night. Ahh, so much to do, so little time.

We most walked around Midtown. The pics are pretty self-explanatory, I think.

That night, before we went to see Xanadu, my cousin's Italian husband took us to an Italian restaurant called Becco in the Theatre District. I was surprised to find that seeing Broadway shows is a big thing in NYC and there's about a dozen or so out. That was one big difference I found between Toronto and NYC. Also, Broadway tickets are pretty expensive. But then again, NYC is extravagant like that.

Anyway, I'm off to go out for some coffee with Konrad. I have been deprived of Tim Horton's for a week and that ain't right.

^Mel studying in the airport ^Me pretending to look business-like, but I was really looking at my concert pics of Tokio Hotel ^Let's play "Who Gets Motion Sickness First". I won. ^Waiting for the Long Island Train into Manhattan ^Long Island ^Manhattan ^Madison Square Gardens ^If you see the PoPo, lemme know ^Me and Lady Lib ^We forego paying $30 to go up the Empire State Building so we opt for the next best thing ^Futile sign ^Me on 5th Avenue waiting for Mel to buy 50 postcards ^Gorgeous BCBG dresses ^Of course we just had to stop at the library for Mel ^Snow in Manhattan! ^Times Square ^Keenan Thompson and I at NBC Studios ^Best $7 steak ever, although my cousin said it might not have been steak... ^Roc-a-fella? ^Rockefellar Centre ^The mothership awaits... ^Walking up 5th Avenue ^Remember on Sex and the City where Carrie sees Big take his mother to the church on 5th Avenue? This is it. ^Is the Donald in? ^"Fow" Schwarz