M&E in NYC - Day 4

Friday November 25, 2011

Today was a sleep in day! No alarm!

We didn't have Friday planned - we left it open to do what we hadn't yet and see what we still wanted to see. That was a great unplanned plan! Due to the rain on Tuesday and Wednesday there were things we had planned to do that we couldn't do - so we did some of them on Friday!

We headed out from the hotel and walked to the theater to get show tickets - after finding that the seats we hoped to get were three times more than we expected or wanted to spend we moved on.

We did some shopping and helped commit a crime. Yes, that's right I was an accessory to a crime of accessories! I was looking at some scarfs and as I leaned in to see what was on the top level a man came from my right side and leaned in and grabbed a stack of silk scarfs on the bottom shelf. Earl said "He just stole those" and I said "yep, and I just helped him!". As I leaned in I created a block for him to come in from the side and grab!

Wow! That was exciting... what to do from there?!

After spending the past three days walking and walking and standing (for 5 hours) and walking we were ready to SIT! We decided the top deck of a bus sounded like a great idea! First we grabbed some lunch at Rockefeller Center and then hopped the City Sites Bus. This is the way to see the city! The weather was georgous with temps in the 50's. As we moved our way through Manhattan a native New Yorker pointed out the sites and gave us facts. Did you know that the building in Times Square where the ball drops is 26 stories and 25 are empty! They make 30 million dollars a year on the outside advertising that they don't need to rent the interior space! The tour took us down to lower Manhattan. We hopped off in SoHo to find a bathroom - which are availiable in most of the 194 Starbucks! We shopped the vendors a bit and got on the next bus. Our next hop off was at the South Street Seaport. We tried again to get Broadway show tickets at the TKST booth - but decided to keep the evening unscheduled.

We walked down to Pier 17 and enjoyed the view of Brooklyn across the east river and the view of the Manhattan skyline behind us. After watching a bum get carted off in an ambulance and eating raw chicken from street vendor (yuck) we waited for the next bus.








The guides on the bus were so fun to listen too. As we made our way back uptown we passed through Chinatown and past Little Italy - New York is an International tour! The sky was a beautiful pink and blue and was the perfect backdrop for photos of the Empire State & Chrysler Buildings. We arrived back to 5th Avenue after dark to the twinkling lights on every tree and building! Simple stunning!




Next adventure was heading to the Top of the Rock! Top of 30 Rockefeller Center. We had about an hour wait for our time to head up so we walked around a bit enjoying the hustle and bustle of the area. The scaffolding around the big tree had been removed so we could see the full beauty. The electric boxes at the bottom were fun to see. We will be watching the tree lighting next week Wednesday.

At exactly 6:25pm we entered the que to head up to the roof! We made our way into the elevator and the lights went out! and the whole elevator shaft lite up blue as we zoomed up 68 stories! It was so cool! The view is breath taking! As far as you can see the lights glow in every direction. It was fun to see the sites from above that we had been seeing from the street and by bus. We spent about an hour at the top and made our way back down.

Time for dinner! We spotted Bill's Bar & Burger earlier in the day and decided that sounded good. We had a nice waiter and enjoyed burgers and drinks! After dinner we decided to use our night tour tickets and catch the last run. This meant more walking to catch the bus at the stop in Broadway.

We got the last seat in the back of the bus - remember this is open air, top of the bus only seating. We thought the tour might be what we saw during the day, but in the night light. It was way more than that! Before we knew it were were crossing the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn. The bridge has two levels - we were on the top - WAY up high over the East River! The views were awesome! Brooklyn on one side and Manhattan on the either. What a great night for a wonderful ride.

Our bus brought us back to Times Square which was packed with people on a Friday night! After our nightly stop at Duane Reade for 'soda' pop and snacks we headed back to our hotel for our last night of sleep in NYC. Have I mentioned how comfortable our bed is?! We've been sleeping great and waking up to the view of the city our our window.

Tomorrow M&E must leave NYC :(