Bright Lights, Big City: Part One

My mom and I just got back from celebrating my Christmas present- a trip to New York City (the concrete jungle where dreams are made of, according to Jay Z) and we had an amazing time! We flew in on Thursday and left at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning, so we really only had two days to take in all of the sights, and believe me when I say we crammed the weekend full! My dad found us a great deal on a hotel just four blocks away from Times Square and only a block from Grand Central Station, and so we were really in the center of everything! The weather was pretty cold (I don't think it got above 28 degrees while we were there) but it was actually colder in Canyon, so we were feeling pretty good! :)

When we arrived, we checked into our hotel and then headed straight for Times Square. On our way there we stumbled upon our first adventure. We saw these big lights and camera crews and realized we were on the set of some kind of filming. We asked one of the crew members and he said that they were shooting a scene from the new CBS show "The Good Wife" with Juliana Marguiles. We didn't actually get to see any of the famous actors from the show, but we did see some guys dressed like Chicago Police Officers storm into a building!

Somehow on Friday morning, I convinced my mom to get up at 6:00 a.m. to run down to Good Morning America (did I mention that it was 20 degrees and snowing too?) so we could be on the set. There weren't many people crazy enough to do this, so we were able to get inside and see the taping of the whole show. We saw Emeril, George Stephanopoulos, Robin Roberts and Juju Chan. It was a lot of fun!

Then we went to Grand Central Station where we grabbed some lunch and headed to the Upper East Side to go to see the Frick Collection. This is an art museum which belonged to a really rich guy from the early 1900s named Henry Clay Frick. He built this incredible house on 5th Avenue across from Central Park and filled it with amazing works of art. We saw painting by Vermeer, Renoir, Degas, Manet, Monet and Gilbert Stuart, to name a few. Needless to say, it was pretty awesome.

The rest of the afternoon we spent walking around Central Park and 5th Avenue, which was neat to see in the snow. Some stores still had their Christmas lights up and it was really beautiful.

Ice skaters in Central Park

More Central Park

Christmas Lights on 5th Avenue

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Rockefeller Center

As I write this blog, I am listening to the soundtrack from the Broadway musical, Lion King, which we were able to see that night and it was truly FANTASTIC! I've heard people say it is like nothing you have ever seen and I have to agree! I had chills from beginning to the end!

This pretty well sums up Friday. I will try to blog again tomorrow about all of our adventures on Saturday. It involves more celebrities, so you won't want to miss out!