I Heart NY

Friday afternoon me, my coworker Melissa, and my boss Lisa took the Amtrak train to NYC for our company holiday party. We had dinner at Rock Center Cafe - you can't really tell from the pictures but our view was of the huge Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and the skating rink. We saw a proposal on the ice rink while we were eating dinner - supposedly it's like a nighly occurence there. After eating a four course steak dinner we practically had to roll ourselves to Hotel Pennsylvania.

Saturday morning we strolled down 5th Avenue to check out the department store holiday windows - thankfully they were still up. These pictures don't come close to doing them justice...all the parts are moving and so detailed...it's worth a visit.

After 'window looking' we walked to Time Square to have lunch at Joe Allen's. We were told we might see celebrities there...no luck. On the way there we passed the Neil Simon Theatre where 'Hairspray' plays and there was a line out front and we realized it was time for the lottery. We didn't want to have to stand in line for a long time or anything inconvenient like that, so we asked when the drawing was going to take place and the guy said, "one minute". Perfect timing! So we patiently waited one minute and he drew out 10 names. I crossed my fingers as tight as I could and the third name he called out was mine. Melissa, Lisa, and I totally jumped up and screamed and cheered (everyone around us thought we were crazy because no one else did celebratory dances when they won) and I happily accepted my two tickets. When we took our seats in the theatre we realized that we were the very front row and the centermost seats ...we worried that maybe our view would be poor being so close. We quickly realized that was not the case. We were so close we could see the spit fly from their mouths when they sang, but we could also see the whole stage. The actors would run up to the front of the stage and they were literally 12 inches from us. Lance Bass played the part of "Corny Collins", so we figured we'd count that as our celebrity sighting for the trip. Melissa and I were giggling with joy the whole show - there are not words to express how much I loved it!

After the show we had dinner at my favorite place in Little Italy and then had amazing Italian desserts at a cafe across the street. Then back to the hotel for one more night.

NYC is so magical. Dirty and smelly, but magical :)