New York - Day 2

This morning came way too early! But there is so much to do...

We enjoyed a great breakfast at our hotel and headed out for the day. We made our way back to Times Square and over to 30 Rockefeller Center (home of the NBC studios). This is the place to get the best view of the city! The observation deck is on the 69th-71st floors of the Rockefeller Center. From here you get unobstructed views of the city, including a GREAT view of the Empire State Building! Central Park was amazing to see from above. The planning geniuses who conciously kept that large of a green space right smack in the middle of city...brilliant!

On our way out of the building, we stopped in at the gift shop and caught a quick glimpse of Jimmy Fallon as he was finishing up his appearance/signing. Our first celebrity sighting!

Wayne had planned for us to bike around Central Park for a couple of hours. There are a number of bike rental places around the park. We had reserved 2 tandum bikes, but when we got there, they admitted they made a mistake and gave one of our bikes away. So Wayne and I rode 'real' bikes and Mike and Jade took the tandum bike. As we were leaving the store, we noticed a sign that said "No Bikes Allowed on Sidewalks. It is illegal and dangerous." We kind of chuckled and joked that they thought the sidewalks were dangerous...but then the employee told us that it really is illegal to ride bikes on the sidewalks and that we would have to ride on the road. Are you kidding me?? Do they really think that riding a bike on the road with all of those crazy yellow taxis is safer than the sidewalk?? So a few deep breaths...and off we went to Central Park. We weren't quite sure where we were supposed to ride, so after getting caught for a brief moment in an intersection, I decided to just cut in front and cross the intersection to get to the other street. CRAZY!!!! I didn't get hit by a truck or taxi, but I did get honked at!!

We rode for almost 2 hours in Central Park. The park is huge! We stopped to see some of the highlights; the Bethesda Fountain, bridges that Wayne was hoping was from the movie 'Enchanted', an old castle. We even stopped to watch some hip-hop freestylers - one of which decided to do a little solo right next to me (and with me) while I tried to video tape him. Too funny! It was a perfect day...20 degrees Celcius, but by the end of the two hours, by legs were tired! On the way back to return the bikes, we found the Temple just a few blocks away. We'll be stopping there for church on Sunday.

While we were at a restaurant for dinner, Deb called us from our home and told me that the David Letterman show had just called looking for us. Our name was drawn in the lottery and we got tickets! We were supposed to call Jaime back and make arrangements. We played a bit of phone tag, but did eventually speak with Jaime. We asked her if we could get 4 tickets instead of just 2. It took her a while to check and talk to whoever, but she did manage to get us all tickets! We were so excited to get this call. The funny thing was that she had asked to talk to Wayne or Jasmine and Mike proceeded to pretend he was Wayne. In order to get the tickets, we had to answer a skill-testing question without any help from anyone else. Thankfully, Mike (as Wayne) got it right. Then Jaime needed to speak with Mike or Jade. Jade knew she didn't want to do the question so I pretended to be Jade. (Are you confused yet?) My question was about Allan Coulter and what he does at the start of every show....he is the announcer. It is a good think I am up late and have watched the show before! So our tickets are for a taping on Monday...we are on Jaime's Gold List!

(Getting the call confirming our tickets for the David Letterman show)

But tonight is what I've been waiting for...'WICKED'!! If you haven't heard about this musical, you need to become more culturally informed! This musical is about the two witches from Oz and how they became who they were. We'd been listening to the soundtrack at our house for the past 3 or 4 months, but to see the music with the set and costumes and the rest of the dialogue...it was PHENOMENAL!! I have been lucky enough to see quite a few musicals, but this was by far, the BEST one I've ever seen! I just kept thinking about the girls and how much they would've loved to have been there! Both Jade and I were teary eyed at the end...it was so overwhelmingly spectacular! (I honestly don't think there are enough words to describe this musical!) If you haven't heard the music from this...it is a must-hear. The music alone is moving! I would definitely pay the $125/ticket to see this one again (and again...and again!)