St. John’s Cathedral
David Hockney exhibit.. lots of great energy!
Me and my girl headed to the MET
Tiny little dragons… The MET
The MET Japenese Exhibit
St. John’s Cathedral and The Peace Fountain
St. John’s Cathedral Poet’s Corner
My girl posing outside of Tiffany & Co.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral Fifth Avenue
Not a good day for this guy…The Met Japenese Exhibit
Rockefeller Center NYC
Gershwin Theatre
White Chicken Chili .. great for this cold night!
Coolest kids… walking 5th Avenue
Wicked … LOVED IT!
Another Snow Day here in Mt. Juliet for the public schools…. and the wine stores are gonna be running low…we just heard that tomorrow has already been called off, too. 10 days running. Be strong parents..be strong.
Check out this White Chili recipe from the Pioneer Woman, we’re having it tonight! My middle child came home from a friend’s house last week declaring that White Chicken Chili is the ONLY way to have chili. So… if she’s willing to eat it, then I’m willing to make it! A whole pot of it…which means I’m good for the weekend too. Score!
NYC Adventure continues:
We all slept hard from our activities of Day #1, and Day #2 (Saturday) of our New York Adventure was a brutally cold day that had me second guessing my space-saving decision to not pack my ears to ankles insulated coat. Bad decision. Once again we were out the door at 8:00 a.m., and I swear my eyeballs felt like they were freezing over!
- The Cathedral Church of St. John the Devine – Our talented choir group performed at this BEAUTIFUL Cathedral first thing Saturday morning. This Cathedral is huge! It is the largest Cathedral in the world..in the WORLD! It is said that it takes 8 seconds for the choir voices to travel the expanse of the main hall. This church is filled with art from local and international artists..and even includes a Poet’s Corner. If you are ever in NYC…GO SEE THIS CATHEDRAL! Oh…and I can’t be 100% sure, but I swear I passed Samuel L Jackson on the sidewalk. 8:45 am, on the sidewalk in front of the church, across from The Hungarian Pastry Shop, he was in his running gear. I was wrapped up too tight to say anything to him. Sam, if it was you… forgive me for staring awkwardly while not being able to speak. If it wasn’t him…then ladies, there is a clone walking the streets of Upper Manhattan. You are welcome.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art– WOW! This place is Ah-Mazing! Only 2 1/2 hours to eat lunch and look around… that’s just plain mean. But we made the most of it with our group of 8, no tour guide…we were armed with a map and 4 hungry girls. We settled for The American Wing Cafe and used the map to make the most of our path through the museum.We cruised through the Greek and Roman Arts (hello beautiful naked people), wandered through the African and Oceania arts , through the European Sculptures and Decorative Arts (I could have stayed in this area all day, especially the French Decorative arts that included replica rooms with Louis XV furnishings and pieces of Marie Antoinette’s boudoir… so regal.. *sigh*), short stint in the Medieval hall (the Spanish Choir Screen is impressive and beautiful!), and finally landed ourselves at the American Wing Cafe. After waiting in line for 15 minutes, we found out they did not have half of the items listed on the menu (posted at the entrance of the line)..so to say our visit was less than steller pretty much sums up that experience. Now we know… go to the Cafeteria. We avoided it, because it was called the Cafeteria… snobs… but seriously with 4 teens and 4 moms, 2 of which were vegetarians….the Cafeteria is the way to go! Pricey, yes…variety, yes! After lunch we ran upstairs to catch the Michaelango Exhibit (it was packed and hard to really get to see much), through the Rodin Exhibit to the David Hockney works… those were fabulous and, though crowded, the pieces are larger and easier to see when not on the front row of viewing. Our last mad dash was over to the Japenese Art Exhibit, which allowed us a quick run through of the Asian Exhibits. I was taking pictures along the way, just so I could go back and look at pieces we missed. There was SO Much! I’d love to go back and spend time in the Modern Art exhibit, tour the Temple of Dendur (a local had recommended we do this..sad we ran out of time), and we never even walked into the American Wing. We left so much to still see! LOVELY. All of it! A full day would have made my heart happy. Now I know… I’ll be back Met… you stole my heart!
- Fifth Avenue – This is where my eyeballs actually froze, open thankfully. The plan: FIVE HOURS of Fifth Avenue exploration with your group. It was -10…not really, but for this Southerner it might as well have been. It was 20-ish. Fifth Avenue is All. The. Things. And, if you’re new to this city like me, you spend time just trying to figure out where to start? We were dropped at Rockefeller Center and some of the girls wanted to ice skate. My kiddo decided her feet already hurt and couldn’t imagine skating (did I mention it was -25) and still be able to enjoy the rest of her day without suffering the consequences so we started walking the streets. But some girls did enjoy skating at the icon Rockefeller Center Rink, and paid the premium $60 to walk on the rink without waiting (there was an 1 1/2 wait to skate) and enjoyed complimentary Rockefeller Ice Rink Hot Cocoa (clearly something special)…since it was -34, it was a great option. Those of us who decided to walk on found our priorities..first stop Starbucks for something hot to hold/drink. We did the mandatory Tiffany & Co. (those tiniest sterling silver Tiffany & Co earrings start at $200, in case you were wondering), Gucci Flagship Store (we modeled jackets that cost more than my first car), Rolex Boutique (not so interested in letting us ‘try on’ anything here), The Trump Tower (not at all busy and a great place to visit the loo), UNIQLO (not a good place to visit the loo… but a great place to score a down-filled puffer coat like I did!), and other random stores we were happy to step into with their lovely windows and heat. Our last stop was a walk through St. Patrick’s Cathedral, it was closing in on their 5:30p mass and people were filing through so we didn’t linger..just enough to know it was, again, another beautiful Cathedral in NYC.
- Dinner on Fifth Avenue was on our own, and our group chose the Rock Center Cafe. The menu had great options, the atmosphere was perfect (warm, and pretty), and the location was perfect for meeting the rest before our evening fun. The food was really tasty, and we were so happy to sit down and unbundle ourselves we didn’t even pay attention to the ice skaters on the rink we were looking out onto. Unfortunately, they were short staffed and our experience was not great. But I’d give them a second chance…the location really was pretty great!
- Wicked on Broadway!!! – HECK YES!!!!! We were pumped!! And though I had seen it twice here, at TPAC, I was super psyched to see it again. NEVER GETS OLD! All 67 of us piled into the balcony seats at the Gershwin Theatre and enjoyed it immensely! One of the best parts of this experience (for me), that was different from my Nashville experiences, was the audience participation. I LOVED IT! We sang along, laughed loudly, clapped randomly and just, truly, had a great time! Wonderful! Go see Wicked!
We returned to our hotel at 11:15-ish, where we all crawled our way to our rooms…. “no one mourns for the wicked…”
“think of it as personality dialysis…”
Another perfect, wickedly cold, day in NYC!
Hill Life Inspired 