Day 2 NYC

Tues Nov. 26th.  Our first full day in New York.  We all slept in quite late and got started wandering over to the East side. As we walked up 5th Ave we came upon a funeral service at St. Patrick's Cathedral.  It was evidently someone quite important as the Cardinal and Archbishop were both presiding over the service.  We along with all the other foot traffic had to wait while they and the family processed out of the Cathedral. We later found out it was an Auxiliary Bishop.

Right after this, we saw a very funny sight.  There was a film crew heading down 5th Ave filming a taxi scene. The taxi was actually sitting on a flatbed to roll down the street with a camera next to it.  I'm sure this helps eliminate traffic problems when filming.

I had originally envisioned eating lunch at the Serendipity restaurant- but alas the 1hr plus wait was not something we wanted to do.  After a mild meltdown by one of us (and it wasn't the jr member of the party) we decided to head across the street to the pizzeria and it was a wonderful change in plans. It was nice and toasty in there by the pizza ovens and it was wonderful to have NY style pizza again. Cannot really say what makes it different but it really is better.  Sorry to all my die hard Chicago pizza friends.

After lunch we headed into Dylan's Candy Bar and spent quite awhile wandering around the place and getting some munchies and fudge.  This locale is owned by Ralph Lauren's daughter.   We were all like kids in the candy store.




By now it was raining quite steadily as we headed back over to 5th Ave to FAO.  "C" had never been in the store and was quite tortured by the "no you're not getting anything, it's almost Christmas" that he must have heard 100 times that afternoon.

 We did end up getting a design your own Muppet which we had to wait for so we ventured to Starbucks across the street while we waited for that to be done.   The fun highlight of the day was probably the opportunity to walk on the big piano from the movie Big.  They now have it set in the back of the store and they take a green screen photo before they allow people to spend time walking and jumping on it.  It is a very orderly process and they will allow you to go again if you wait in line.  It was a fun way to spend the rainy afternoon.

After retrieving our Muppet we headed back to the hotel for a short rest before dinner. On our way to the hotel, we passed by Rockefeller Center where they were testing the tree lighting.  I was able to capture a photo of the tree lit 10 days before the official lighting ceremony.   We also got to see the Yeti climbing the walls of Saks for their Holiday window displays.



Dinner that night was at Fieri's American Kitchen and Bar.  The food was good but the decor wasn't quite what I would have expected from the chef with the personality he has.

Our final activity of the day was to see the Broadway performance of Spiderman After Dark.  We had great seats and were right by where he landed several times.   It was definitely an action packed show and we all enjoyed it immensely.  I didn't know when we booked it that the show was leaving NYC at the end of 2013 so I am glad we made the choice to see it over some of the other choices.

After a very busy day we had a nice long sleep and slept in again on Wed. morning.