New York Trip Day 3 (July 31st, 2011) Living it Up in the City

Where did the morning go? At around 10:30 AM I woke up in one of those "what time is it" sort of panics. My two guesses were either 2 AM or 7AM but never did I guess it was actually close to 11 AM. Jenn was nice enough to let me sleep in while she surfed the web and continued to tweak our itinerary for the rest of the trip.

We ended up getting out of our hotel room at around 11:30 and took a Taxi to Time Square where we planned on picking up the double decker bus to use to tour the city. The mass chaos that is Time Square was pretty surreal. You see it in in both Movies and TV, but you don't realize how chaotic the square can really be until you just stand and look around at all that is going on. We did manage to make our way to the double decker bus and got a great seat up top to take us around the city.

Our First Time in Time Square

Hanging Out on the Double Decker Bus

Our first destination which we decided on the fly was the Empire State Building. Jenn had bought us the City Pass before we got to NY so we literally skipped all of the lines and made our way through security and straight up to the elevator to take us to the top and boy was it crowded up there. Jenn in her amazing ability to weave through crowds got us some great spots to sit and take in the amazing view from the 86th floor. We got some great photos, enjoyed our time up there, and then made our way down and back to the entrance.

Awesome Shot of the Empire State Building

Jenn Looking Gorgeous Right Inside Empire State Building

The Skyline from the Top of the Empire State Building

Us Checking Out All of the Sights From The Top of the Empire State Building

Beautiful View from Central Park

By this time we had become extremely hungry and found a great place right next to the Empire State Building called Heartland Brewery. Originally they sat us downstairs which was empty outside of a family with 3 little kids so we asked to be sat upstairs and just decided to sit at the bar and I am glad we did. Jenn got this awesome kind of Rum Punch and I got their own Empire Brew which was really good. We split some mozzarella sticks and a burger and called it a meal. It was just such a laid back experience and it came at a perfect time in the day.

Jenn Enjoying Her Rum Punch

Enjoying the Nice Local Brew

From the Empire State building we hoped back on the Double Decker Tour bus and made our way further through the city. Our next destination on the bus was the construction site for the new World Trade Center (Freedom Tower) which looks gorgeous. It is still a surreal experience to be standing in the same spot where all of the devastation happened almost ten years ago. We both really appreciated the beauty of the new building and the memorial they are building to never forget what happened there.

The Beautiful New Freedom Tower

From there we were back on the bus and literally took it to the end of the downtown loop to Central Park about 8 blocks from where we are staying. We walked our way back getting Jenn an Ice Cream Sandwich along the way. We got back to our hotel room and took the hour or two gap in our schedule to relax and get ready for our play Cirque du Soleil: Zarkana which was playing at Radio City Music Hall.

As I mentioned earlier we got a Taxi to Time Square which Jenn nailed right when we walked out the door of our hotel. She once again nabbed one with no effort at all to get us down to Radio City Music Hall. Radio City Music Hall itself was absolutely stunning. It was really everything you would imagine from this historic site. Jenn got us amazing seats for the performance and we enjoyed every minute of it. We have seen a Cirque du Soleil performance before in Vegas and this one managed to live up to our high expectations. It was just a lot of fun to see all of the various talents that the performers had and I can't count how many times Jenn and I would look at each other and say did they just really do that?

Jenn Looking Amazing Right Outside Radio City Music Hall

Inside The Beautiful Radio City Music Hall

A View of the Stage at Radio City Music Hall

Once the performance let out at around 10PM we decided to walk our way back from 49th to 76th street hoping to find something to eat. One of the bummers of seeing the performance on a Sunday is that a lot of the restaurants in the area closed well before the end of the performance and the same to be the case as we walked closer and closer to our hotel. We ended up not finding anything that really hit either of our fancies so we made our way back to the hotel and ordered room service.

Chicken Quesadilla from Room Service

Jenn's Pasta from Room Service

By the time we got our food at around 11PM we were pooped but starving. Jenn got her goto Spaghetti Bolognase and I had a Chicken Quesadilla. The food although extremely pricey was really tasty. We ended up sending the remaining time of the day talking about the rest of the trip and falling asleep to an episode of The Office and Everybody Loves Raymond. Truly a fun filled day.