flick skinny's BIG APPLE (pie) adventure!

***WARNING: Readers with jealous tendencies or those who have some place to run off to should proceed with caution as you approach my NYC novel/narrative/picture show!***

SATURDAY, OCT. 16, 2010

So...as I told you on Friday, I woke up bright and early to head out to NYC to see my friend Haley. The bus ride was an easy four-hour trip and when I wasn't catching up on shut-eye, I got to enjoy the beautiful changing leaves of Mass, Connecticut and NY! My awesome seat gave me a spectacular view...and extra leg room! If you can't make out the pic below, the sign says Hartford + New York City...where Emily Gilmore lives + HayReh was waiting, respectively.

Once Haley and I got together (with much drama over MetroCards for the NY subway), we were off in search of some yummy grub! We stopped at a place called the Shake Shack, famous for their burgers + milkshakes! Haley and I both had a Shack burger, diner fries and we split a Black and White Shake (which is chocolate + vanilla mixed together and a party for your taste buds)!

We also had to tote around my suitcase (as seen, here, in the Shake Shack) for the majority of the day because HayReh doesn't actually live in the city--so we screamed TOURIST everywhere we went! But it was funny handling it among all the other tourists, small children and other distracted folks who would just walk right into it!! Our most sincere apologies to the kneecaps to whom we gave a bruisin'.

Obviously, we were in need of some exercise after our three-course (and 3489238 calorie) meal, so we headed to Times Square!! I've been to NYC before but it was way long ago and I didn't recognize how spectacular it was then--I hate to be a cliche, but Times Square was so fun! It was seriously warmer there because of all the people! The energy was wonderful, the smells interesting (and some off-putting) and the lights were big and bright! (...for some reason, I really wanted to buy some Calvin Klein undies, a ticket to Wicked and a T-Mobile phone after we left there....odd.) LOVED IT.

I was in the Big Apple and I was with HayReh, so we obviously wanted to see a show! We waited in line at a place called tkts for half-priced Broadway tickets!! It only took an hour'ish and we got to talk to some interesting tourists + venders! Fun facts: Apparently I look like a "Samantha" and I really enjoy yelling/repeating back to venders what they stand in one place to yell for an entire hour...without moving...expecting me to buy what they're selling...without actually exerting any effort...just sayin'.

We are very serious about our Broadway shows (and we both place somewhere on the OCD spectrum), so we wrote down our choices (and threw off our competition with) an undecipherable code of desirable shows! Translated, we wanted to see: Promises Promises, Avenue Q, Billy Elliot, Phantom of the Opera, West Side Story or Chicago. 

Once we got out super-reduced, awesome-seat tickets to a BROADWAY MUSICAL, we got some Starbucks and tried to find HayReh some warmer clothes at Ann Taylor (NYC was a smidge chilly this weekend). She was excited!

<INTERMISSION: Readers, please take a breather, go use the restroom and continue to drink plenty of fluids--reading about an NYC adventure is taxing and your health should not be ignored.>

After our Starbucks (to fulfill all my You've Got Mail fantasies), we jumped on the subway to 77th street to see Central Park!! It's like the Boston Common (my fave part of my city) but on steroids. And it was a perfectly sunny fall day to enjoy it....rest my feet...and give my suitcase a breather, too :)

Next, we were off to find Lizzy!! (You remember her, the sweet gal who came up last weekend and we went on a ghost tour?! Oh yeaaaa, now you've got it.) En route to finding her, however, I got a little distracted and photo happy as we saw 1) the Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka the Met), 2) an awesome sign + law I wish they'd enforce in Boston and 3) an awning that reminded me of NY152 from You've Got Mail....don't judge me.

Once we found Lizzy in her awesome NY-style one-bedroom, we were so excited to have all these Southern Belles together that we found the undeniable urge to fulfill every Southern gals dream: CHICK-FIL-A IN EL NORTE!!!!! So we took a cab, snuck into NYU's dining hall and filled my tummy with some much-needed CFA after 47 WHOLE days of not having it!! Unbelievable, I know. We were all so excited that I seriously think any one of us could have cried at any given moment. It was that epic. So we found it....

...we peed our pants... 

...and we TOTALLY DOMINATED!!

After such a fancy five-star delicacy, we took our happy tummies to Broadway to see Sean Hayes and Kristen Chenowith's Promises, Promises. Kristen's understudy was on that night, but it was still hilariously entertaining!! Sean Hayes--ya know, Jack from Will and Grace--was spectacular!! He's so talented it almost isn't fair! 

We gave him all the praise he could ever want from three lovely Georgia gals at the stage door after the show, where we got his autograph, met (and kinda yelled at but in a nice way) Molly Shannon (ya know, Superstar!) and giggled like a bunch of six-year-olds. It was great!! Thanks to Haley's super fantastic photojournalistic skills, you get to see half of their faces!! Just take my word for it...

We then proceeded to literally sing, dance and jump through Times Square, flirt with a sixteen-year old hanging out of a limousine and meet two women who were accused of being our mothers (big compliment to them, right??)!

We said a tearful goodbye to Fizzy Lizzy, grabbed my suitcase from her apartment and headed to Grand Central for our final adventure to HayReh's home in Hyde Park, NY. We got to her place around 3:30 a.m., blew up the air mattress and promptly passed out. Good news is: the suitcase made it home safe and sound, too. Definitely a day I will never forget!!

SUNDAY, OCT. 17, 2010

Sunday we obviously slept in a bit and then spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Hyde Park/Poughkeepsie where Haley goes to school at the Culinary Institute of America (aka the CIA). She doesn't get a badge and gun but she does get a spiffy coat + hat, so it's just as fun (and twice as yummy)!! After a UGA red pom pom LITERALLY exploded into hundreds of pieces all over her car/me/her boyfriend, Nate, we sang a duet!! <Please refer to the real Sunday, Oct. 17 post for duet details and embarrassing pictures.> 

We ate brunch/linner/blinner/blupper at a diner that was complete with broken juke boxes...and grabbed another Starbucks to refuel!! 

We then proceeded to have a major photo op on the Walkway Over the Hudson (which was just finished last year)--an ultra-tall 1.5 mile bridge that stretches over the river. It was beautiful!! ...but it was also kinda windy so all of our serious pics turned out gross so we tried jumpy pics again, instead!! Because with jumpy pics, you can never go wrong.

Haley then showed off the rest of the town to me via car tour, including: where FDR grew up, the Vanderbilt mansion, the Hudson River Bridge, the Hudson River Valley and Vasser.

We kept it pretty PG for the rest of the evening by watching The Last Song (again, judgment is not appreciated), finding out I got an A on my paper!!! and then celebrating by ordering Domino's at midnight :) We like to keep it classy.

MONDAY, OCT. 18, 2010

So now that I've filled you in completely with all the deets (sorry I got back-logged), we're back to present day! But not really. Because I won't post this until it's Tuesday, but I started it on Monday so I'm counting it.... FYI :)

This morning HayReh toured me around her school and it was AMAZING!! I wanna wake up to go to class to learn how to make chocolate everyday!! For reals. Culinary/baking school is hard work, but it smells a lot better than some other post-grad options! She may kill me for some of these pics but I'm so proud of her so I'm bragging to you and she'll just have to get over it! Here's a few shots of her school and her in her chef whites...

Her school has five restaurants, kitchens for classrooms and observation glass everywhere so that visitors can spy on the students (so that they feel like they're "in a zoo," as Haley puts it). I know I'm missing one, but there are French, Italian, American cuisine restaurants and the Apple Pie Bakery Cafe. Uncle Phil: They also have an entire classroom devoted to teaching, learning about and tasting wine! How cool!!

She and I ate at the APBC (where she will eventually work as she gets closer to graduating) and had a terrificly awesome lunch! She had corn + pablano soup, truffle french fries (not pictured), a Nutella cupcake and a Coke (of course)! I had a portobello/onion/goat cheese panini, bulgur wheat salad (aka cous cous + great veggies), a Nutella cupcake and homemade peach tea! Sooooooo good. My mouth is honestly watering just thinking about it....

We had to say goodbye around 1 p.m. so that she could be all world-class chef and I could be all Bostonian again, so I hopped on the train from Poughkeepsie to NYC (and saw a spectacular view of the Hudson the whole way there)...got back on my double-decker bus (where I snapped a final shot of Yankee stadium)...and got back to find my cozy little apartment that's really starting to feel like home. Fabulously fabulous weekend! I wish you could have all been there with me, but I'm sure I'll go back soon and, as usual, I promise to give a full report!!

say cheese (and we did like 5,000 times this weekend),

a happy, cultured and exhausted katy :)