Phase 2

Phase 2:  NEW YORK

Start at Phase 1 if you missed it.

On Saturday, November 5th, I left Hannah at Wendy’s, took a bus, Jonathan took a plane and we met at the Bergen Street Subway stop.  I’ve done my fair share of traveling and having to meet up with people, but this is the first time I’ve done it with a cell phone and in my native language, and it sure makes things so much easier.  We met up and headed to Brooklyn to Ashley’s place. 

Ashley and Blair couldn’t have been better hosts.  We felt like we were staying at Hotel Willis, what could have been a 5 star hotel, when we found candy and lotions waiting for us on our beautifully made air mattress.   We had to make the most of our time with Ashley and Blair because Ashley had just been hired at Nintendo (cool huh!) and had to go to Seattle for a 3-day training.  We dropped off our bags and headed to Times Square for dinner.

 
We spent the next week doing a lot of touring, site seeing, subway riding, walking, and show seeing.  Here’s a run down of what we did each day.

SUNDAY – We went to church with Ashley and Blair, then skipped out after sacrament meeting.  The rest of the day was spent tracking down Jonathan’s mission stomping grounds.  We wanted to attend a Spanish Branch where Jonathan had served, so we looked up when we could attend one and found a branch starting at noon.  We headed over just to find the church website was wrong and it was a Chinese branch at noon.  The Spanish branch had just let out so we were able to talk to a few people…no one that Jonathan knew, but they knew the same people.  Apparently the church is growing though because 10 years ago that building wasn’t there.  They met in a rented space on the second floor of a building down the street.

Next we went on a building hunt as he walked down memory lane.  The next place we went had a sign on the door saying the 1:00 meeting was canceled for Stake Conference which was at 10 in a different building.  Awesome. 

 
After grabbing some pizza at one of Jonathan’s favorite places, we headed off to find a third building.  This one was more of a hunt.  We ended up having to walk quite a ways to find it.  Had it been dark, I would have felt even more nervous walking that area.  It didn’t help that we saw about 10 police vans (Jonathan said they use vans so more cops can travel together) fly past us with sirens blaring and half a dozen other vans pulled over confronting groups of people and half a dozen more vans just parked, waiting in the alleys.  Should lots of police around make you feel safer or feel like you’re in danger?  I believe it’s probably the latter.  Jonathan told me that while he served in this area he once was talking to someone who’s door they knocked and they asked this lady if she had heard of or seen the LDS missionaries before.  She responded with, “Yeah, I know who you guys are…you’re the only white people dumb enough to be in this part of town.”  It’s true.  Aside from the man we talked to in the church building, we saw 1 other white person…and we spent about 45 minutes walking to the church.

I felt bad that we had such poor luck actually attending a Spanish branch, but I’m glad I got a glimpse of Jonathan’s mission areas and I’m glad he got to visit some of the places.  We wrapped up the evening by heading out to Coney Island.  That too was a bust because they closed everything up the weekend before but we walked along the beach and ate hot dogs anyway.

MONDAY – We did the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island thing on Monday.  The statue is closed (the ENTIRE thing) for renovations, but we were able to walk around the island and take the highly recommended (by us – best kept secret of the Statue of Liberty) ranger tour.  Then we toured Ellis Island – which was much bigger than I thought it would be.

Once we took the ferry back we walked around the Financial District, watched the Occupy Wall Street protesters, then visited the 9/11 Memorial.  We were there at a great time because we got to see it in daylight, but were also there when the sun set and lights turned on.

Finally we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, ate at a Pizza joint called Grimaldi’s that’s located under the Brooklyn Bridge and got ice cream by the river.  By the end of this day, especially with it being right after all the walking we did on Sunday, we were exhausted.

TUESDAY – Even though our feet were sore and we were pooped, I dragged Jonathan out of bed early the next morning to hit up the standby line for tickets to the Regis and Kelly Show.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get in but believe it or not we had a good time in line as we made friends with the Canadians in front of us in line, got a free breakfast from a food truck, and had our first of 8 celebrity sightings.  Regis was walking up from the parking garage (?I assume?) and walked about a block to the studio.  He was on the other side of the street, and I ran to take a picture, but of course I forgot my camera was still on the self-timer setting so I clicked, then it waited 15 seconds to take the picture and I got 3 great shots of a truck passing by.  I changed that and snapped a few more, just to realized it was on also on a nighttime setting and my pictures were all blurry. 

 
After our bust at ABC studios, we hit up the Rachael Ray show to see if we could get standby tickets for that.  This time, we were first in the standby line but it didn’t matter.  There was no room for us.  The only upside to waiting in line the whole time was we had celebrity sighting #2 – AC Slater.  Well, I guess he goes by Mario Lopez these days but as far as I’m concerned, he will always be AC Slater from Saved By The Bell.  He was getting out of an SUV to be on the Rachael Ray show (I’m guessing) but then the security guy told him to get back in and go to a different entrance.

We grabbed some lunch hit up a few fun Times Square stores like Toys R Us and the M&M store.  Then we headed to Central Park and relaxed for a bit.  I was amazed at how huge that park is and feel like you could spend a whole week there and still not see everything.  We eventually made our way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where once again I learned what a rare man I married.  By this I mean, he was the one dragging me from room to room to find certain artists and he was the one stopping to appreciate each statue and painting while I just walked to the next bench and collapsed…and I’m the one with an Art History minor!  I’m the one who went on a 3 month study abroad where all we did was walk through museums (and I loved it).  My pregnant body was just so tired of walking that sitting on a bench was so much more appealing.  I could appreciate from a distance.

This is one of my Grandma Jean’s favorite paintings.

With our early morning in mind, we called it a night and headed back to Hotel Willis and crashed, knowing we had another big day ahead of us.

WEDNESDAY – Again, I dragged Jonathan out of bed early so we could stand outside and watch Anne and Al (celebrity sightings numbers 3 & 4 – does it count as a “sightings” if you go to their place of business…it does in my book) on the Today Show. 

 
Me shaking Al Rocker’s hand, even though he was still talking to someone else.
 

I was really disappointed that Matt wasn’t there – because let’s be honest, he’s the only one I care about – but he was off in Malaysia doing “Where in the world is Matt Lauer”.  This is as close as I could get.

There actually weren’t too many people there so we got a front row spot.  I called Cheryl and told her to watch for me and she saw me twice.  The second time, she only saw my scarf because I was too busy taking a picture with this fellow (celebrity #5)…

 
I’m actually not a Twilight fan at all.  Haven’t read any of the books.  Haven’t seen any of the movies.  Don’t really care to.  Don’t really care about this character at all but figured I’d take a picture anyway.  Jonathan told him it was nice to see him with a shirt on.  Not sure he heard, but I thought it was funny.

After the Today Show, we wandered around Rockefeller Square, the NBC studios, and did some more shopping around Times Square. 

 
Around 11:30 we headed to Gershwin Theatre to enter the lottery for some Wicked tickets.  For those of you that don’t know, some theatres do a drawing 2 hours before each show in which they give out great seats for super cheap to the lucky winners.  When we got there, we felt we had a good chance because there were only about 30 people waiting and we had been told they usually draw out between 10 and 20 names.  Each drawn name can buy 2 tickets, so we figured all 30 of the people there could possibly get in.  Throughout the next 30 minutes though, about 100 more people showed up and we were feeling like the odds were against us.  So, we had a strategy.  There was a nice young couple also waiting for the drawing and the husband was wearing a BYU hat.  We made friends with these people and decided that if BOTH mine and Jonathan had our name drawn, we would get them tickets.  If BOTH their names were drawn, they’d get us tickets.  Well, it was time for the drawing and what are the chances – Jonathan’s name was called.  I probably showed my excitement a little too much (especially since out of the 4 of us, his was the only name called and our newly made BYU friends didn’t get tickets) but I was THRILLED.  Wicked was the one musical I really wanted to see and it couldn’t have worked out more beautifully.  On our first try, we scored FRONT ROW tickets for $25 each.  Had we not won this day, we probably would have tried again every other day (wasting a ton of time) until the last day we were there, then finally shelled out $125 each for back row seats.

So, two hours later we went and saw Wicked and loved every second of it.  I’ve never seen it, but know all the music and loved seeing how it all tied together.  Being on the front row, admittedly is a little close, but I’ll take that over back row any day.  We could see the make-up, costume detail, hear individuals voices, and see spit come out of the actors mouths.  It was great.  I would get so caught up in one person that I would have to remind myself there was more going on and remember to take in the whole stage.

 
Because we went to the matinee, that freed up our evening to visit a family from Jonathan’s mission.  We hurried to the train station and bought our, what we thought were very expensive, Long Island Railroad tickets.  We had about 2 minutes from the time we bought the tickets to the time the train was leaving so we ran like mad to catch the train then enjoyed the hour long express ride.  Once we got there Abelda and her husband Leonaldo picked us up and took us back to their house where we had a traditional meal of Honduras (a soup with just about everything in it.  Apparently sometimes the meat they would serve would be things like pigs foot, but Jonathan and Abelda assured me that wasn’t what we had that night).  Jonathan enjoyed speaking Spanish with them and I was surprised at how well I could follow their conversations.  She joined the church a few months before Jonathan ever knew her but quickly became the “mission mom” and always had the missionaries over and so Jonathan got to know her really well.  Abelda speaks English so we would also talk, but her husband didn’t so much of the evening was done in Spanish.  After a few hours they took us back to the train station and we headed home. 

Thursday – Again, we were exhausted because we left the previous morning a little before 6 and didn’t get home until after midnight so we slept in a little.  Our only obligation today was the David Letterman Show (which we scored tickets to the day before as we were killing time between winning the lottery and actually seeing the show).  We shopped around at FAO Schwartz and the Apple store before heading over for the taping.  I really wanted to go to a show taping while in New York so I was thrilled to get into David Letterman (although he’s not really the one we watch).  His guest that day was Katie Holmes, whom I’m not a big fan of.  But, nonetheless, it was interesting to see how small the set actually is, how many people are walking around on stage throughout the taping, and how the whole thing works. 

They tape Thursday and Friday’s show on Thursday and I guess Steve Martin was going to be on the Friday show, so he was in the audience, sitting about 10 seats down from us, and he did a little banter with Letterman.  So with Letterman, Holmes, and Martin that wraps up celebrities 6, 7, and 8.

That evening we went to visit another mission family.  Nuria Reyes owns an El Salvadorean restaurant so we went there for dinner.  She treated us to more food than I could possibly eat.  What exactly the meat was is still up in the air.  Jonathan loved it though.  It was a VERY small restaurant (like 5 tables – but really there was only room for 2) and it was near closing so we were able to visit with her quite a bit.  She didn’t speak much English so Jonathan translated.  Her husband showed up after a while to take her home and he spoke good English so we talked to him while Nuria closed up the restaurant.  We then went to their house and met their kids.  They have 3 children.  One was just a baby when Jonathan met and baptized Nuria and is all grown up now.  When Jonathan taught Nuria, she wasn’t married, and since his mission, married and has become inactive.  That’s hard to see because they are such nice, loving people.  I guess they are still friends with several members though so all hope is not lost.

 

Friday – Ashley had gotten back from her business trip the previous night, so we headed into the city with her Friday morning.  She headed off for work and Jonathan and I went to the Manhattan Temple to do a session.  The building was there, but the temple was not when Jonathan served his mission so that was fun for him to see.  It’s amazing how calm and peaceful you can feel when in the temple compared to the crowded, busy city around you.

After the temple we got some cupcakes at Magnolia’s Bakery and then joined 5,000 other cheapos at the Target sponsored Free Friday MOMA night.  It was crowded, that’s for sure.  But worth saving $25 bucks a pop.  And this little gem was a fun surprise we weren’t expecting to see.

 

That night we met up with Ashley and Blair and treated them to a show to say thank you for giving us a place to stay the entire week.  Mary Poppins was my favorite musical in London so I’m happy we all got to see it.  Our seats weren’t quite as good as at Wicked (sorry Ashley and Blair!), but we still got to see the show and had a good time.

Saturday – I would like to say that Saturday, or return travel day, went off without a hitch, but that’s not the case.  We thought we gave ourselves PLENTY of time to get to the bus station/airport.  We were wrong.  We had our route planned out and when we went to make our first subway transfer, both the lines we needed were closed for the weekend.  We scrambled to figure out a new route and went our separate ways.  I still made my bus, but only by about 5 minutes (I planned to get there an hour early).  Jonathan however, missed his flight.  Our original plan had him making 2 transfers and then heading straight to the airport (a ride that took 30 minutes when he got to New York).  Today, with the closures, it required 5 transfers (one of which he had to wait 25 minutes for a train to come) and almost 2 hours to get there.  His flight left at like 11:55 and he showed up to the kiosk at 11:56.  I thought for sure this would cost us BIG as we would have to buy another ticket entirely (as has happened to us before) but we were pleasantly surprised to find it was a $60 charge for a new ticket.  Still $60 we would rather have not spent, but glad it wasn’t $500.

Go here for the final Phase.