runlindsayrun

The Whole Nine Yards

I'll be honest. I hesitated over the idea of doing something as horrifically touristy (can you hear me spit that word out?) as a tour bus. But there was SO MUCH I wanted to see in NYC and SO MUCH that we just couldn't fit in any other way. So this morning, Geoff + I jumped a subway to Times Square, grabbed a couple of lattes, and jumped on a bus.

BUT. Between that bus tour and some walking around today, we managed to see so much of lower Manhattan. Seriously. ARE YOU READY FOR THIS LIST?? We saw the the Conde Nast Building (OH MY STARS), the Empire State Building, Macy's (all done up for the holidays), Madison Square Garden, Greenwich Village, Union Square, Soho, Chinatown, Little Italy, East Village, Wall Street, the World Trade Center site, Battery Park, the Statue of Liberty, the UN, the New York Times building, Rockefeller Centre (including the tree and the skating rink), Radio City Music Hall... Um, and that is nowhere near a complete list. I can't actually believe we saw so much so fast. I'll still be processing all of this long after we get back to Winnipeg. And we're going back to a bunch of these places, so I'll skip crappy photos for now and take (and share) better ones later this week.

In between, we stopped for lunch at ABC Kitchen - one of the places on our list we were most excited to try because of its status as the best new restaurant in the city last year, and it did NOT disappoint. AT ALL. In fact, it's easily my new favourite restaurant. Anywhere. Ever. We had the most incredible bread and roasted cauliflower soup, arctic char and vegetables in some completely ridiculous carrot basil sauce, and then a salted caramel sundae for dessert. Oh, and it was all organic / local. Oh, and I ate it all with a perfect view of Amanda Peet sitting at the next table over Geoff's shoulder. Craziness. (For the record, she is absolutely stunning in person, even totally dressed down... The universe is SO UNFAIR. Except that I'm pretty sure she's substantially shorter than me. Hey, I'll take what I can get!) We heard murmurings that Mary Kate Olson was also there, but we never saw her.

The stupidest part of all of this is that we had accomplished ALL of this by 3 pm, when we showed up at The Daily Show to line up (we had tickets, but they WAY overbook so seats are not guaranteed if you don't suck it up and work for your spot). This was not a good part of my day. Unlike The Colbert Report - more on that tomorrow! - The Daily Show was not very willing to accommodate a sick chick, so I needed to wait in line like everyone else. We were supposed to be waiting for 90 minutes. It was FREAKING cold, but I figured I could do it. Unfortunately, the taping was delayed and we didn't get inside until 60 minutes AFTER the 90 minutes were up. You can do the math. The saving grace in this situation was being in line beside some pretty funny people who we ended up talking to for most of the afternoon - a couple from New Mexico and a woman from Kentucky who were my parents' age but as excited to be there as we were.

By the time we got in, I was in a boatload of pain and questioning my decision a little bit. But we warmed up quickly, and then I GOT TO SEE JON STEWART. In the words of my precious Briony, "Oh my GOOD-mess!" (She's having a FABULOUS time at home with Grammy, by the way. YAY. I guess it's a vacation for all of us.)

It was awesome. It was glorious. It was everything I hoped it would be, and something I've been looking forward to for a ridiculously long time. Jon's Q+A with the audience was hilarious, the segments were funny, and the interview was fascinating - and went into serious overtime, which kind of made the extra wait seem worth it. We didn't get to see any correspondents, which was a tiny itsy bitsy little bit disappointing, but no worries. I GOT TO SEE JON STEWART :)

After the show, we went to a ridiculous sushi buffet for dinner. I know, I know... I can't believe I went to a sushi buffet either. It quite overtly breaks one of Lindsay's Rules of Life, but the friend who recommended it is half Japanese - and so were most of the patrons inside, which I like to think is a good sign. It wasn't the best sushi I've ever had, but it was good and we left FULL.

We ended the night with a visit to the Empire State Building. I knew it would be interesting, but it was awe-inspiring. This city is SO BIG and it was just gorgeous at night.

We walked back to our hotel, full and happy and COLD and talking about everything we saw and did today. It was awesome. And I can't believe we have three and a half more days of this to look forward to before we fly away home...

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A couple of randoms from our bus tour (in no particular order...)







Apparently, my name is 'Lizzy' in New York...



Empire State Building

Labels: Food is Yummy, New York New York, Photos, The Boy, Travel

posted by Lindsay @ 9:40 PM