The next day we started by trying to see a movie, but ended up missing the show time, and going to the Empire State Building instead! We bought our tickets, went through a bunch of lines, and eventually ended up on the 86th floor. the views were great, the wind was cold, but we wanted to go higher. Luckily, for another few bucks you can take an elevator up to the every top at the 102nd floor. That view was incredible! Also, the observation deck was completely enclosed and warm. We spent awhile up there, taking pictures.
While on top we could see the whole area, so we decided to check out the landmarks that we could see. We left and went to Herald Square at 34th street, then toured the famous Macy's store (9 floors! all with wooden escalators). After Macy's we walked down to the Flat Iron building (the very first sky scraper). After that we kept walking down to union square at 14th street. We stopped at a couple cool looking stores, and ended up at our destination restaurant called "Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man".
This was an amazing restaurant devoted to chocolate. Almost everything had some sort of chocolate in it. I had a White Chocolate Chai Latte, seasoned fries (with chocolate seasoning), and crispy mac and cheese. Anthony had an awesome alcoholic/chocoholic drink, (we shared the fries) and a meaty pizza (not sure about chocolate on that. For dessert we had "Banana Egg Rolls". Which are basically banana, nuts and chocolate sauce inside of a fried egg role shell, served as fondue. They were amazing! As I bit into my second one it sort of popped and shot chocolate sauce all over my arm! Very funny, and yummy to clean up.
After dinner we walked a ways over to Chelsea and waited in line for tickets to an improve show called "Assscat 3000". We froze waiting for the free tickets, when the line started to move we got all the way to the very very front and they ran out. The intern said we could wait for stand-by seats outside, we would probably get them, but it would be another hour. By this point my hands and toes were already numb. We decided to wait. We talked to the NYU theatre students in line with us, and tried to think warm thoughts. An hour later, we all got in to see the show.
It was hilarious! About one and a half hours of improv with a small cast. Some one from the audience would shout something out, one member of the cast went up and told a story from their past relating to what was shouted, and then the rest of the cast made as many funny improv situations out of it as they could.
After the show we journeyed home on the subway and watched Tosh.O online. It was a great day!
The next day we did slightly less, we got up a little late, went and did the NBC studio tour. We got to see a few diffrent sets that NBC currently uses, including "Dr. Oz" "Late Night with Jimmy Falon" and of course "Saturday Night Live". At the end Anthony and I got to act as news anchor (me) and weather man (Anthony) and produce a little news. It was fun.
After the tour we took the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked across both of our favorite landmarks. It was freezing of course, and windy, but I had remembered to bring hand-warmers (the little chemical activated ones) so we stayed warm for awhile. The views were incredible. Eventually we got to the far side and took a wrong turn trying to find the subway. We walked for what seemed like forever, then Finally saw the subway entrance. It was on the other side of the highway... We walked to the end of the sidealk and found a way across. We got into the station (mind you its dark by now) and there is no body there. It was pretty creepy. We could hear the occasional sound or voice in the distance, but I have never been more alone in a subway station before. The first train that came was headed back to Manhattan, instead of into Brooklyn where we needed to go. But we got on it anyway, instead of waiting around. A few subway trips later we were back at home.
The next day we got up at 5:30am to go to the airport. It had snowed and was now freezing rain. We walked around for ten minutes hailing cabs, but no one wanted to go to LaGuardia. Finally a cab picked us up and we got to the airport with plenty of time for breakfast.
On the way back I took the bus and the subway at rush hour. I was on the train that I took every morning all summer at rush hour. The packed subway cars really brought me back, it was fun. Some of that trip is in the video "NYC Empire Spoof" you can find in the videos tab, as well as much more from our weekend.
-Glenn
No comments:
Post a Comment