Tag Archives: hotel

First Day In New York (or How To Do The Most You Can On Less Than 3 Hours Of Sleep)

Right after my flight landed at JFK, I had to go from one terminal to another to meet up with Krystle, my sister-in-law. It was only one terminal over, and being used to LAX I figured it couldn’t be that hard to walk over.

While it wasn’t too far (maybe about 1/4 a mile), it was freezing out! And I mean literally freezing! It was about 30 degrees outside, so I definitely woke up from that walk over. On the plus side, I got to see the amazing sunrise.

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Once I made it over to the other terminal, we got a cab and headed into the city. We had let the Waldorf Astoria know that we wanted a very early check in, but there was no guarantee that they would have a room ready for us. But when we got to the hotel around 8am, we were lucky enough to be able to check in then and go to our room. We got changed and got our purses together and headed out for the day.

Our first stop was going to be breakfast. We found a place that we wanted to check out, and we consulted our map on how to get there. But we mixed up what were subway lines and what were bus lines and weren’t able to figure out how to get there. We eventually found the subway and took it to Times Square because we figured we could find something there.

We ended up finding a random breakfast place that made custom omelets for about $6, and that sounded perfect! And those omelets were super delicious!

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After getting some breakfast in our stomachs, we headed down to Canal St. where  we did some cheap shopping. Krystle got 2 fake Louis Vuitton wallets and some jewelry. I got 2 rings (there were selling them for $15 each and I got them down to $25 for both).

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For fake rings, I think they look pretty good.

After doing some shopping, it started to rain and it was getting close to the time that the show we were going to was starting, so we headed back to Times Square on the subway. We hung out in a Starbucks for a bit to warm up (it was still close to freezing temperatures) and then headed down the street to the Broadway Theater to see “Cinderella”.

Right now, Fran Drescher plays the stepmother and Carly Rae Jepsen plays Cinderella, but Carly Rae Jepsen doesn’t perform on Wednesday matinees, so we saw the understudy (who was fantastic!).

We had gotten some really great seats in the mezzanine, and they weren’t too expensive either (we bought them online before going on the trip).

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And the theater was really gorgeous with some amazing chandeliers.

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The show was so great! The cast was amazing and it was a fun and upbeat show. Before I came on the trip, I had mentioned on Facebook that I was going to be seeing this show. My friend (and previous boss) Laura had mentioned that her friend was one of the cast members. So after the show, we found him and I got a picture with him to show Laura that we met each other.

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After the show, it was still raining and we had about an hour and a half before our dinner reservations. As we were walking to the theater, I realized that I bar that I had been wanting to go to was around the corner from the theater. So after the show, that’s where we headed.

We went to McGee’s, which is the inspiration for the bar McLaren’s on the tv show “How I Met Your Mother”. Not only do I love the show, my friend Woody has been playing the bartender on it for the past few seasons!

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I didn’t really get any pictures that made McGee’s look like McLaren’s, but you can tell being inside there that there are some similar things and how the creators used the bar to inspire the one on the show. Of course, I texted my friend Woody to tell him I was sad that he wasn’t behind the bar.

Besides the bar being the inspiration for the show, I have to say that it really is a great bar. We both ordered a drink there and honestly they were the strongest drinks either of us has ever had.

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Finally, it was time to head back onto the subway to get to our dinner. We had reservations at Rubirosa, which is known for their pizza. We ordered some rice balls as an appetizer and got a pizza to share.

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The pizza seemed huge, but since the slices are super thin crust, it wasn’t as crazy as it seemed. Plus, it had been about 10 hours since we had breakfast so both of us were pretty hungry. It was delicious and a perfect dinner for our first day in NYC.

After dinner, the jet lag and lack of sleep started to kick in. My hips were also starting to get a bit sore from all the walking (and all the stairs up and down for the subway). So we got back on to the subway and headed back to the hotel. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I went to bed pretty early and I really needed it. I had a lot of sleep to catch up on, and I needed a lot of energy for the rest of the trip!

Adventures On The Red-Eye (or Surviving On Almost No Sleep)

Well, I made it to NYC! It’s my first time being back since August 2000 (yes, a lot of things have changed here since then) and I couldn’t be more excited!

Since I was leaving from Los Angeles and my sister-in-law was leaving from San Francisco, we did our best to try to get flights around the same time. We got it to where she got in about 90 minutes before me, so that’s not too bad.

I haven’t taken a red-eye flight since January 2005 and that flight was a long one so there was plenty of time to sleep (that was Chicago to Paris). Since this flight was going to be just over 5 hours and I have my issues with flying, I really was hoping for the best this time.

I took my panic meds on my usual schedule for flying days and right before I left for LAX I took an Advil PM. I thought that would help me in 2 ways. First of all, it would help me fall asleep a bit easier. Also, it would help me from getting too sore since I was going to be sleeping in an economy class seat (upgrading to first class was an extra $300 and I just can’t afford that).

I had a friend take me to LAX (thank you Lupe!) and right before she came to pick me up, I did some more prep work for being ready to sleep on a plane. I got changed into comfortable travel clothes (leggings, t-shirt, and a sweatshirt/sweater hybrid), brushed my teeth, and took out my contact lenses and put on my glasses.

Once I got on the plane, I tried to get settled very quickly. I got as comfortable as I could in my seat (thank goodness I had a window seat so I could lean on the side) and got my neck pillow out and ready to be used. I also took a quick picture because the mood lighting on Virgin America was pretty awesome.

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I tried to close my eyes as soon as the plane took off, but I still wasn’t too comfortable in my seat. Finally, once we were allowed to put our seats back, I did and was able to feel a bit more relaxed.

But I have to say, my mission to sleep on the plane was a failure. I took a couple of naps on the flight, but each of those was under an hour and I was probably awake for a half hour in between each nap. I guessed that over the entire flight, I maybe slept 2.5 hours. That’s not too good for what was supposed to be my entire night’s sleep!

About 30 minutes before we landed, I woke up from one of my naps and I realized that I had to give up on trying to sleep. So I turned on my tv on the seat in front of me and watched our progress into JFK.

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The sun was starting to rise as we were close to landing, so I got a cool view of the sky.

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After the flight, I was able to meet up with my sister-in-law (who landed in a different terminal than I did) and we got a cab to take us to Midtown Manhattan to the Waldorf Astoria (where we are staying for this trip).

We had a pretty full first day in New York, but that will have to wait until the next blog post. I’m actually writing this on Wednesday evening (so technically less than 24 hours after I left LAX). It’s currently 8:17pm here in NY, and I’m going to bed! I seriously need to catch up on some sleep!