Chant with me, "Impulse buy, impulse buy, impulse buy..."

We got up on Thursday morning and got ready. I volunteered to get up first because I have learned in my 29 1/2 years two things about staying in hotels:

1) he who showers first gets the most hot water

2) I take the longest to get ready
Because of these two things - I was up and moving at 8 (which my body thought was 7 - but that's ok). I got in my nice, hot shower and decided to shave my legs. As I sat down to shave (yes I sit when I shave....) I knocked my head on the soap dish in the shower. I kinda rubbed it b/c it hurt a bit and moved on. Later in the morning, when putting on make-up, I found I had a bump on my head from it. Just so you know....almost a full week later, I can still feel it! Anyway, I enjoyed my nice, hot shower (shaved legs, bump on head and all) and got out. We all got ready and by 10ish we were out the door and headed to Times Square! I was soo excited! We stopped off at a Starbucks (there are only about 50 or so in the area) and then headed into Times Square to get our tickets for West Side Story. Here are some of my first pictures of Times Square:

I remember my first thoughts being "Wow! There sure are a lot of sings!" and "These signs are HUGE!" Yeah - I know, profound -- but so true! There are a ton of signs and they are sooo tall!!! I was just almost giddy with excitement to be there!

So, we headed to the theater and asked if they had 4 tickets for that nights show. We sorta thought we were going to be laughed at because West Side Story opened for previews on Tuesday and we were there on Thursday. Well, we were lucky enough to get 4 seats together a pretty decent spot. We quickly bought the tickets and headed out. Our next stop...the subway station.

(See the kids face in that picture on the sign? I bet I looked a bit like that at this point!!!

We bought MetroCards.....and then came what turned out to be my LEAST favorite part of New York! To actually get INTO the subway area of the station you swipe your card and then go through one of those turney-things...you know, like at 6 Flags before you can ride the ride?! So you swipe, wait for it to say you can go, and then like sprint through the turney thing so that it doesn't lock you out. Now, I am aware of how easy this sounds -- but believe me...it isn't! There were times I had to try 4 or 5 times to get through. The others were on both sides trying to coach me through...sheesh! So, I finally got through and was amazed at the station. The walls are tiled with pictures and the street names and other neat things. It's like the TRE station on crack!

I started to take pictures and then was told I could get in lots of trouble because, appearantly the Subway security people think that terrorists take pictures, on their touristy Nikon D70 hanging around their neck, of the subway to send home to bombers....or something like that....so anyway, I took this before I was told not too.....

So we got on the Subway and headed to Battery Park/Ellis Island. We were going to see the Staute of Liberty and Ground Zero. This was my one request for the trip...I wanted to see these things...Below are pics of us on the subway, at the Statue of Liberty, and Ground Zero....

Now, you will notice in most of the pictures from the week that I either have the camera hung around my neck, or I have the camera bag. This day, being our first, I decided to take the entire bag. That was great -- except BOTH batteries died after I took my first 3 shots of the Statue...sigh, I had to lug the thing around all day. However, Daron was kinda enough to let me take pictures on her camera throughout the day! Thanks Daron for letting me use your camera so I could have some pics!

So - after we finished looking around in Battery Park, we hoped headed to Chinatown. Now, I had heard Daron, Stefanie, and Monica talk about Chinatown and that you could get bags (aka purses) here for 'cheap'. I also knew you could get Pashmini scarves. I knew I wanted scarves, but I wasn't so sure about the purses...so we get to Chinatown and we're walking down the road and there are little Chinese men and women standing on the sidewalk muttering under their breath about purses. Daron walked until one woman said something about them and we followed this woman to a tiny store (are you getting the idea that everything is tiny?!) with purses hung on all walls, however, these purses aren't the right ones....they walked us to the back of the store and there's a door in the wall that takes you to a back room that has a ton more purses hung on the walls around you. You pick one and ask how much it is. They tell you and you decide. I found a few I liked, but this kind of impluse buying stressed me out! All 3 other girls bought at least one purse and we left. Now, at this point I became a bit frustrated. I wanted a bag, just not to be pressured into it!! So, we went a few stores down and I bought a few (6) scarves. Then I told Daron, I really want to buy a purse! I asked her to find me a different store. We walked down the road, to the other side, and back up the same way where a different little Chinese lady offered to show us her purses (you know, anywhere else and we'd probably not go!). The whole time we were walking I was coaching myself on how to do this purse buying thing by repeatedly telling myself to impulse buy (hence the title!). We get to the back room and I bought one purple purse.........one red purse...........and one brown one. Yes friends, I now have 3 new bags! Talk about impulse buying!!! After this we decided we should eat instead of buying anything else!

We went up a block or 2 to Little Italy. We were planning to wander around and pick the restaurant we thought would be the BEST, but as it turns out there was a man outside at the first restauarant we came to who convinced us we should eat there...and we did! It was called Casa Bella and I had Tomato Basil Riggatoni....it was really good! Then we wandered back through Chinatown some more and headed back to the hotel. We needed to change and get ready for the evening! Here are some pics from the afternoon:

Back at the hotel we changed clothes and headed to Don't Tell Mama -- a bar/restaurant on Restaurant Row. We had reservations to Seth Rudetsky's Chatterbox Caberet. Seth is the DJ on the Sirius Broadway station that I LOVE! I was very excited about seeing! He had Josh Grisetti, Jill eikenberry, and Michael Tucker there. They are from an off-Broadway show called Enter Laughing. It was a great show!!! We even got pictures with Seth and Josh Grisetti!

After the cabaret show we headed back toward the theater. We grabbed a piece of pizza on the way. Then we saw West Side Story! My first Broadway show! It was really good! It is, obviously, a revival of the show and has had some changes! The Sharks (Latin American's) now do complete scenes in Spanish! I Feel Pretty is now sung in Spanish. It was pretty cool - though I had no idea what they were saying at those times! The highlight of the night: Karen Olivio as Anita. Why is this amazing? She originated the role of Vanessa in In the Heights (which we were going to see the next night)!! She was AMAZING! Wish I could have seen her as Vanessa!

After the show we went to Sardis. This is appearantly where stars like to dine. There are pictures of stars all over the walls, but that's as close to a star as we got that night. After dessert, we were pretty tired and headed back to the hotel and went to bed. What an amazing first day!!!