My Favorite NY Food

If you go to NY, these are some must-do things when it comes to food:

1) Croissants (or any bread, really) from Bread Factory Cafe (I'm currently eating one of the six I brought home with me).
2) Bagels from H&H Bagels
3) A meal in Little Italy
4) Cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery (Had my first experience there on this most recent trip...reminded me of my grandmother's cupcakes, which is saying a lot.)
5) Giant margarita at Dallas BBQ

Thanks, Entertainment Tonight!!!

(THIS LINK DOES NOT WORK.)

Below is the working link to Entertainment Tonight's video from the event that you can copy and paste into a Web broser (I walk behind John at 56 seconds into the clip):

(Copy and paste this link into Web broswer):

http://www.etonline.com/news/2008/05/61953/index.html

The blog is in reverse sequential order. Enjoy!

Wow

Each trip I've taken to NYC has been special in its own unique way. This one was fun because I got to be with John, a great cousin and a great friend, as he lived out a dream. Back in 1984, two of my aunts (one of them being his mom) took him and his sister to see Romancing the Stone. But, John broke away from them and ran into the theater showing Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. He wanted to see that guy from Star Wars in it. Aunt Dinie didn't have the heart, I suppose, to drag him out of there, so she went in with him. She said he was running up the aisle afterwards saying "Wasn't that GREAT?!?" That was the beginning of, well, let's be honest here, ...an obsession. For as long as I can remember, John has been working on his Indiana Jones impersonation. It paid off for him when he won Entertainment Tonight's "Give Us Your Best Indy" contest. I've very proud of him and just want to say "thanks" to John for letting me ride on his coattails and enjoy the celebrity treatment he and videographer, Jason, received.

Chris

Chris couldn't go to NY this time, but I can't do a blog without him, so here's a file photo from 4 years ago :-)

More Pics

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Movie/TV Locations Tour

On our last day, John's friend Brennan booked us on a bus tour of movie locations around the city. My favorite part was seeing the steps used in the opening credits of The Cosby Show.

Brennan has lived in NY for a few years and was a great tour guide. We had lunch in Little Italy and went to Battery Park to do the only thing John hadn't done yet that he wanted to do...see the Statue of Liberty.

Leona Lewis

Here's the performance of Bleeding Love that John and I saw when we went to the Letterman taping. She was so good. John and I are new fans.

(copy and paste link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQtRpziJINc

The After Party

Following the movie several people Jason and John know met up at their hotel to go out. We had a midnight dinner (only in NY would I go out for dinner at midnight!) and then went back to John's hotel to dance at the nightclub. John taught everyone how to goofy dance.

Some More Photos

NYC Day Two

I spent the morning and afternoon walking around by myself while John and Jason met up with their co-workers in their company's New York office. It was neat for them to put faces to the names of people they do business with. At 5 p.m. we met up at John's hotel to go to the Indiana Jones screening. John, and I hope he doesn't mind me saying this, was a nervous wreck. I figured someone was going to need an ambulance before the night was over and I wasn't sure if it would end up being John or Harrison Ford. A giant black SUV with tinted windows showed up at the hotel to pick us up. It was hilarious that we were being driven to the theater because we could have walked to it. But that's how big celebs like us roll, ha. When we pulled up to the theater, we sat in the car for a minute while John called his contact with Paramount. There were about 20 photographers lined up at the doorway and I think they were getting pretty anxious to see who was going to step out of the SUV (which is the same type of car the celebs were showing up in). Jason and I, a.k.a. "John's entourage" got out first. I was wearing a somewhat short dress and as the photographers snapped away, I tried my best not to pull a "Lindsay Lohan." When John got out in his costume the flashes really started firing....until they came to the realization that we were a bunch of nobodys. John looked at them and said "I really disspointed you guys, didn't I?" Yeah, they told him, he did.

A crew from Entertainment Tonight met up with John and stayed with him prior to the movie. They set us up so that we greeted the celebrities just before they walked into the theater where the movie was playing. My job was to photograph everything and I was sooo nervous that I was going to do something stupid and ruin John's photos. I was getting anxious about the lighting and saw a guy with fancy camera equipment and asked him if he would help me with the settings on my camera. He ended up being Paramount's photographer and he set me up perfectly, thank goodness!

The only celebrity who turned John down for a photo was Lauren Bacall. John got a kick out of the fact that he got shot down by Lauren Bacall.

Shia LaBeouf, Harrison Ford and Karen Allen were extremely nice and spent time interacting with John.

NYC--Day One

I recognized right away that I had packed entirely wrong for this trip. There was a chill in the air and it was raining off and on. I was pretty cold in my short sleeve shirt and light jacket, but then again, I was in NY, so what could I possibly have to gripe about, really? This was John's trip (and his first time in NYC), so he was calling all the shots, we were just along for the ride. We walked around Columbus Circle, Times Square, went to a comic book store, had lunch at Planet Hollywood and dessert at a diner where the wait staff sing. John and I are pretty big Letterman fans and we had tickets to that evening's taping. We got in line early and had tickets #1 and #2. We had SO much fun at the taping. Paul Schaffer and the band at the Late Show are so good in person and play before the show and during all the commercial breaks. On the show that night were Harrison Ford (John's first sighting!), Ali Lohan (Lindsay's little sister) and Leona Lewis (whose song "Bleeding Love" was incredible to hear in person). John and I had seats in the second row on the side of the stage where the band is positioned. After the taping, we were ready to drop with exhaustion. I went to John's hotel and grabbed my luggage and walked several blocks to check into my hotel. I was upgraded to a suite!! I fell asleep for a few hours. When I woke up, I went out to get some dinner, which ended up being a blueberry muffin, croissant and glass of orange juice.

NYC-Day One

John checking into the hotel

When we walked into luggage claim at La Guardia our driver was standing there to greet us with a sign that said "Welcome John Alexander." It was 8 a.m., so there was quite a bit of traffic going into the city. John and Jason's hotel, which we looked up online and costs about $450/night (with one room as high as $630), was very chic. Some of the people in the lobby looked like they were on their way to their modeling agency. John's friend from Somerset, Brennan, met us in the lobby. My mom and Brennan's mom taught school together back in the 1970s. I guess they never imagined at the time that their kids would one day be running around NYC together. The room wasn't ready, so we left our luggage there and went out to explore the city.

NYC-Day One

Our flight left Lexington at 6 a.m. John and Jason arrived at the airport from Somerset via a Lincoln Towncar. My driver was my dear husband who had to get up waaay too early, considering he wasn't going to NY and it was a work day. I was only slightly nervous about flying. I knew, though, that John would keep me entertained all the way there. I counted only 15 people on the flight, so we each had a row to ourselves, which was nice. In fact, they made us move around prior to take off to balance the weight distribution. We flew into La Guardia, which was awesome because we had great views of the city as we landed.

Here We Go Again

OK, I've decided to resurrect the ol' blog. It's time for a new adventure. Tuesday morning, I leave for New York with my cousin John and his friend Jason.

Why?

Well, they won a little contest:

(copy and paste this link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIGxd1DtWIY

Isn't that cool?!? I could not be more excited for John. I seriously doubt there is a bigger fan of Indiana Jones in the entire world.

We have Letterman tickets for Tuesday night and Harrison Ford is going to be on.

Now, the problem is, I cannot decide how to pack. It's such "between season" kind of weather. I feel like I need to dress in layers but don't want to overpack and drag a giant suitcase around the city. Oh, the dilemma.

Soccer update: We have two games left (one of which I'll miss while in NY...I don't know how they'll survive without me). We are getting better and better. In fact, the last several games, we have been able to keep the other team from scoring in the double digits.