What to do?

I flew to NYC today. The flight was uneventful except for some pretty intense turbulence over California. Oh! And remember the crazy McCain Rally lady? The lady in the seat in front of me had that same hair. It was very distracting. Which reminds me. I am still so sad that I didn't think to dress up as Crazy McCain Lady for Halloween. I could have spent the whole day lurching around with a white fright wig, a red McCain/Palin tee shirt and a mic insisting that "Hobama is an A-raab." Doh!

Anyway, I flew in to JFK with a co-worker who has never been to Manhattan. I wanted her to go to sleep tonight really feeling like she was in NYC. I couldn't figure out where to take her at 9:00 pm on a Sunday night. I thought of Serendipity 3 but the only sites along the way are the stores on Fifth Ave. which are all closed early on a Sunday night. A view of Lady Liberty would have been nice but I didn't know how to get a view without walking through Battery Park and that just didn't seem like a safe idea. Then I figured we should just go ahead and get Times Square out of the way. It's not my favorite but you definitely know you're in New York when you're there. Also, Times Square now has a special place in my heart because last Tuesday night, while watching elections results, I cried when I saw that people had stopped traffic in Times Square with crowds cheering and dancing people in the streets when word of Barack Obama being our President Elect hit.

Times Square it was. My co-worker is a very enthusiastic person who is usually up for anything. I told her I'd want to be back at the hotel around 11:00-11:30 (I know, I'm a party pooper) and she was fine with it. We are here to work after all. Being up all night is something others seem able to pull off but not me. I need my sleep.

We met in the lobby where I ran into co-worker #2. She said that if we didn't have plans she's going ice skating at Bryant Park Thursday night and wondered if we'd like to join her. Now, I have a tendency to fall down wearing my Converse sneakers. Strapping on a pair of ice skates just does not seem like a good idea for me. The first works that come to mind are compromised tail bone and concussion. I'm out. My new-to-New-York friend, however, is very into the idea. I think it's safe to say you can expect a blog entry from me that night while I relax with some room service and cable tv in my room.

We got to Times Square and co-worker #1 was immediately drawn to the ferris wheel in the Toys r Us store. It is pretty cool. Besides, I needed to pick up some of the Club Penguin stuff I knew my niece and nephew had been wanting.

We barely looked around then decided to look for a place to eat. First we spotted Carmine's. Unfortunately so did every other out-of-towner. There was a 45 minute wait. It smelled so good that we decided Italian was a must. Eventually we found a nice little place off Broadway and enjoyed a nice dinner of shrimp cocktail, Caesar salad and a fantastic seafood pasta. The biggest plus was that we were West of Broadway shows that were ending so we stepped out of the restaurant and immediately caught a cab.

It was a nice way to ease into our week in New York.

My co-worker heard that the hotel restaurant has amazing pancakes so we decided to eat downstairs together tomorrow morning. Our first appointment isn't until 2:30 in the afternoon so we're meeting at 9:30 for breakfast then some shopping. I'm going to show her Herald Square. It's so close to Thanksgiving I'm hoping to see some of the Holiday set up. I'll try to take some pix.