NYC, watch out!
We arrived late Thursday afternoon. We caught a shared shuttle to the hotel and at the first stop, it was involved in a minor accident. As our driver opened his door to exit, a Lincoln Town Car sped by and the door hit the side mirror. Nothing like watching your driver and the town car driver arguing in the middle of the street in NYC rush hour traffic! After a short delay, we were once again on our way.
We checked into the Sheraton New York, quickly unpacked and settled into the room. We put on our walking shoes and headed out towards Central Park. Did I tell you we could see the park from our room? See the green in between the two buildings? Look closely. It's Central Park!
We arrived at Central Park and then turned towards The Plaza Hotel. The last time I was in NYC (years and years ago), The Plaza was entirely a hotel. Today it is split between private residences (I could live here. Just give me a chance!) and a hotel. In the lower level of the building you will find The Plaza Food Hall. This a a foodie paradise filled with beautiful food. We walked into the hotel lobby, hoping to have a cocktail at the bar but there were no seats available. We did get a look at The Palm Court, which is fabulous.
From The Plaza we strolled down 5th Avenue. The street was full of tourists gawking at the high end stores. I wonder what it is like to be able to walk into one of those store and purchase whatever your little heart desires?
Continuing our stroll, we found The Peninsula Hotel. Friends had mentioned it to me before the trip, so we stopped for a cocktail in The Gotham Lounge. NYC is expensive, but the drinks at this place were ridiculous! $24 for a martini? Really? Yes, really. But we had one because 1) we were on a girls trip and 2) the lounge was very sophisticated and we were pretending we were as well!
From there, we moved onto the Hilton New York, the conference site. The lobby and bar was full of bloggers, but I didn't see anyone I knew so we moved on to an Irish pub just around the corner and had a bite to eat. One last stop in the lobby bar of our hotel and then to bed. I wanted to be up and around early for the conference.
Friday morning I left The Sister snoozing in bed (a luxury for her!) and headed to the conference. The Sister spent the day playing tourist and walking, walking, walking. We had a wonderful dinner at Sardi's and walked thru Times Square and the 9 blocks back to our hotel. Yes, we saw the Naked Cowboy, but we did not get a picture!
Saturday The Sister again played tourist while I attended the conference. We had a fabulous dinner at Bobby Flay's Bar Americain. This is the only picture we have of the two of us on this trip!
After dinner we took a pedicab to our off, off Broadway show. Fifteen blocks in NYC traffic at 7:30pm on a Saturday evening. WHEEEEEEEEEE! Exciting!
Since we are both fans of Harry Potter and have read all the books, we selected Potted Potter as the show to attend. We laughed through the entire show. I mean we belly laughed at certain parts! Here's a review of the show.
We returned to the hotel after the show and had one last libation in the hotel lounge before turning in early.
Our Sunday flight home was scheduled to depart at 2:30 p.m. Because we were utilizing a shared shuttle to the airport, the previous day when we called to confirm our reservation it was recommended that we schedule pickup for 9:40 a.m. Really? Yes, really. NYC traffic is unpredictable and there were multiple stops planned at multiple hotels, so we were up and out early.
We knew that bad weather was moving into the area and kept our fingers crossed that we would get out before it hit. We finally taxied out and got in line for take-off. We were next in line when the pilot informed us that take-offs had just been suspended. #$%^*$
Fortunately, we only had to wait about 10 minutes and the controllers opened take-offs and we were able to leave. Thank goodness. Many other people were stranded for hours because of the weather. And bloggers, being bloggers with twitter accounts, immediately started tweeting the situation. If you have twitter, search the hashtags #bloghertarmac and #blogher12lga for humor in a bad situation.
BlogHer13 will be held in Chicago next July. The Sister has already informed me she'll share my room again. I think this is going to turn into our annual sister trip and I couldn't be happier about it!
