Okay I slept fairly good after the Benadryl and when we got up and left the weather was absolutely perfect.
Maydelle and I on the Subway.
We made our way back to the subway and found our way to Central Park for a 2-hour, 2-mile walking Movie and TV Sites Tour. IT WAS AMAZING! They showed us where they filmed Home Alone 2, Breakfast at Tiffanys, Bride Wars, Big Daddy, Gossip Girl, Maid in Manhattan, and dozens more. The park was so beautiful and it was in the upper 60s with a nice cool breeze. The yellow leaves were falling and they looked like hundreds of butterflies drifting to the ground.
Maydelle’s friend Shannon joined us for the tour. She was really funny and nice and seemed to enjoy the tour as much as we did. If I lived in New York I would walk/run in Central Park everyday of the week. The first photo is Maydelle and Shannon, then Maydelle frolicking in the park.
While in the park I bought a joke for $1. It wasn’t funny.
After the walking tour we hitched a ride on a bike taxi thing to McGee’s Irish Pub where we were to meet the bus tour at 3pm for a 3-hour movie tour around the Upper East side. We ate lunch there while waiting and Maydelle’s brother and his bf joined us. They were really nice and her brother even bought us lunch which was a really sweet gesture.
The bus tour was awesome too. At most of the red lights the tour guide asked trivia questions (like in cash cab!!!). Maydelle answered most of them by herself and got like all of the candy he gave out. Eventually he wouldn’t let us answer anymore. We stopped at Cafe Lalo where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan ate at in You’ve Got Mail. During the tour, the guide showed us what stars lived where and tons of places where they filmed shows and films. It was also seated which was an added bonus.
After the bus tour we stopped to get some Starbucks with my gift card on the way to the sunset boat cruise around Manhattan. Right after we left Starbucks Maydelle spotted Chris Pratt (Parks and Recreation, Bride Wars, Moneyball, What’s Your Number?, Wanted) on 49th street with a couple of his buddies. It was perfect timing since I was eating a giant cookie and drinking a huge Frappuccino. I considered throwing it down and pretending like it wasn’t mine but I didn’t. We asked him if we could take a photo with him and he was totally cool about it. He even asked us where we were from and stuff while we hunted for the camera which I couldn’t seem to find in my excited state. I had to have them take the photo with my phone and as soon as he left I found the camera right away, of course.
As we continued our walk we planned to find a taxi when we saw a huge crowd. At first I thought maybe there was another celebrity, then I discovered it was a protest. Maydelle was like cool lets go see the protest and I said no, we need to get to the Pier and its 10 blocks away at least. The protest was blocking our way though so we had to walk towards it unless we wanted to go in the opposite direction which we obviously didn’t (to be honest I was tired of standing in general at this point). Once we got up to the protest, people were yelling “Whose streets? OUR STREETS!!!” and it was kinda fun so we started marching down the street with them yelling “OUR STREETS” since it was in the same direction we needed to go anyways.
That was kind of fun at first… Once we got to Times Square with the crowd, they stopped. There were thousands of people already there yelling tons of things, carrying all kinds of signs. There were also hundreds of police blocking off the streets. We tried to keep going in our direction, but they wouldn’t let us go that way no matter how much we argued. Then we had to turn around and go back the way we came plus 3 blocks in the wrong direction to go around the mess which would have been bad by itself, but on top of that people were all stopped taking photos and holding signs and yelling and chanting and pushing and cussing and we couldn’t move. Maydelle was grabbing on to me by my bra straps and belt loops which I found bizarre but flattering. She kept saying she didn’t want to get separated lol. I guess I was lucky to have someone watching my back though. It was like a pissed off mosh pit and we were totally crowded. We eventually pushed our way out though. We found out the next day that over 80 people were arrested in the protest.
So now we were like 13 blocks from the pier and it was 6:45ish. The roads were blocked off from traffic so there was no option for a taxi. We decided to try to make it to the sunset tour and took off running down 42nd street. We ran off and on until we got to 10th street where they finally allowed cars again and we jumped in a taxi, not realizing we were only 2 blocks from the pier. The taxi took us 2 blocks, we jumped out and ran up to the ticket counter that looked closed, to find out it was indeed closed. The sunset tour was moved up to 6, not 7. We sat down and laughed about that for a while and then caught a taxi to the Empire State Building.
The line was CRAZY at the ESB. It took about an hour and a half (plus 6 flights of stairs) to make it up to the top to take photos. Maydelle entertained herself and annoyed many by taking this opportunity to sing to her IPOD while waiting in line. My least favorite rendition was easily Hakuna Matatta. It was worth the wait though as it was a beautiful site. We took a ton of photos and then started heading down. When I realized we had to wait in another line just to get out I said “I hate this place” but I didn’t mean it, completely. Here is a photo they made us pay for and we only did because we both liked it so much:
The New York Sky Ride was also included in our New York Passes (Oh yeah I didnt mention that we got these. We paid up front for the 3-day passes $125 each which included entry to most of the activities we did plus discounts at some of the restaurants and shops) and it was in the same building so we decided to do that while we were there. It was pretty lame, but free/included so nothing lost there.
After that we ate dinner and took the subway to east Harlem to go to a bar where Abraham bar tends. There was a live band which was pretty cool but we only had one drink and left because we were so tired. We took a taxi back to his apt since we don’t know how the buses work and didn’t want to venture around Harlem that late at night by ourselves. Maydelle already encouraged a super creepy man with his hand in his pants by laughing at his jokes instead of looking in the opposite direction and pretending he wasn’t there like most smart people would do.
We got back to the apartment and watched part of Sweeny Todd with Abraham’s roommate Devon (sp?) and his friend who went to Julliard. They are both actors, and Devon’s commercial for Dunkin Donuts even came on while we were sitting there which was pretty cool. Then we finally went to sleep around 2 or so. All-in-all it was a great day!