NYC blog: The Final Instalment

Our last hours in New York :(

How depressing…seriously.

Like I said before this place feels like home, and leaving home is horrible.

The last night/morning I went to bed at 6am and got up at 7:30am. Good times.

Once we were up, Lauren and I met our friend Kathie for breakfast. It was great to catch up :)

Afterwards we met Britt in Times Square and did some last minute shopping and hung out on the big red steps for a while. 

We wandered home and finished up packing, which took much longer than expected! We have so much stuff! Why did we buy so much???? I can’t even explain how hard it was to try and fit everything in our bags… near impossible. Every single pocket of every single bag was packed with whatever we could squeeze into it.

                         (Britt in a giant shopping bag)

It took us forever to get a cab, because we needed one of the massive taxi’s because that’s all we’d fit in. 

                             (our luggage)

We finally got one and arrived at the airport at about 2:30pm I think.

We all seriously struggled carrying our bags at the airport, considering we had 2 suitcases and at least 2 carry-ons each.

Checking in our suitcases was a hassle because every single bag was overweight. Britt and I ended up wearing 3 or 4 jackets each, Britt had a pair of shoes in her pockets and Lauren was carrying folders and photo albums. It was ridiculous.

             (me with a cardigan and 3 jackets!)

The first flight to LA was alright. We all tried to sleep as much as possible. We had a 2 hour stopover at LA airport which wasn’t bad and then had a 15 hour flight into Sydney. Again we tried to sleep as much as possible but it was so difficult to get comfortable.

Our parents met us at the airport. We said farewell to Britt, which was depressing, and headed home.

Leaving New York was devastating. I had the most amazing 3 weeks of my entire life and I never wanted it to end. Every second of every day was filled with fun!

I don’t know what I’m going to do, not being with Britt all the time. I miss her already!

                        (all the stuff Lauren and I bought. Oh dear!)

Here are a few highlights of my trip:

- Sara Bareilles Concert in Philadelphia.

- Our first day lying in Central Park

- Seeing Mandy play Elphaba

- Top of the Empire State Building at sunset

- ‘Thrill the World’ in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

- Seeing ‘In The Heights’ for the first time with Britt

- Hallogiving/Thanksween

- And finally… Amanda and Sara.
Without a doubt, every moment spent with these girls, all 5 of us together, was the highlight of my trip.

Friends like this come along once in a lifetime. I feel so incredibly blessed to have met them. It breaks my heart that we live so far away from each other. Stupid geography. I feel like we’ve known each other forever and I just know they’re going to be part of my life for the rest of it. My Best Friends. :)

"Don't be sad it's over, be glad it happened"

So today was our last full day. noooooo.
I don't feel like I'm going home - I feel like I'm leaving home. And leaving my best friends Sara and Amanda :(. I hate that our little group is now splitting in half.

The day started with the four of us walking down to the Rockerfeller Centre to go ice-skating, but soon enough we changed our minds because the weather was absolutely crap..... so windy and rainy. It was pretty horrible but at the same time really fun.

We ended up catching the subway down to 14th st and went to Max Brenner. yummmmmm!

                     (look how tired I look. haha)

We then went back to the apartment and relaxed/dried off a little.
We all caught a taxi to the Bus terminal and said goodbye to Amanda. Oh geez I was a mess. It was so hard to say goodbye.

Afterwards we went to the brand new Disney Store on Times Square - today was the first day it was open.

At night we wandered over the the 'Women on the Verge...' theatre because it was opening night and we ran into Lin-Manuel Miranda - Tony Award winning creator of In The Heights! :)

We went to Cosi for dinner and had some delicious pizza!

We really wanted 'In The Heights' to be the last Broadway show we see, and it was! Tonight was probably the last time we'll ever see it because it is closing in January :(.

Got home at 11:30 and it's now 5:40am and we're getting up at 7:30am. oh dear.

Wednesday. 2 shows and Tina Fey Day.

This morning Lauren, Amanda and I walked to the Billy Elliot theatre and bought student tickets for the matinee.
We then went into the Times Square Visitor Centre, and conveniently Christiane Noll was there, so we got to meet her :) - she was nominated for a Tony Award this year for 'Ragtime'.

Walking through Times Square we noticed a giant line and there were stacks of people lining up to get the new Xbox Kinect. There was a sign that said they still had 11 hours to go in the line. eww.

We then sat on the big red steps for a while,

...then went to the 'Women on the Verge' box office and bought tickets for tonight's show.

Billy Elliot was really good. Our Billy was great!

After the show we wandered up to where David Letterman is filmed and we saw Tina Fey!!!! :)

For dinner we went to the Stardust Diner, which is an awesome place where the waiters get up and sing. It was so cool :)
For dessert we went to Cosi and had smores. yummm.

'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown' was fantastic again! It's so funny! We got to meet the cast afterwards. Laura Benanti remembered us and said it was nice to see us again :)
Walking back through Times Square tonight there were still hundreds of people lined up for the new Xbox!

Tomorrow is our last full day. noooooooooooooooooo :(

Tuesday November 2.

We started off today by walking all the way to ground zero. We walked for about 2 hours down approx 80 blocks. On the way we stopped at the F.R.I.E.N.D.S apartment, which is in Greenwich village.

We also walked past Mary Louise Parker from ‘Weeds’.

We walked past the Woolworth Building and the cross that was recovered from the 9/11 site.

Had another look at ground zero

….. and then went into Century 21, which is a huge department store.

A few more dollars later we emerged with some new things.

We then caught the subway up to 49^th and went in the Wicked ticket lottery. None of us won! Damn it. The first lottery that none of us won.

So we went straight to the ‘American Idiot’ lottery, which we won! Yay!

On the way to the theatre we walked past the Lion King stage door and there were a few cast members outside hugging each other – One of the young girls that played Nala died of leukaemia. It was really sad.

Between the lottery and the show we walked into Times Square and one of the massive clothing stores was playing Natalie Bassingthwaite.

It was freeeeeezing outside!

We had dinner, then went to the show. Lauren and I were front row. I got some souvenirs from the show – a prop/piece of paper used in the show, then in the finale, one of the lead guys bent down and gave me his pick and after the show and ensemble guy gave me the drumstick.

After the show we went to the Wicked stage door and Mandy (Elphaba) gave us a backstage tour.

After saying goodbye to Mandy we met up with Amanda and all walked home together.

Also found out tonight that Nicole Scherzinger (pussycat dolls) went to In The Heights tonight. Damn it! We were there last night!!

Sad to hear that Andy Irons died today.

Monday Nov 1!

Amanda and Sara left this morning :( It was so sad to say goodbye!!!
Amanda is crazy and left her camera so that she had a reason to come back.
After they left we had a little nap and then woke up because we had another mouse (refer to Britts blog).
In the afternoon, we walked up to 73rd and walked past The Lincoln Centra and the Julliard School.

On 73rd we went to 'Alice's Tea Cup' and had afternoon tea - scones and a chocolate chai. It was delicious but I was SO full afterwards. 

Afterwards, we caught a taxi down to 46th st and went in the 'In The Heights' ticket lottery. Lauren won! yay! but we needed one more ticket - a really nice lady who got her name called out but didn't need her ticket, got one from Britt.
Between the lottery and the show we went to 'Forever 21' again and I bought heaps of jewellery :)
The show was the best! There was so much energy! We had understudies for Usnavi and Vanessa and they're a real life couple, so they were really cute on stage.

When we got home we tried to watch the Melbourne cup live but could only listen to it on Britt's computer.

...........

Hallogiving!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
So I know I seem to say this a lot, but tonight was one of the best nights ever! :)
...... From the beginning:
Britt left in the morning to go and meet up with her friend for brunch.
Amanda and Sara (our friends from Pennsylvania) met us at our apartment and we wandered down to get tickets for a matinee. We ended up getting tickets for 'The Addams Family' - an appropriate show considering it's Halloween :). By the way we wore our costumes for all of this. We walked around the city in our costumes. There were several random people taking photo of us and a strange man that wanted a photo with us.haha

After buying the tickets we went to Bob's apartment and carved pumpkins (after struggling to actually find pumpkins.)

It was so much fun! :) While we were carving our pumpkins Bob was preparing our dinner. He made us a big thanksgiving dinner. (Thanksgiving isn't until next month but we all wanted to have Thanksgiving together :).
The show was at 3pm. It was fun to be there because as soon as the theme song started, the entire audience did the clicks.
Bebe Neuwirth and Nathan Lane were the leads.

After the show we met up again with Bob, wandered into Times Square and then caught the subway downtown to near Greenwich Village and we watched the Halloween parade, which was great!

We went back to Bob's for dinner and it was absolutely delicious! A fantastic meal! The whole night was spent chatting, telling stories and a lot of laughing! It was beyond fun :)

                                     (trick or treat!)

We left Bob's in the early morning and walked back to our place. The 5 of us stayed up chatting for a while and went to bed just before 3am I think.
The thing I'm going to miss most about this trip is not the city or the shows... it's our new best friends.

p.s: Amanda and Sara made us the best shirts in the world - Cricket Team USA! And Bob's the coach.haha.

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