Reunited and it feels so good

I can't believe it's been three months since Chelse came out to visit.  I never posted the photos because we seriously took a million and I was overwhelmed at the thought of blogging them all.  Here they finally are.

Please excuse the nastiness of this photo.  Chels flew in on a red eye so when I picked her up I had just rolled out of bed.  Here we are in the cab ride home.  We were so excited to see each other, we couldn't help but take a picture.

Our first night we were both pretty exhausted so we took it easy and just did some window shopping.  This is the Times Square ball.  It was in Macy's for a couple months before New Year's Eve.  We didn't know what it was then, just thought it was a huge, really cool ball, so we thought we'd take a picture.

We walked through Times Square and hit up the huge Toys R Us.  Here we are in the Candy Land part of the store.

This is the center of the ferris wheel in the store.

There were some crazy lights on the wall.

We were shooting for the most awkward pose....I think I win.

Chels and her new homies.

All the carts for the ferris wheel had different themes.  Obviously I fell in love with the My Little Ponies one.  There was a Mr. Potato Head, Monopoly, Barbie, etc.

Chels in the huge Barbie house in Barbie land.

She's so excited to be in the huge Virgin Megastore!

Inside St. Patrick's Cathedral, a must see.

Rockefeller Center ice skating rink.

They were putting up the big tree at South Street Seaport that day.

Being the artsy girl she is, Chels wanted to hit up some museums.  I hadn't been to the Museum of Modern Art, so that was our first stop.  We got yelled at for standing too close to the art for this one.

Love this photo.  But it cracks me up what's considered "art".  There was a huge white square on the wall.  Who decides that's good enough to go in the MoMA?

Classic Starry Night by Van Gogh.

At Rock Center.

After being at the MoMA for hours we were starving so we headed up to Crepes on Columbus, a really yummy cheap restaurant on 109th by my old apartment.  I was really excited for breakfast food!

After looking at so much art (the MoMA is seriously huge) we were feeling a little abstract.

The Peace Sphere.  This was taken from World Trade after the attacks, and it's now on display near the Statue of Liberty ferry.

Walking along the Hudson River in Battery City.

We took the Staten Island ferry.  It's free and goes right by the statue and you don't have to wait in line for hours.  (Except the only thing.....don't get off when the ferry stops.  The first time I did this two years ago as a tourist the ferry didn't stop on Staten Island, it just went around and came back to Manhattan.  So when we stopped, we got off, thinking we were in Manhattan.  We walked around totally confused for quite some time, and I got into a pseudo-argument with a security guard because I couldn't understand why he couldn't give me directions to the "main entrance with the huge blue letters."  After he realized I meant in Manhattan, then I realized we weren't in Manhattan, and I felt really stupid.  Oh well, at least now I've been to all five boroughs.)

A trip to New York wouldn't be complete without hitting up Canal Street in China Town.  Yes, we got hot dogs from the venders.  Some people are disgusted by these, I think, eh, not so bad.

The Wall Street bull.

We walked the Brooklyn Bridge a few times.  It's one of the best things to do.

There's the Manhattan Bridge, and faintly to the left you can see the Empire State Building.

I love this girl.

There's a cheeser for ya.

The Manhattan LDS temple at night.

The Chrysler Building.  Luh-UVE that building.

Grand Central.

Pretty much a definition of Manhattan.  I took these next few when we walked the Brooklyn Bridge at night.  The view of Manhattan from the dock on the Brooklyn side is breathtaking.  I don't have a good enough camera to capture it though.

On the A train.

We took a stroll through Central Park.  It was a perfect brisk morning.  This view reminded me of Robert Frost's Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood....which then reminded me about how I had to memorize that poem in 8th grade, which then reminded me of my english teacher Miss Scott......ew.

So we're walking along, minding our own business, and I hear a guy walking up behind us chatting away on his cell phone.  I think the voice sounds familiar, so I turn around, and totally freak out inside.  It was Kevin Bacon!  Augh!  I almost had a heart attack.  I kept cool as we kept walking, and grasped Chelse's wrist and sneakily looked over her and said in my very quiet, very excited voice, "It's Kevin Bacon!!"  We obviously had to take a stealth picture after he passed us.

Chels was in a photography class at the time so she took lots of photos.  I thought I'd capture a picture of her taking a picture.

We didn't have the best fall foliage, but not too shabby.

While walking in the West Village we happened to spot this beauty salon.  I love the ad for a back wax, hahaha.

The other museum we went to was the Guggenheim.  This is the only picture I got of the artwork because apparently you're not supposed to take photos there and I got in trouble.  This piece was about ten feet tall.  I wouldn't say the Guggenheim is a must hit spot....the art was weird, and not like, "Oh, interesting, I wonder what the artist was thinking..." more just, 'Huh, that's weird."  Obviously I can't really describe it.  I mean, I guess it's interesting, but definitely hit the MoMA and Met before you go here.  This was one of the best things I saw there.

The structure of the Guggenheim is pretty cool though.  This was taken while looking up from the main floor (the only place you can take pictures.)  The building is sort of a dome shape and you walk up the ramp that spirals up the building and all the artwork is along the walls.

The ceiling.

Sooooo, this was a good story.  While we were waiting on the subway platform for the 6 I spit out my gum and attempted to gum punt onto the tracks (a nasty habit I still have from a college boyfriend.)  I was wearing loose flats and my shoe just came flying off onto the tracks!  I was seriously shocked.  I've stood at those tracks a million times and have always wondered what I would do if something fell down the 5 feet onto the scary, rat infested, dirty, puddled, disgusting tracks.  I've never seen anyone drop anything, but I've heard many stories of ipods and phones/blackberries being dropped.  Curtis has jumped down three times to retrieve things for people, but I don't think I'd ever dare.  Usually you have a good enough view that you can see a bit before the train comes, but sometimes you're on a bend.  In this case, not only was I on a bend, but before I could even consider it the train came.  (For the record, I wouldn't have done it, even if I did have a clear view.....I hardly wear those shoes anymore, and they'd just been demoted to a back spot in the closet.)  Naturally, Chelse and I were DYING of laughter.  I am so so SO lucky because we just had to walk (hop, for me) to the other side of the platform to wait for the 4/5 instead.  (We were initially going to make a stop at Pinkberry.)  Of all times of day to happen, this was the best because after Pinkberry we were going home, and also, we were so close to home.  This is how I rode the 7 or 8 minutes home.  Surprisingly my left foot and leg got REALLY tired.

Chelse took a million pictures of me in my shocked/hysterical state.  The best part was after we got off at our stop my leg was seriously so tired, so Chelse offered me a piggy back ride.  We'd honestly been laughing non stop since the incident.  As we were trying to go up the steps (at this particularly amazing stop on the 4/5 there's steps that lead straight into my building's lobby so we don't even have to go outside-sweet!) Chels was struggling to go up the steps with me on her back and I kept telling her I'd get down but she thought she could make it.  As it turns out we were blocking traffic.  We were totally oblivious to everyone else.  I'm sure it looked like we were drunk at 4 in the afternoon.  Some guy tried to help push and had his hand on my butt.  I didn't even notice until he said, "I'm not being fresh, just trying to help."  Funniest thing ever.  When we finally got into the building (the basement, underneath the lobby) I sucked it up and ran up the stairs in my one bare foot.  When we got to my lobby my favorite doorman Danny was on duty.  He just laughed at us as I hopped through the lobby and onto the elevator.  It was pretty much one of the funniest experiences of my life.

That night we went to see the Rockette's 75th annual Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall.  It was AMAZING!  I highly highly recommend it.

This pic's a little out of order but after the show we walked by Rockefeller Center and it looked so gorgeous.

A few more out of order photos.....here's Chels with her first slice of New York pizza.  Mmmm, so good.

Waiting for the 2/3 to go to the show.

In the middle of Chels's long weekend Broadway went on strike so we didn't get to see any shows, but the Rockettes were so good!  There was even a 3-D part.  Also, it was really cool because that night they were filming the show for NBC's broadcast of the event.  Cool!

The program.

Radio City Music Hall is SO cool.  I'd never been inside.

The Rockettes in their first number dressed as reindeer.

It was a number to 12 Days of Christmas.  It was so cool.

This was really neat.  The soldier march is a traditional routine.  On the program it doesn't look that cool but it was really awesome in person.  This pretend cannon shoots and they all fall, in super slow motion.  I promise it's amazing to see in person.

They created Central Park for a routine.

One of the reasons I loved this show so much was because it's a Christmas special, not a generic "holiday" show.  They had a nativity with live animals.  It was really touching, and made me miss the Follow the Star live nativity from home.

In front of Saks.

Chelse's first Pinkberry.

SO GOOD.

Life imitating art.

Like always, Chelse and I had the best time.  Chelse was one of my most favorite roommates from college, and is one of my best friends.  She is such a wonderful and genuine person.  Such a great friend.  I always have fun with her.  We can have a blast just laughing and being dorks one night, and sitting at home having the deepest of conversations the next.  I truly value her friendship and know we will be close forever.  Selfishly I hate her being so far away in Hawaii, but we always manage to catch up one way or another.....even if it is when it's 2am her time when she's just getting in for the night and 8am my time when I'm heading to work.  ;) Hawaii is far!

Thanks so much for coming out Chels!  Come again soon!!!