NYC Part 1

My little cousin makes this face when she's really excited so I decided I should make it to since I was excited to get to NYC.

Greetings from New York City -- one of my most favorite cities ever!  We (my mom, her friend and her two daughters) drove all day Saturday and spent the night in New Jersey.  Then we woke up early and drove to Secaucus to catch a train into the city.  We hit the ground running and have not stopped.

How cute is my Momma?  Between her backpack, braces and packed food, she looks like a little kid!

On our way to the train station, we passed this Goya factory and Mom and I got really excited.  When you're half-Cuban and live in West Virginia, you live off of frozen Goya products until you can get the real deal.

We tried our luck at the lottery for Book of Mormon, but we failed.

Instead, we climbed all 60 of these stairs to go see a show Off-Broadway called Perfect Crime.  I noticed a sign for it as we walked to our hotel room and it said it was for fans of CSI.  Since I love Law and Order it caught my attention and we ended up seeing it.  The show was good and we talked about it all evening picking up on little things that turned out to be clues and discussing motives.

While we were at the show, this happened.

As we headed to catch the subway to go to dinner, we passed two soccer fields set up in Times Square for a street soccer tournament.

How cute is this?  We passed this near Union Square as we walked around before dinner.

Dinner was at Max Brenner's, a place known for their chocolate.  I had a skirt steak sandwich with cocoa and chili powder dusted fries...

... and this.  A chocolate pizza with peanut butter and marshmallows!

And that, my friends, was day 1.  Day 2 started out with New York bagels!  I was so excited to get my hands on one, I didn't take a picture.  Mom and I tried the stand-by line for The View, but we didn't get in.  We headed back to the hotel where I picked up Emily and we went to the lower east side to see Sir Ian McKellen and Laura Linney talk about their new movie, Mr. Holmes.

After seeing him talk, I've decided I want Ian McKellen to be my adopted grandpa.  He was hilarious!  While the livestream was going on, the fire alarm went off and without missing a beat he said, "Oh, I forgot to put my cigarette out."

After the talk, we all split up again.  This time, Mom and I went to lunch and stumbled upon this place, 99 Miles to Philly.  We split a cheesesteak and fries and they were both delicious.

We found a resale shop and across from it was this cute little thing.  It's called Founders Castle and it looks like a castle or cathedral, but it's not attached to anything.

After a little shopping, I headed back to the hotel to take a nap before heading to Central Park to see Lip Sync Battle live.

This was just some of the line.

I saw on Twitter the night before Julianne and Derek Hough post they were going to do the battle.  I love the Houghs and missed Derek in the Rockette's spring show.  (We had tickets, but it was after his injury so he didn't perform.)

Doug E. Fresh came out and interacted with the crowd before the show started.

Then the show started and out came LL Cool J!

And Chrissy Teigen!

Then out came Julianne and Derek!  Derek performed "Can't Hold Us" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and Julianne did Tubthumping (I Get Knocked Down) by Chumbawamba.

While Julianne and Derek changed clothes, we got a "sneak peek" of what is still to come this season on the actual show.  Abbi Jacobson from Broad City performed "And I Am Telling You" from Dreamgirls.

While her co-star Ilana Glazer performed "It's Raining Men".

Then Hoda surprised the crowd and came out with her champion belt.

Julianne reprised her title-winning rendition of "I Just Had Sex" by The Lonely Island ft. Akron.

This was Derek during the performance, hiding under his jacket, trying not to watch.

Derek responded with "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" by The Darkness.

These two are seriously even more gorgeous in person!

In the end, Derek won.  Julianne says it's now time for the best 2 out of 3.

As we were headed to get show tickets the next day, I saw this truck and found it really funny.  I've never seen anything like it before.

Mom and I went to a sample sale that had Free People and Havianas.

Our hotel offered a free wine and cheese hour so before we went to our show, I took advantage of it.  Maybe it's because I'd had so much junk food this trip or maybe it's because I was hungry but the cheese and fruit were both so good!

The food setup.

They even offered live music to go along with the wine and cheese.

For dinner, we went to our favorite pizzeria, John's!

The restaurant was an old cathedral and is gorgeous inside.

Yesterday, we went to two different shows so we stayed pretty busy.  I saw Amazing Grace and an Off-Broadway play Significant Other.  I've taken it pretty easy today.  Everyone else left and it's just me in the city now.  I'm going to a networking event tomorrow night and I'm very excited about it!