New York ...part 3 ....SIMPLY FABULOUS !!!!!!

Good Saturday morning Blogland Neighbors!! Time for "NYC Part 3" ..... the conclusion of our Girl's Weekend /my Birthday Bash Extravaganza !!!! Now, if you're just tuning in , you need to catch up and first read NYC Part 1 and NYC Part 2. OK, here we go ..... at the conclusion of Part 2, we left our sophisticated group scarfing down cupcakes back in their swanky hotel room at The Crowne Plaza Times Square ......don't worry, we left the housekeeping staff a nice tip since a few blobs of icing kind of ended up on the rug .....

After the cupcake eating, there was that frantic 45 minutes where we were trying to get 9 females into 2 bathrooms in order to attempt to look presentable to go to "the theatah , dahhhling" and get there on time ....good thing we only had to walk half a block and cross the street to get to ......




....."Mama Mia" .... This was SUCH a fun show to see!!!! I wanted to take some pictures of us inside the theater , but you weren't allowed to ....RATS!



.....well, I can at least show you a picture of the program ....


....after "the theatah" we took a stroll to see "the lights on Broadway" .... the Big Apple at night ..... TONS OF PEOPLE and Activity ..... (remember, I'm a country girl .... we only have lights outside if you turn on the flood lights , and the activity consists of the bear pulling the bird feeder down, again....) Anyhow, we decided to zip into that Applebees and have a late supper and drinks (very "New York" ... and oh, so chic ) .....I inhaled everything so fast that I forgot to take a picture of my yummy spinach salad with shrimp AND my Mango Martini, as recommended by my sister Boop, the martini queen, and also by our waiter .....


.....the very sweet , accomodat-ing, and flambouyant James !! (Oops, I'm trying to keep my eyes open, and James has his shut) .... one of us has had too much mango martini !!! Wait, there's one more picture of me and James ...


.....OK, so James has his eyes open in this picture and I still look.....uhmmmm.........let's just say happy.....





So, after making poor, sweet James put up with us for way longer than he had to with that pleasant disposition of his, we dragged ourselves out of there and headed back to the swanky hotel .... thus ending Day #1 of our NYC weekend .... we were POOPED!!

But, on Sunday morning we bounced out of bed because we were meeting another good pal from Beth's and my college days at Temple University .... Robin !! Robin lives right outside of NYC and comes in and out of the city all of the time .... her daughter Leah was also meeting us .... she's a freshman at NYU. These 2 city girls didn't know what they were up against when they suggested taking the 9 of us "out of towners" on the subway to the "upper west side" of NYC for lunch. Trust me when I say it was a feather in Robin and Leah's cap that we all got on and off the subway at the correct place and at the same time!!! (Sunday was also the New York City Marathon and it was ending at Central Park in the same area as where we were headed for lunch..... so LOTS of people!)


.....here we are .... the college pals, reunited for lunch .... Beth and I on either side of Robin ..... she's such a good sport!! (and I'm using the excuse that it was windy for how atrocious my hair looks !)

Anyhow, that picture was taken outside of "Fred's" which is the restaurant we finally were able to get a table at (remember, with Robin and Leah, there were 11 of us AND the NYC Marathon was going on .... very crowded!!) ... anyhow, this was about the 5th restaurant we tried to get into for lunch and you'll never believe this ..... we were eating our lunch and applauding the marathon runners as they came into the restaurant when the manager of the place just happened to come over to ask us how we liked the food etc .... and he just happened to ask where everybody was from .... and when Beth said I was from the Poconos, he said "Oh, really? I have a vacation house in ..... JIM THORPE" .......and I said:" WHAT !!!!!! I live in JIm Thorpe!!! My husband runs The Inn At Jim Thorpe !" ..... now, I ask you, what are the chances of running into somebody in NYC who actually is a neighbor ? Of all the zillions of places to eat in NYC and of all the gazillions of people in NYC, we just happen to wander into a place where the manager has a weekend/vacation house a couple of miles from my house !!!!

Anyhow, after we stuffed ourselves with a very yummy brunch/lunch, we walked a couple of blocks to Central Park where the NYC Marathon was ending ....

.....lots and lots ....
..... and LOTS of people!!!! We only could spend a few minutes there because we still had to get back on the UNBELIEVABLY CROWDED subway and make our way back to the hotel because the Florida girls had to get to the airport and catch their plane home ..... and the scary part was that Robin had to stay in the Central Park/upper west side area for some charity function thing so she had to give us very detailed instructions on how to get to the subway and which way to go on the subway in order to get back to our hotel ..... she told us each individually and then had me take notes!!! I must say I couldn't believe how many people kept packing onto the subway .... it looked full to me and yet more and more people kept shoving their way in at each stop ..... SARDINES !!! Anyhow, all 9 of us managed to get off at the right stop and there we were hi-fiving each other on the subway platform .... we were so proud of ourselves!!!

So, back at the hotel we gathered up our stuff (Lori, Katie and Stephie had to figure out how to shove 11... yes ELEVEN new purses .... or pocketbooks, as Beth would say.... into their suitcases ), and Sam, the nice hotel guy, called 3 different taxi's and POOF ! our whirlwind weekend was over as we headed in 3 different directions to go back home..... and I'm happy to report everybody got safely home (even after the unbelievably CRAZY taxi ride ..... our cab driver drove like a LUNATIC .... ZZZZZooom, Screech, SLAM on the brakes .... repeat all the way to the subway.....SHEESH!!) .....oh, and the little incident of Beth and Jenny being on the WRONG train until they accidently overheard somebody mention that the train they were sitting on was headed to Trenton ....good thing the train had not left yet !!! Beth grabbed Jenny and their stuff and ran off that train, scrambled around for a few minutes until they found the right train.....PHEW !!!

ANYHOW ...... SMOOCHES and HUGS to all my SISTAS for the absolutely BEST Birthday Bash a gal could ever ask for !!!!! THANKS !!!! THANKS !!!! THANKS !!!! You gals are THE BEST !!!!!


WOW !!! and now it's back to reality ..... lot's of laundry (bleh) and back to bringing in a paycheck (bleh) .... and lot's of sewing to do (YAY!! at least that's fun and something I look forward to doing when all the other stuff is caught up)

OK ....gotta zoom!!! Be back soon (and hopefully my computer will continue to cooperate!)

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)