Last weekend I met mom and Debi in New York City. Mom had a conference there so we figured we would make a weekend out of it. I arrived Thursday afternoon. The first thing on our agenda was my very first show on Broadway - Mamma Mia. I had gotten us front row tickets and mom sat right next to the Musical Director/Conductor. She was fantastic. We also got a great view of the orchestra. It was very cool to see everything from that perspective. Plus of course, the show was AMAZING! We had a great time and we headed out to an Irish bar after for a few drinks. Imagine. Us at an Irish bar. Our hotel was right in Times Square. It couldn't have been a better location. 
Friday morning we headed over to the Today Show first thing and caught some of their Halloween show. There were a bunch of folks in costume all over the place. Mom headed back to her conference and Debi and I walked around. We visited St. Patrick's Cathedral first and then headed down 5th Avenue to Central Park. Across from the Plaza hotel there was a stage set up. We wondered what it was for?? Low and behold in about 40 minutes a free Pink concert was going on! Somehow we stumbled into front row tickets for the show! It was SO flipping cool! We were literally right in front of her. SO awesome. We headed back to pick up mom after that and headed to Chinatown. We scored an invitation to a "secret" purse location and scored a couple of great bags. We then headed up to SoHo and did a little shopping. We had dinner in Little Italy outside as it was so beautiful outside. It was fun to enjoy our Italian and Sangria while watching the kids trick or treat. These poor kids don't have any houses to go to - so all of the businesses pass out candy. It is odd. After this we took the Subway back up to our neck of the woods. Debi headed back to the hotel and mom and went - wait for the surprise - to the Irish Pub around the corner. We had a drink and then went back to Times Square to people watch. Talk about being in the strangest place on Halloween. It was nuts.
Friday morning we headed over to the Today Show first thing and caught some of their Halloween show. There were a bunch of folks in costume all over the place. Mom headed back to her conference and Debi and I walked around. We visited St. Patrick's Cathedral first and then headed down 5th Avenue to Central Park. Across from the Plaza hotel there was a stage set up. We wondered what it was for?? Low and behold in about 40 minutes a free Pink concert was going on! Somehow we stumbled into front row tickets for the show! It was SO flipping cool! We were literally right in front of her. SO awesome. We headed back to pick up mom after that and headed to Chinatown. We scored an invitation to a "secret" purse location and scored a couple of great bags. We then headed up to SoHo and did a little shopping. We had dinner in Little Italy outside as it was so beautiful outside. It was fun to enjoy our Italian and Sangria while watching the kids trick or treat. These poor kids don't have any houses to go to - so all of the businesses pass out candy. It is odd. After this we took the Subway back up to our neck of the woods. Debi headed back to the hotel and mom and went - wait for the surprise - to the Irish Pub around the corner. We had a drink and then went back to Times Square to people watch. Talk about being in the strangest place on Halloween. It was nuts.
On Saturday, we walked to Hell's Kitchen, had breakfast and went to a flea market. We then headed down to the South Seaport. We took a boat ride out to view the skyline and the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island etc. It was a gorgeous day and it was great!! Debi went to mass at St. Patrick's and we walked around Rockefeller, etc. We had a nice dinner at - can you guess?? - an Irish Pub and then loaded up our bags into a cab to move to our hotel out by the airport. (The rate at our h0tel in Times Square was going to change to $650 on Saturday night due to the Marathon coming in town - hence the move.) We got to the hotel and hung out a bit in the hotel bar while we were receiving calls from Bryon who was at the ACDC concert. I was bummed that I had to miss that - but he made sure we heard some of it anyhow.
After dealing with the difficult hotel staff about getting back into the city, we managed to catch the bus to the subway Sunday morning. The Subway was not in a great neighborhood - but it got us directly to Grand Central. On the way, we were able to witness some of the marathon. WOW - very cool. We walked around and went to a little street fest and finally grabbed our NYC pizza for lunch before heading back to get ready to leave. Unfortunately, we grabbed the wrong bus when we got back to the Subway station (thanks to the hotel for being so helpful) so we ended up in a neighborhood that no one spoke English and we couldn't even determine what language or nationality the neighborhood represented. However, we are resourceful gals and we made it back - but at that point we were ready to go home!!!
All in all - we had a great long weekend and our weather and our luck couldn't have been better!
