Sisters in NYC, Take 2!

NYC sisters trip was so different but just as fun the second time.  With Mallory being a NYC resident now she knew all the best places to eat, the best places to shop, she had connections for all of the fun things we wanted to try and it was all perfect.  

I flew in really early on Sunday morning and got to her apartment at around 8am.  Our text conversation during my taxi ride went like this:

Mallory, "Where are you?!"

Me, "Um, I dunno.  I see trees out the cab window.  Does that help?"

Mallory, "Actually, yes it does.  You're not close at all yet."

It was so cool to visit my sister. To see where she lives, to have her show me some of her favorite places, to see where she works.  I just wish we had made time for her to show me around NYU!  That was one huge piece of her life that I missed on this trip!

We hung out for a while at her 5th story apartment in Harlem, which is amazing, by the way.  They have a huge living room and she has her own very cute and very well-organized bedroom.  Then we got dressed and went to her sacrament meeting.  Her Bishop is the best.  I love him so much and we didn't even get to have a conversation.  He just oozes love and joy even from the pulpit and I found myself giggling at him every time he spoke.  So darling.

After that meeting we had to run back to Mal's apartment to meet the people who were delivering her new couch!  She found a great deal on a beautiful couch that fit perfectly in her front room.  It was pretty fun to watch a couple of teenage boys struggle to get this huge couch up five flights of stairs.  All we could think of was that Friends episode, "Pivot!  Pivot!  Pivot!"  Then we grabbed our bags and went to dinner at bad horse pizza.  It was delicious.  I couldn't stop taking pictures of my food all weekend.  I couldn't believe how good everything tasted after living in Saudi for so long.  All the restaurants in Saudi we refer to as "Saudi good".  Good for Saudi, but not really good when compared to anywhere else.  It's a different, and much lower standard.

We headed downtown and checked in to our hotel and then walked one block to our show that evening which was "Something Rotten".

It was really funny and also somewhat inappropriate which is pretty funny.  It was about a writer who was one of Shakespeare's contemporaries and trying to compete with Shakespeare's prowess was just too much.  He ended up paying a soothsayer to tell him what the next big thing in theatre would be.  The soothsayer told him all about musicals and said they were gonna be big.  So this guy attempts to write the very first musical.  It was hilarious.  I bought the music as soon as I got home and while the boys probably won't hear some of the songs, they already love singing, "Welcome to the Renaissance."  which is pretty awesome.

We stayed after the show, which we usually do, because why wouldn't we try to get pictures and autographs of the stars?  So fun.

Christian Borle, who played William Shakespeare.  Glenn and I saw him in "Peter and the Starcatchers" a few years ago as Black Stache.  He's so great.
Mallory and I got matching "Will Power" t-shirts.  Of course we did.

Mallory had to go to work the next day so after she got up for work I headed out to get a massage.  I found a groupon and it was a pretty good deal so it felt like the right thing to do on my break from being a momma weekend!  Then I met up with Mallory outside of the Chrysler building where she was working.  It was so crazy to see Mallory working in the Chrysler building, on the very top floor none-the-less.  Such a cool temp job.  We ate at a delicious salad place and once again, pictures of the food were merited. So yummy!

 

I would eat SO much if I lived in NYC.  There are SO many delicious places to eat!  When Mal went back to work I headed out to do some shopping.  I was in desperate need of some clothes.  I only packed a few shirts and a couple of bottoms in my suitcase to the US because I needed to get a bunch of new things for my next year's wardrobe and NYC turned out to be the perfect place to do some wardrobe updating!  As expected.  It was kind of fun to text Mal throughout the day and she'd give me instant feedback just like she was right there with me.  

When Mal got off work we went to Bengal Tiger, an incredible Indian food restaurant.  We ate way too much and loved every second of it!  

Then we went to the Magnolia Bakery in Grand Central Station to get some dessert.  Banana pudding and banana cake.  Because why not?

and we took them next door to the Chrysler building where Mallory works.  On the top floor of the Chrysler building.  See the reflections of those two girls in the sign that says the public can't go to the 71st floor?  Yeah, we did.  

And the view was incredible.  We walked around the whole floor marveling at the huge triangle windows.  We sat by her desk and opened the window to let the breeze in.  It was a once in a lifetime to sit there from way up in the sky and watch night time NYC come to life.  To watch all the busyness from up so high that you couldn't hear a sound.  So cool.  I was just giddy that we got to do something so cool together!  And also a little afraid of tripping and tumbling to my death out of the opened window...

Mallory was able to get the next day off of work by playing the, "My sister is in town from Saudi Arabia" card, which is so perfect.  So we decided to get up at 4am and get in line to see if we could get in to the Jimmy Fallon show.  We got in line and were able to sit for a couple of hours and then at I think 7, they told us we had to stand for the rest of the time.  We waited until 9 when they gave out tickets showing the number you were in line and told us to come back at 4 to see if we got in or not.  We were doing a bunch of shopping in the area so we headed off to do some major damage on my bank account in the name of outfitting me for a year, (I don't know if I'm ever going to get used to shopping for an entire year at once!) We ventured down to shoegasm, my favorite store name ever, and bought matching shoes.   They were SO cute!

Then went back to Rockefeller center to see if enough people had bailed that we could get in!

Here are our tickets, number 20 and 21.  We waited and waited, lined up in the hallway according to number.  Interns kept coming down and asking for just a few more people and finally the last person allowed in was number 8.  Not even close.  Oh well.  Honestly, the only time we lost was our early morning hours during which we would have been doing nothing but sleeping, and one hour in our afternoon.  It was so worth the shot.  And next time we'll know that we have to hit the sidewalk at midnight, which is what time the first 10 people got in line.  WOW.
As a consolation prize we went back to Bengal Tiger, got takeout and ate in our room while watching the bachelorette for about an hour until we had to head out to our show.

Our last show was "Finding Neverland."  

Mallory and I both have a huge crush on the movie so we were really excited to see the musical.  It did not disappoint.  Matthew Morrison and Kelsey Grammer were out that night but the rest of the cast was really great.  The choreography by Mia Michaels was stunning, the music was fun, Laura Michelle Kelly was so lovely and the staging used to show moments of fancy and imagination was just incredible.   There were a few really beautiful moments that just took your breath away.  A beautiful production.  Maybe not the most meaty, but really lovely.  

After the show we got to meet Melanie Moore and Laura Michelle Kelly who were both disarmingly warm and kind.

After the cast came out we saw a crowd gathering at the stage door across the street where one of the previews of "Hamilton" was just ending.  I tried to get tickets to Hamilton having read reviews and doing just a bit of research about it.  Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda who is a genius, it's a hip hop musical about Alexander Hamilton.  It sounds ridiculously amazing.  But apparently everyone else in the musical theatre world thinks so as well because tickets were sold out for weeks.  But we did get to meet a few of the stars on their way out.  Lin-Manuel was so kind.  So happy and friendly and now I'm an even bigger fan.  

We also met Leslie Odom who is ridiculously talented.  What a cool night.

Mallory had to go back to work the next morning.  Saying goodbye to Mal is never my favorite thing to do but it was so great this time knowing that I'd see her in Utah in just a couple of weeks.  Before I got a taxi to the airport I headed uptown one more time to pick up a bunch of Levain cookies for my in-laws to say thanks for letting us stay.  Nothing says thank you quite like Levain.

I would be so so very overweight if I lived near a Levain.
It was a very different trip to New York, having my own personal tour guide/expert.  It was weird hearing Mallory tell me which trains I needed to take to get anywhere in the city.  She's got it down and it was very cool to spending time with her in her element.  Thanks again, New York.  What a perfect little break.