So we wake up fairly early Friday morning and I REALLY had wanted to go to the Today Show and see the free concert-- the script was playing. So I put on the tv and was so motivated to go since we were only a few blocks away. Dustin is lolly-gagging like none other and we don't get out of the room until close to 9am. So we're walking extremely fast to Rockafeller Plaza and as we are about 2 blocks away they finish playing :( So we were still able to walk up and see the stage and setup, but no music and no Today Show correspondants. Dustin did get to visit the coolest store ever at Rockafeller- Nintendo World! So next we decided to go rent bicycles and tour Central Park. We had 2 hours to explore and think it was about 6 miles to do the outer loop of the park. You couldn't ride your bike on any of the inner paths, so was a minor pain to have to walk our bikes to some of the sites. It was nice, but just seemed like a larger version of Forest Park and areas of Forest Park definitely seemed nicer/better than this....so think we were just slightly disappointed. About 75% of the way through Dustin's handlebars come unscrewed from his bike so he has no steering ability! so we pull over and there is no way to fix it without a wrench....so we have no choice but to walk our bikes FOREVER out of the park and back to the bike shop. It was a pain to even walk his bike cause you couldn't just hold the handles to steer. So we are pissed off at this point cause it's HOT and we are super sweaty and sick of walking. We get to the bike shop and the lady is like- "oh, did you get insurance?" Um no, we didn't get the insurance cause we are not idiots going to ram our bike into a pole or something. She's like "oh, that is $349 fee then for returning the damaged bike." Ok, not damaged, just need to tighten the screw (which should have been done before you gave it to us)! So dustin just walks away from her and goes to get a manager who did the right thing immediately and gave US our money back for giving us a broken down bike we had to walk back!
After that we stopped at Carnegie Deli for lunch-- Dustin was in heaven cause the portions are HUGE. I'm not kidding when I say you'll get a sammy piled with 6 inches of meat. The lady next to us ordered soup and they brought the whole POT with a ladle! Dustin ate an enormous roast beef sammy. We had the best potato pancake ever here too!
After this we signed up for the double-decker bus tour and took a 2 hour tour of "uptown." Basically it just circles around central park. We toured the upper west side and saw the Dakota where John Lennon was shot. We saw the outskirts of Columbia University and Grant's Tomb. We saw like the largest catholic church or cathedral that is still in the process of being built cause they keep running out of money. Then we went through Harlem and saw the Apollo and shops there. Next we drove through upper east side that has many museums.
Then we went to MOMA - Museum of Modern Art- since it was free after 4 on Fridays. It wasn't all that great, but we got to see Von Gogh's Starry Night. We then went to the TKTS booth at Times Square to get discounted Broadway tickets. We ended up getting Rock of Ages tickets in the 8th row for 50% off!!!!! We run back to the room to shower and then grab dinner and the show. Only we get to our room and something had backed up into our shower leaving 4 inches of dirty hairy water. Took the hotel AN HOUR to get it drained and cleaned...so we didn't have time for dinner before the show. We did have time to hit up The Mean Fiddler next door to the theater though and get $5 martinis! And then they show was AWESOME!!!! ALL of our favorite 80s songs weaved into a decent story and Constantine from American Idol was the star. Dustin even said this was better than the yankees game! After the show we were outside and I spotted Catherine Zeta-Jones across the street and luckily my paparrazi mode kicked in and I snapped a picture of her just before they whisked her away into the car and had security yelling at us to STEP AWAY FROM THE CAR! I really did feel like paparrazi, but less obnoxious. Then afterwards we went to Becco which had been recommended to us by 3 people. It's $23 for some great bread, salad, and then unlimited amounts of 3 pastas. They also have $25 bottles of wine which Dustin insisted we order and which I definitely didn't need! We talked quite a bit with the people next to us who live in Clayton...small world! (And the people who sat next to us yesterday at Carnegie Deli had a daughter at Wash U, so they were familiar with St. Louis). Then it was off to bed to gear up for another full day!
