Welcome to New York

My best friend and sister are obsessed with Dancing with the Stars.

A few months ago they really wanted to go see some show in Pennsylvania that several of the dancers were in. I decided it would be fun to go along for a girls trip. Sadly, those tickets sold out super fast and we weren't able to go.

A few weeks later, Allyson found out that Derek Hough (Steph's favorite) was performing in the New York Spring Spectacular Show with the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. The show at the time was still in preview mode...aka tickets were SUPER cheap!

So, we said, "Why not?!" And, booked it.

We left Friday after work because we didn't want to take time off from work and drove through the night. After getting lost in DC and having a hard time finding our hotel because of construction, we arrived around 3 am.

Since it was the middle of the night, we thought driving around the city would be fun. It was! But, the saying "New York is the city that never sleeps" is so true! It took us a while to calm down from the adrenaline rush of no marked lanes and taxis speeding in every direction!

After a good night's rest power nap, we were up at 7:30am getting ready for the day. We took the subway into the city and spent the morning at the 9/11 memorial and museum.

Riding the subway, totally pretending like we knew what we were doing!

The memorial and museum both were incredible. They have done a great job memorializing that terrible day in a way that honors all of the lives lost. It still seems like yesterday to me and you could tell it is still a very emotional thing for many New Yorkers. I was so impressed with how personal they have made the museum and how respectful each exhibit is. We spent two and a half hours there before we had to leave in order to get to the show on time. We easily could have spent at least another hour if not more walking through.

We took uber (a super cook personal taxi service) from the World Trade Center to Radio City Music Hall.

Our goal was to find a quick sandwich shop to eat lunch in, but no such luck. Since the doors were already open and we were running low on time, we decided to just eat concessions for lunch. Concessions are always ridiculously over priced, but New York took it to a whole new level! One plain hot dog was $5.75. One regular size bottle of water was $5.25. We ate just enough to get by until the end of the show.

The show was really good. It was more of a play than a dancing show that featured New York and all of the popular spots in the city. I wish we had seen more from the Rockettes, but overall it was good!

They had some really cool special effects like our light up wrist band and 3D glasses for a 3D scene.

The Rockettes literally danced in the rain for one scene.

After the show, we got dinner at a 50s diner where all of the wait staff are aspiring stars. They sing the whole time! The food wasn't anything to brag about, but the entertainment was great.

It was cold and it rained ALL day. Since we had done most of what we wanted, we thought last minute Broadway tickets was a great idea! Sadly, all of the shows we were interested in were sold out for the night. So, we walked around and did a little shopping in Times Square.

Us Hemric girls were crashing hard! I think Steph could have stayed in the city all night! ;) After coming to the conclusion there wasn't much else we could do other than wander around Times Square in the rain, we headed back to the hotel. We all took showers and were in bed by 10pm!

We got up Sunday morning (minor sickness from me) and drove home.

It was a whirlwind of a trip. Had you asked me Sunday or even Monday, I would have told you I'd never do it again. Several weeks away from it, I can laugh at how crazy going to NYC for the weekend (really just one day) is and slightly consider the idea again...Spending time with two of my favorites was the best part!