Welcome to New York

Last weekend, I had a work meeting in NYC, and since I had never been to the city before, I decided to go up early with a coworker/friend to explore the city!

We had a 6 am flight for the trip up to NY. When we booked our flights about two months in advance of the trip, 6 am sounded great! That meant an 8 am arrival and all day in the city!  Well, after the week we had leading up to the trip, we both greeted each other at the airport Thursday morning with a "what were we thinking!"  And of course, as with any time I have to fly for work, there was an issue with our flight.

After the entire plane boarded and was settled, the pilot came over the intercom to let us know there was a hydraulic leak on our plane, so we weren't going anywhere! After everyone piled off the plane, they came back out and said it was a bad leak and they were flying a part out to Greenville and it should arrive at 10:30.  Considering JL and I wanted to be already exploring NYC at that time, we decided to go ahead and get on another flight. We ended up leaving Greenville at 8:30, had a layover in Atlanta, and then landed in NY around 2.  (We found out while we were in Atlanta that our original flight got the plane part sooner than expected and left at 10:30 and arrived at 12:30. We found this out because our bags took that flight!)

Because of our late arrival, we were able to go ahead and check into our hotel on Park Avenue. After a quick refresh, JL and I met back downstairs for what we have now dubbed our Speedy Gonzalez tour of New York!

We left the hotel and walked the two blocks over to Grand Central Station - it was beautiful! Then, we headed over to Times Square. We saw some very interesting sites and the crowd was insane. This reaffirms my desire to never be in Times Square for New Years Eve. While we were there, we of course headed over to Broadway to see what shows where playing and to check ticket prices. From there, we then walked about 30 blocks over to a restaurant in Chelsea (the Cookshop - I highly recommend it!) to go meet a friend who lives in the city. Of those 30 blocks, about half were spent walking the High Line, which is an old railroad track that the city converted to a walking path/garden. That made the walk much more enjoyable!

After a delightful dinner with our friend MS, he surprised us by taking us over to Chelsea Piers for a night time sail to the Statue of Liberty! We could not have asked for better weather and the statue at night was breathtaking! Our sail was from 9 - 11 pm, and since being up at 3 am to catch our flight, JL and I were exhausted!

On Friday, we slept in a little bit and then met downstairs for breakfast. Another one of our coworkers had flown in late Thursday night, so she met us and we did some prep-work for our meeting on Saturday. Then, we headed our separate ways for the afternoon. JL and I headed over to Central Park and rented bikes to explore the park. We essentially rode the entire perimeter, stopping at various sites through the park, such as the Bird Lady Statue, and the castle! Then, we started walking back towards the Metropolitan Museum of Art (we biked past it on Museum mile), looking for a cab to take us the rest of the way. We finally found an empty one, but had to hop a caution/construction barrier to get to it in the street. The cabbie was very impressed with out hopping skills.

As we had a reception that night, we only had about an hour at the Met, so we walked in, grabbed a map, and planned our route down to the minute! They had three exhibits we wanted to see and we got to see all of them. One of the exhibits was Van Gogh: Irises and Roses. It was the first time that all four of those paintings had been united since his death. That exhibit ended the Sunday after we left, so we were very fortunate to see them! We also saw a special collection of paintings by John Sargent, and the final exhibit was China: Through the Looking Glass. That exhibit was very large and very unexpected. JL and I were not expecting what we saw, but were equally in awe. As there were many Asian tourists in that exhibit, I thought how interesting it must be to travel to a different country to see an exhibit on the history of your homeland and culture.  When we left the museum, JL and I were getting hungry (it was 3 o'clock and we still hadn't eaten lunch, even after our long bike ride) so we grabbed a hotdog off the street, or as the locals call it, "a Dirty Waterbird." It was delicious!

After heading back to the hotel and cleaning up, we then went to our reception for work. By now, the rest of our staff had arrived and our trainers were here too! It was a great time spent catching up. Then, the staff went to dinner at Pera, a Mediterranean restaurant. That was my first experience eating Mediterranean and it was delicious!

On Saturday, we had our meeting (see, I did go to NY for more than just tourist sites) all day long, from 7:30 - 5. It was a fascinating experience, as I don't get to participate in this aspect of the company very often.  After wrapping up for the day, the staff headed over to dinner at Bryant Park Grille. The great thing about our hotel location was that we were in walking distance of everything! (Which after all those good, big meals I needed to walk!) After dinner, around 11 pm, JL and I headed over to the Empire State Building. Again, the night air was perfect and the views amazing!

MS hold told us about "rush tickets" for Broadway, where you can go to the Box office at 10 am the day of the show and get discounted tickets. So Sunday morning, we got up, checked out of the hotel, and walked over to Broadway to see if any were available for Lion King. The box office was closed until 12 (or so the sign said), so JL and I instead went to see the Freedom Tower and World Trade Center memorials. It was such a humbling experience to be there, to think about what happened that day and reading the names of all who died. It was absolutely gorgeous and heartbreaking all at once.

From there we decided to head back to Times Square/Broadway to check out the Box office again. When we got there, people were lined up inside to purchase tickets. JL and I had a price in mind that we were willing to pay, but when we got there, it was a bit more than what we wanted, but both agreed we would pay more to see Lion King on Broadway!  When we got to the ticket counter, the guy first showed us tickets up in the balcony. When we mentioned that we wouldn't mind sitting apart, he then found some discounted single tickets one row/seat apart in the Orchestra Level!!!!! We were so excited- literally the ticket guy chuckled at our reactions. And oh man, those seats were amazing- as everyone kept saying, there is no bad seat on Broadway!

We had about an hour before doors opened, so in keeping with our food of NY tour, we decided we needed some authentic NY pizza. We turned to our trusty advisor, Google, to search the best NYC pizza in Times Square and it took us over to John's pizzeria. We both agreed that it was great! We split a Margherita pizza and then headed back to the Minskoff Theatre to watch Lion King!

Oh man. I've seen musicals before, but never Lion King and never on Broadway. It. Was. Magical. Its been a long time since I've even seen the movie, so seeing it again in Musical form and seeing it as an adult with all the imagery of redemption - just beautiful. They had even updated the show to reflect modern times - instead of Zazu singing "It's a Small World" to annoy Scar, he instead sang "Let it Go." I think every parent in the theatre could relate to Scar's reaction of any song but that song!

After the show, JL and I headed back to Bryant Park to meet one of our coworkers for a drink before we had to head to the airport. While we were at the Lion King, we had started getting notices that our 8 pm flight home was delayed. First it was 30 minutes, then an hour, and at one point it didn't have us leaving NY until 10. I had previously warned everyone of my work travel flight woes, so everyone blamed me for our delays!  I had an early morning meeting with clients in NJ on Monday morning, so I kept saying that if our flight got delayed any later, I was going to rebook to a Monday night flight and take my meeting in NJ in person!  Luckily, our delay decreased and we finally left NY around 9 and got home a little after 11.

My first trip to NYC may have been a whirlwind trip, but you can't say I didn't make the most of it! I had made a list of everything I wanted to see/do before I left and even with a shortened day on Thursday, I still got it all done! Now, I can't wait for my next trip!

(Since I rambled so long, (but really, who can blame me since we did so much?) pictures will follow in a separate post!)

Streaking.

Don't worry I haven't been running around naked, just running!

Sometime in the month of June, I became very frustrated with myself. I used to love running, still called myself a runner, yet I couldn't tell you the last time I had gone for a run. I had gotten an email that registration for the Disney Princess Glass Slipper Challenge was opening up on July 14. (The Glass Slipper Challenge is the 10k on Saturday and the Half Marathon on Sunday.) Some friends and I had all run the Princess Half Marathon before and had decided that we were going to do the Glass Slipper Challenge in 2016. After my last half in April that wasn't great, I realized that I needed to run, especially to be able to complete the Challenge.

Therefore, I challenged myself to run everyday in July. For thirty-one days straight, I ran outside in the heat in a hilly park near my house.  I ran in the rain, at 9 o'clock at night after getting back late from a day trip, and even left work a bit early some days so I could get my daily run in when I had evening commitments. I ran between 1 and 3 miles each day, bringing my total mileage for the month to 62 miles!  It was so rewarding to write that number down on my calendar on July 31!

 If you don't know, I live in South Carolina, where it tends to be a bit hot in July (there were a few days when I went out to run and the temperature gauge was in the 100's).  This played into why I was sticking to low mileage, as well as due to the fact that I hadn't run in so long! My goal was to build my endurance back up- which I did! In the beginning, I was mostly running 1-1.5 miles each day and that was miserable. I was hot, out of shape, and ending on a steep incline, all things that made for a poor re-introduction to running. By mid-month, I told myself I couldn't run less than a mile and a half, and I never felt that I needed to run that little again! Even on my "rough" days, I was able to meet my mileage goal.  I mostly ran 2-2.5 miles each day, and for the last 7 days, I ran 3 miles.  The last 5 days, I tracked my pace and time to see how it was going - I could see how I was getting faster, which was so encouraging! Don't let me fool you though, I'm still as slow as a turtle in peanut butter, but now faster than a snail in molasses. Progress, right?

It was hard, but fun as catalogued by my Twitter feed in July:

"Tonight's run-tertainment was a man playing a bagpipe in the park. Felt like a Scottish lass running up the grassy hills" - July 6

"A bad run is better than no run, right? At least the bagpipe man was back again"            - July 7

"Omg. I need to wait this late to run everyday. It felt AMAZING out there. #summernights"  - July 16

"My speed training: waiting to run before a storm and then sprinting when the lightning starts popping & i'm a mile away from the car. #yikes" - July 18

 "This bad boy was in my shoe. No wonder my feet felt weird! Today's lesson - check your shoe soles before you run!" - July 23  

By the end of the month, not only did I look forward to my run each day, but I craved it. It was a time to de-stress from my day, whether that was spent getting lost in the run and enjoying the day, or spending the entire time in prayer.


July may be over, but the streak is not! I still have a long way to go before I'm ready for the Glass Slipper Challenge in February, but I'm looking forward to every mile of it!