NEW YORK trip: Day 3

Today I walked out the front door and turned left, headed south. I can say that I did less walking today, but not much less. I think different parts of my legs were sore today. But hey, that's good! Walking south on Fifth Avenue, I stumbled on a small cute park and there was a playground! I'm discovering a city with new eyes now that I have a baby. Lucy would have had a ball there, especially since there was a spiral water toy spraying water everywhere. She loves to get wet!
There was a concert going on in the park too, so lots of moms and nannies were there with the kids. This cool statue was in the middle of the park:
It's a steel, shiny silver tree statue. It was even more shiny and impresive in person. My new mission for the morning was to find a specialty chocolate shop called Max Brenner's Chocolate (another Giada recommend). Along the way I kept my eyes peeled for a yummy bagel shop. But first I spotted the New York Film Academy and so stereotypical, there were students outside shooting a film with a really old film camera. They're living their dreams!
And as NY luck would have it, I found just the bagel place! I got a yummy Seasame toasted bagel with plain cream cheese and it was oh, so yummy. A far improvement from the bagel shop I checked out yesterday. I ate it in a different park and met some interesting people. The guy next to me tried to sell me his random CDs that he was sitting there listening too...for 5 bucks. Um, no thanks. I got up and moved. I just wanted to eat in the silence of NY traffic whizzing by. Next another guy came up to me. This time he had headphones all ready for me to listen to his ridiculous rap album he'd made. Again, no gracias. Then I finished my bagel. And I found Max Brenners! It is quite the deluxe chocolate shop. There is the chocolate shop area (where you can buy pieces of chocolate), the chocolate bar (where you can order the most ornate hot chocolate drinks ever), and even a restaurant. I liked the decor.


I splurged and bought 2 pieces of chocolate, for a mere 3 dollars. And they were soooo yummy. Mmmm, I do love chocolate (next to cheese, that is).
I did a little shopping in the area and again, stumbled (I guess you do a lot of stumbling when you're a tourist) on a fun thing in the park. The new bravo show Top Chef was there doing a promotion show. They had a big tent set up, all the Top Chef big whigs were there, and they were having a cook-off.

I joined the fun for a 1/2 hour, but got antsy and finally took off. It was for good reason, however, since I headed up to the temple and attended the 2:00 session. The Manhattan temple is very interesting because it really doesn't stand out. Everything else around it is much taller, so it's hard to find Moroni. But it's really cool to have a temple right there among the chaos.


I loved leaving all of the noise behind and entering a place that felt so comfortable and at home. It was cool too, knowing that everyone else was going everywhere and on any subway and on any street. But not anyone can walk inside the temple. The temple is beautiful inside. And it's on many different floors, which made it interesting. The short, dark-haired woman that was helping me had the best NY accent. It was so appropriate and I had a hard time getting her accent out of my mind. When I got out of the temple, I realized that it had poured rain while I was inside. What good timing on my part! I next spent an hour at the American Museum of Natural History ("Night at the Museum" museum).

The museum was okay ()I was only there for 45 minutes). Of course, it would have been more fun if all the exhibits and artifacts really did come to life. I guess my favorite part of the museum was learning about the earth's make-up and the occurences of earthquakes (I'm sure that sounds boring).
If you've seen the SNL skit, you'll appreciate this ("Goooooold"):
On my way to meet up with Casey, I literally ran into Laura, the red-head lady from last season's Project Runway. I was like, "hey, that's Laura". Of course, my paparatzi skills aren't too great, so you'll just have to take my word that this back-view shot of her is legit. Come on though, she's wearing a black dress!
Casey and I met-up around 6pm for a night in Times Square. He became a New Yorker and ate a street-side hotdog.
Then we saw the Broadway show "The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee". It was so great and so funny! I've never seen Casey laugh so hard in a musical. The cast was perfect, the writing was clever, and Darryl Hammond played the Vice Principal. Score! The theater was rather small (compared to big broadway shows) and the seats were shaped in a semi-circle around the stage, so you really felt like you were in a high school gym, cheering them on. They even had people from the audience participate in the Bee. It was great!
Too bad we didnt' have time for this one too:
After dinner, we got some sushi. Mmmmm. The spicy tuna and Unagi (eel) are always my favorite.

And that's a Day 3 wrap!