NYC - Day 1

4:40am - Time to wake up! I'm meeting Renee in "The Big Apple" today for our birthday, get-away weekend! Waking up before the crack of dawn would not have been so bad, except that we were awakened at 2:00am by tornado sirens. The storm has passed, and soon I will be boarding the 6:25am flight to Newark.

6:50am - Watching the sun rise from 20,000 feet. My flight is 2 hrs and 45 mins. Just before take-off, I got a text from Renee saying that she was stuck in traffic. I hope she makes it to the airport on time! I think her flight from PIT was supposed to take-off at 8:30am. She's supposed to be there when I land, so we'll see...

10:00am - Arrived a few minutes early! I turned my phone back on and got the bad news from Renee - she missed her flight! She got stuck behind a wreck, so she didn't make it on time. Thankfully, she caught another flight out and should be here at 12:30pm. Really not much to do here in the NJ airport, so I'll be hanging out and watching people navigate around the pigeons in the baggage claim area if you need me!

12:30pm - Met Renee in the airport and started navigating to and through the big city. We found our hotel (Hilton Garden Inn Times Square) and were able to check-in right away. After dropping off our bags, we hit the streets for some serious sight-seeing. It might not be the coolest way to travel, but I love double-decker bus tours! I think it's good way to see the highlights of a city when you're on a short trip. We went uptown all the way to Harlem then hopped off when got back to Central Park South. We made our way down 5th Avenue and then cut across at Rockefeller Center. By then, it was nearing suppertime, but it was hard to lure Renee out of the three-story Gap even with the promise of a good meal!

6:48pm (or is it 7:48pm?) - Renee got us tickets for "Wicked" tonight at 8:00. After feasting on some great Italian, we made it back to our hotel room in what we thought was plenty of time to get ready, but the clock in our room said 7:48! Oh, crap! After verifying the correct time with 2 iPhones, we concluded the room clock was wrong and stopped panicking. We got ready and headed to the theater which was just 2 blocks from our hotel.

11:15pm - WICKED WAS AMAZING!!! I had heard how good it was from lots of people, so I was afraid it was one of those things that was really overhyped. Definitely not! The writing and songs were great, and the actors were fantastic! We even saw the understudy for Glinda, and she totally stole the show!