NYC Day Two: Sunny in the city!

Day two dawned beautiful and sunny. C and I hit the streets ready to explore, knowing that we needed to be available for a possible private tour of the NBC studios at 11a.m. We headed toward 30 Rockefeller Plaza with coffee in hand. Once we arrived at the outside of "The Today Show" studios, Kathie Lee and Hoda were interviewing Matthew Morrison of "Glee" fame (see below, really that's them through all those lights!) so we obnoxiously snapped pictures of the back/side of his head until security told us to get behind the barriers with the rest of the throng... Um, no thanks! We'll just keep moving along...


We had a quick breakfast at Bouchon while waiting for confirmation of our tour, which was ON. My sister-in-law's good friend Sheryl (who works at NBC) asked a co-worker and former NBC page, Marie, to give us a tour, which was fabulous! We saw the sets of SNL and Jimmy Fallon, passed by Dr. Oz's area, went into the MSNBC control room (very quietly, as we weren't supposed to be there), smelled the commissary (yum), and in general learned a great deal about NBC history and trivia. Very fun! (See Molly Shannon's Mary Catherine Gallagher get-up below. It was beside Dana Carvey's Church Lady costume--which was currently missing [?], and Jane Curtin's egghead outfit... that's before my time, I think?)



Corinne and our tour guide Marie checking out the Jimmy Fallon set.



We had 1:30 lunch reservations at the International Culinary Center (formerly the French Culinary Institute) in Soho, so we subwayed down to that general area and walked around for awhile, exploring.




A fabulous three-course lunch later (see my halibut above, and I bet you can't guess what I ordered for dessert, ha ha) and we were back out on the street, wending our way from Soho to TriBeCa, the East Village and Chelsea areas, stopping at Washington Square Park for a brief stop before continuing on to Union Square, where we subwayed back up to the Theater District, where we saw "Grace," a play with Paul Rudd and Ed Asner. It was very intense and dark-ish, but well done. After the play we had a quick Indian meal at a nearby restaurant and called it a day.




These boys were belting out some jazzy tunes in Washington Square Park and it made me think of Seth and how he might be able to fund college, while he's in college! They were good, and having a bit of fun too... had people dancing, even. Well, one guy. But he was very into it!

18,000 steps on the FitBit. Shops visited: Sephora, Apple, Purl Soho, Pearl River, DSW, Apple (again), Aerosole, Steve Madden... Notice the plethora of shoe shops there? Alas, nothing purchased at those... interesting. But oh how our feet were feeling those 18,000 steps...