Simply Radiant: New York, New York!

It only took about two hours to drive to New York. We stayed in a hotel right across the street from Carnegie Hall and were pleasantly suprised to find that our room was huge for a hotel room in the heart of New York. It was an easy walk to find the Ed Sullivan Theater to stand in line for the show. It turned out that they were taping two shows on Monday and we had tickets for the second show that would air on Friday. Firday was their big holiday show when Dave continues his holiday tradition of having Jay Thomas throw footballs at his Christmas tree to knock the meatball off of the top. We waited in line to check in and find out when to come back to the taping, and they noticed I am pregnant so they gave us tickets to pre-seat, which meant we got to sit in the lobby while everyone lined up outside, and we got to be the first guests in the theater. We still had a little time beforehand to walk around Times Square. It was so cool to be there after seeing it on TV so many times.

Of course Dave Letterman was great. Cate Blanchett was the other guest and Larry says that she's as creepy and unpersonable in real life as she is in movies. They had a huge Christmas number with a big choir at the end of the show, and it was fun to see them change the set. We loved that we recognized all the staff from seeing them on the show.

The next morning we headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and we could have easily spent a week there. I had to drag Larry away after a few hours so we would have time to see some of the other sites. We wanted to see a Broadway show, but we didn't want to pay full price. They have a TKTS booth near Times Square that sells reduced priced tickets the day of performances, but they don't open until 3:00, and people start lining up in the morning so you can wait for hours and still not see what you want to see. We opted to head to the new TKTS location in the Financial District, which worked out perfectly because it was on our way to see the Statue of Liberty and they opened earlier so you could get better tickets to plays that you actually wanted to see AND there were only about five people in line when we got there. There were lots of plays to choose from, but thanks to Mark's advise, we chose the Drowsy Chaperone. Then we took a nice walk along the waterfront to the Statue of Liberty Ferries. We decided just to admire the Statue of Liberty from the shore because it was too cold to take a ferry so sadly this is the best picture that we have.

That gave us just enough time to make it to Rockafeller Center at dusk so we got to see the tree during the day and at night along with the Windows at Saks Fifth Avenue across the street. I loved seeing all of the decorations on Fifth Avenue.

Then it was just a short walk to the Donnell Children's Library, where I got to meet Betsy, the author of my favorite Children's lit blog Fuse #8. I've been serving on the Middle Grade Fiction Cybil Award committee with her so it was nice to meet her in person and get a personal tour of the library (scary picture of me, but Betsy looks cute).

They have an amazing collection, but a lot of it is not open to the public because they don't have the funding to catalogue it. One of the coolest things that they have on public display are the original stuffed animals that inspired Winnie the Pooh.

As if all of that wasn't enough, we got to spend the evening watching A Drowsy Chaperone starring Sutton Foster who got a Tony (I think) for playing Millie in Thouroughly Modern Millie. It was hilarious; a musical even Larry enjoyed. We had a little time left over to wander Time's Square and the place that entertained me the most was Charmin's advertising ploy. There were two escalators between stores with a huge sign above them that said something like, "If you've gotta go in New York, Go in Style." and then inside it said, "Charmin's holiday gift to New York City: Free Public restrooms" And there was a really happy guy dancing in front of it singing about how if you have to go, go here. The escalators take you up into a huge room lined with bathrooms and Charmin employees went in after each guest to clean them and periodically they all cheered as someone entered a bathroom. Weird. They had flat screen tv's for the people waiting in line with footage of the Charmin Bear traveling around the city, donating money to homeless people, riding the subway etc. Then around the rest of the room that had a stage for people to dance to the Charmin music and a picture area where you could get your picture taken on a sled with the Charmin bear and several fake fireplaces with lots of extra seating. They even have there own web site. Too funny!