Monday, September 7 - Day 3

Labour Day Monday - we sleep in a bit today - til 9 a.m. since we had gotten up so early the past three days. After showering, I set out for the corner Starbucks to get some morning caffeine. Pass by Maya on the street and say good morning. She smirks - no doubt she thinks I washed and BRUSHED my hair on her advice yesterday. I'll let her believe that.

People are setting up a street festival of some kind on Lexington - food stalls, T-shirts, scarves, sunglasses, etc. as far as I can see when I look both ways. Fun. Good smells.

Take a moment back at the hotel to enjoy my coffee and email Emily to let her know that I wasn't able to post my blog yet - ran out of battery last night. I've been thinking a lot about Emily while here and how amazing it was for her and Patti to dream up this gift for us and send us off to NYC - we appreciate it so much!!

We took Patti's advice from our travel book and chose one of the local diners for breakfast - Blooms - on the corner of Lexington and 38th. Full to the brim with people, we have to line up to get in but it's a short wait for big character, great food, good price. Thanks Patti - good advice. We'll go back there for sure.

Our first stop today will be at Macy's - have to go there on Labour Day. Walked along 34th - tons of shops. Emily, every shoe store has Ed Hardy shoes on display. Now that I know who that is it's fun to see them.

Macy's is huge. And crowded. There is just so much stuff - I am sort of breaking out in a bit of a rash just being around so much merchandise. Walk all the way through the main floor, which is quite a feat for me - the non-shopper. It's kinda fun. But we don't buy anything.

We get to Madison Square Garden just in time for a tour. Bruce has so many memories of games he has watched on TV from the Garden. We see the theatre first and learn about the amazing soundproofing technology of this facility - Penn Station is underneath, then the 5,000 or so seat theatre, then on the 5th floor is the arena - which seats something like 18,000 - and they can all be going full force at the same time with no sound spill. Pretty phenomenal. We see the Club restaurant for members, watch a video and meet a Nick's City Dancer named Melissa. People take pictures of her - she's a good sport. Then we see the Club Bar & Grill and then visit a box. It's not quite as swish, believe it or not, as the boxes at the Saddledome but it's still super exclusive. Has 12 seats and 4 bar stools. The view from here is fantastic. It's set up today for a basketball game. There are 300 events here per year and each box comes with 12 tickets for every event.

We see the Nicks' dressing room - very high doors so the tall players don't clock themselves in the head going through the door. Tour guide tells us that some of the players drink 24 bottles of water per game and the team uses 500 towels. That's a lot of sweat. We see a huge shoe - size 18 or something like that. I take a picture of it beside my foot.

We see the Rangers' dressing room - normal height doors but a bit wider for the goalies. She points out Wayne Gretzky's and Mark Messier's lockers.

In the lobby there are great display boards with a lot of the history of the Garden. Very cool tour - glad we got to see it.

We leave MSG and, on Patti's advice, we each buy a 7-day unlimited Metro Pass and take the subway back up to Time Square to get some theatre tickets sorted out. We are particularly interested in God of Carnage, Jersey Boys, and A Steady Rain (new show with Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig that starts previews Thursday). None of these are listed on TKTS so we go to the theatres.

Yay - tix for under $70 for Jersey Boys on Wednesday night - we're stoked!

Yay - tix for God of Carnage on Thursday night (also under $70) - double stoked!!

Sadly, the only tix they have for A Steady Rain are $130 each - I don't think so. Even though this will probably be the talk of the town when it opens, I just can't justify paying $130 each so we'll take a pass on that one. Two outa three ain't bad. We're pretty excited.

Take the subway up to Lincoln Center. It reminds me of the plaza in Los Angeles with the opera house, theatres etc. all in one place - really cool. Walk around a bit and check out the Lincoln Center Theater (where that revival of South Pacific is playing) and the Met lobby and gift shop - I've never seen so much opera stuff in my life.

Chairs are set up outside because they've been re-screening the HD movies outside the opera house - projecting onto a screen on the front of the building all week and tonight they are showing Madame Butterfly at 8 pm for free. It's now 4:30 and there are quite a few people already gathered. Bruce and I sit for awhile, just to rest our feet, but we decide we're not going to stay for 3 1/2 hours to see the movie - I already saw it in Calgary and loved it but there are so many other things we want to do we can't justify spending the whole evening here. So we leave. We visit the Barnes and Nobles across the street - we'd read that Kathy Griffin is going to be appearing at one of the B&N stores on Tuesday and we couldn't remember which one - we thought it might be this one but, sadly, no. We'll have to keep looking 'cause we'd both love to see her!!

We take the subway down to see Carnegie Hall - another place that has seen so many amazing artists over the years. We check out the menu at the Russian Tea Room next door - holy expensive! - and decide to catch dinner at the Brooklyn Diner - The Finer Diner (hee hee), which is near Carnegie Hall. It's very charming inside - dark wood along the walls and ceiling reminiscent of an old box car diner. The food is good but a bit on the expensive side. After dinner we get a cookie the size of my head and some little pasteries (can't remember the name) for Bruce and sit outside to eat our dessert.

Beautiful night so we walk a few blocks to Central Park and walk in about 15 minutes - it's dusky so quite enchanting. Tons of people, lots of them jogging, biking, in rickshaws, carriages, it's gorgeous. You'd never know you were in a huge city. We happen upon some sort of Latin-music party at what looks like it might be part of a zoo - there are some big animals sculpted out of what might be bushes...? And tons of lanterns in the trees - it's magical. And the music is fantastic. So we sit on a bench for about 20 minutes and just enjoy it before walking at a speed suitable to our age (okay, the word would be slowly) back to the subway and back to the hotel.

Magnificent third day. Thanks for sending us here. G'night.