![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canadiandiamondOk, I finally finished typing this up tonight, phew. I hope I haven't forgotten anything! There was so, so much to see and do, it was crazy. I'll try to summarize it as best as possible!
Friday, March 2nd
I went into work that morning to try and finish off a few things, then left around 10:30am or so to head home, get my bags and head for the airport. It's over an hour's drive away and my flight was leaving at 12:50pm so I was worried I'd miss it but I didn't! Things actually went very smoothly on that very, very first step in getting to the airport, I even had time to grab lunch at before getting on the plane. The problem was waiting for the damn plane to take off, we were almost two hours late and it was pretty much a given that I'd miss my connecting flight in Toronto to Boston. When I got to Toronto I discovered that I didn't miss it, however, as that connecting flight was cancelled. XD People had been stranded in Toronto for ages apparently because of bad weather, some people as long as 2-3 days, and I had zero luck in getting on a flight to Boston on standby that night. It was horrible really, some people were told that they were 1st or 2nd on the waiting list, only to discover later that night that they were like 30th or something like that. People were hella pissed, and while I wasn't jumping for joy I at least had a friend there to stay with. I called her after the last flight went out, it was kinda horrible actually because we were waiting to see if a 9:30pm flight to Boston could take us on standby and when it couldn't they were like "Ooh, there's one at 10:00pm, run to catch it!" and since we were already through US customs we had to go back through Canadian customs (even though we hadn't left Canada technically) and upon heading for that gate we were told that US customs closed at 9:00pm, so it was 100% pointless to tell us to try and go back in the first place. So very, very frustrating, I can see why people that were there for 2-3 days were piiiiiiissed. I just called Jillian, my friend, who picked me up and let me stay at her apartment while she went to stay with her boyfriend. She gave me a quick tour of Toronto, driving around the CN Tower, Skydome, etc. before we went back to her place and caught up before she left for her boyfriend's place.
Saturday, March 3rd
Jillian and I met up again in the morning and had brunch together, then went to the Hockey Hall of Fame. It was too bad that I didn't have more time to spend there, I think we were only there for a little over an hour, but it was great. I got some souvenirs there and a birthday gift for one of my friends before heading off to the airport and this time successfully arriving in Boston, yay! It was 6:30pm or so by the time we landed, with the game starting at 7:00pm, so![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
everyoung and I just went straight to the stadium from the airport, leaving my luggage at the airport and dropping my carry-on bag at a local bar, since you can't do that at the stadium, grrr. It was ok though, the bar was close by and we got to see most of the game, where Boston kicked Montreal's ass, woo! Good times. :D The rest of the night included just hanging out with Sara, which was awesome of course.
Sunday, March 4th - Wednesday, March 7th
My time in Boston all kind of blurred together to an extent, but rest assured that it was all very awesome. I picked up a new pair of Docs which was awesome, rode the T a lot (yay for Charlie Tickets!) and basically had a fantastic time with the lovely Sara, ♥ We went to the mall, got some groceries too, and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff but it was all fun because it was all with her. :D On Wednesday we caught the train from Boston to Philadelphia, which was a nice 6 hour ride together, andtanya_ltp picked us up at the train station. I ended up staying with her and Sara for a few nights, as my sister got stuck in Toronto like I did a few days earlier, and we watched a ton of Buffy that night which kicked ass. Also, Tanya's cat, Kaylee, is the most adorable cat ever. :D
Thursday, March 8th
I spent all day Thursday with Sara and Tanya, playing T's Wii all afternoon, which was an amazingly huge amount of fun. Rayman's Chronicles is so much fun, so many cute little minigames. Sara is really good at beating the crap out of bunnies for the record. XD We all went out for super at... I think it was Famous Dave's? A barbeque place at any rate which was really good, and I had a cornbread muffin for the first time ever. Very tasty! We watched a ton of Buffy episodes again that night in our mission to indoctrinate Sara into the fandom before we all just about passed out.
Friday, March 9th
I finally met up with my sister in the city on Friday, for all of five minutes before I took off with Sara and Tanya to meet up withbeanarie for a walk around Philadelphia and supper at T.G.I.F. It was pretty awesome, we got to see a lot of cool sights and it's always nice to meet up with online people face to face, especially so many of us at once. :D After Sara and Tanya went back home, JM and I just kicked around a little and went to see 300 at a theatre, which kicked so much ass. Good times! I finally got back to my sister's hotel just as they were going to bed, so it was a nice, busy day.
Saturday, March 10th
I got up late and loved it, sleeping in until noonish before getting up and meeting Sara and Tanya at the Wachovia Center to watch my Boston Bruins in town to play the Flyers. Of course they lost 4-1 to a team that has an even worse record than they do, if you can imagine that, hehe. It was fun just the same and was the first NHL game I've seen every second of, from the skaters taking the ice, the anthem and everything. After the game we met up with JM again and had supper at the Hard Rock Cafe, followed by Sara and Tanya heading back home. JM and I hung out a bit more, having some coffee and contemplating another movie but we were both kinda drained so we called it an early night after walking around the city some more. I headed back to the hotel, then ventured out to a Borders to get a little thank you gift for Tanya and a little something for Sara, and a book to read myself, then just watched tv and chilled for a bit while my sister and Amy were out late.
Sunday, March 11th
Sunday I went to the Franklin Institute with my sister and Amy to see the King Tut exhibit, which, while fun, was a bit of a let down. There was no actual sarcophagus or death mask or anything like that, just some jewelery and things like that which were on the mummy itself, along with a ton of other objects from his tomb and various other tombs of course. Just not the King himself or anything really connected to him, I don't know. I don't know that much about that kind of thing so maybe I was just expecting too much, heh. After that I caught a cab to 30th station to see Sara off *sniff* and to give T her gift, then it was back to the hotel to meet Jen and Amy for supper. We went to McCormick and Schmidt's, a seafood place where I had a steak and a nice $10 glass of wine that was the best I've ever had, omg. After that we just went home and slept as we all had an early rise on Monday.
Monday, March 12th
Monday saw us checking out of the hotel in Philly by noon and catching our train to NYC at 1:22pm, which arrived on time and got us to Penn Station precisely on time. We caught a cab to our hotel room and dropped off all our things there before venturing out to explore a little. To our surprise you just had to leave the hotel, take a right and voila - Times Square! Pretty kick ass to just be right in the middle of everything like that, it was awesome. We didn't go out anywhere except to another TGIF for supper in Times Square, which was like twice as expensive as the other ones I went to, oops. That was the first and last time we went to a chain restaurant like that while in NYC, heh. We hit a Duane Reade's, which is apparently a big pharmacy / convenience store type chain down there, and got some soda and chocolate to keep in our room for snacks over the week and called it an early night.
Tuesday, March 13th
Today was the day of the Daily Show! We slept in late and walked down to the studio, then seeing that there was no crowd there yet we wandered around some more. This part of Manhattan, near the big convention center whose name I forget (Kevitts?) was peppered with auto dealerships and stores, it was boring to wander through. We got back to the studio doors in time to be like 11-12 in line and then it got huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge, so good on us. We got kick ass seats and you can barely see us as the camera swoops in at the beginning of the show but it was worth it. John Waters was the guest and while I wish we had tickets for Thursday (Sandra Bullock omg I would have died) it was still a blast. Jon rocks! After the show we walked back home, grabbing a quick bite to eat and calling it another early night.
Wednesday, March 14th
On Wednesday we tried to do a little shopping, intending on going to Bloomingdales or something like that on 5th Ave. It didn't really pan out but we did go as far as Macy's and shopped around. My sister bought some stuff which we later returned, heh, and I mostly just browsed. I think this was the day we went to Midtown Comics and I bought some World of Warcraft card games and Y The Last Man graphic novels, woo! As well as a little Iceman lead statue that kicks ass, apparently there's this series of Marvel figurines that comes out each month along with a magazine all about that character, I was so happy to see my favourite mutant as that month's figure. We had a quick bite to eat at McDonald's I think before going back to the room and changing so we could go see Mary Poppins at the New Amsterdam. Broadway shows for the win! It was actually amazing, even though I'm not a huge fan of musicals I loved it. The guy who played Bert was amazing, wow. I have the program from that and the free Playbill too, we also got a little balcony to ourselves too somehow, I have no idea how. They were only $50 tickets! It kicked so much ass that we later got tickets for The Producers (with Tony Danza XD) for Friday night at the St. James.
Thursday, March 15th
This was the first day we activated our New York City pass. We did a ton of stuff that my sister was looking forward to, which in all fairness I enjoyed too! First we walked up to Central Park, hitting the Central Park Zoo and wandering all around that. The polar bears were awesome, as were the penguins and many of the animals there. We took a ton of pictures which I posted earlier. Then it was across the park towards Strawberry Fields and the John Lennon memorial, where I took my sister's photo a bunch of times. He's her favourite Beatle; I'm a Paul fan myself, heh. Central Park was very confusing by the way, there were very few signs and the ones with maps of the park didn't even have a "You Are Here" arrow to let you orient yourself, thankfully we found a tourist chalet spot that gave us a free map and a nudge in the right direction. The last stop of the day was the American Museum of Natural History, where we spent a ton of time. It kicked ass, there was so much to see and do, but my feet were absolutely killing me by the time we were done. There's a ton of pictures from there too which I already posted. After that night we had supper at Planet Hollywood ($10 off for our pass too, woo!) and just went home and relaxed because we were both pretty tired.
Friday, March 16th
This was day two of our two day NYC pass, and we did more of the things I wanted to do. This included hitting the Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art, seeing tons of priceless works of art which was just amaaaaaaazing. Not that I'm an expert in art or anything but a lot of the things we saw were pretty much known world wide... a ton of Picassos, including my favourite (Three Musicians which a friend of mine did a version of and I have hanging in my office to this day), Van Gogh's Starry Night and Salvidor Dali's... er, the one with the clocks melting on trees and stuff. Shhhh, I suck. XD We also practically ran through Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, snapping pics on the way, before going to 30 Rockefeller Place for the last NBC Studio Tour of the day, which was cool. All of these things from Thursday and Friday were all included for the price of our pass, which was so worth the money. After another quick supper we went to see The Producers, which while quite good was nowhere near as awesome as Mary Poppins. Also we discovered upon arrival that Tony Danza was only performing through March 11th, oops. Ah well. XD
Saturday, March 17th
Our last day in the USA! We got up late because we were soooooooo tired, my feet were hurting so, so, so much from all the hoofing around. We checked out at noon as required, then waited in the lobby until our airport shuttle came at 1:30pm. We were lucky that our plane left on time as the weather was crappy the day before and apparently over 1,000 flights out of New York were cancelled. We got to Montreal on time and our flight from there to St. John's was about an hour late in leaving but got in alright. There was a chance that they wouldn't be able to land because of the fog but it was all good. And that's it!
Friday, March 2nd
I went into work that morning to try and finish off a few things, then left around 10:30am or so to head home, get my bags and head for the airport. It's over an hour's drive away and my flight was leaving at 12:50pm so I was worried I'd miss it but I didn't! Things actually went very smoothly on that very, very first step in getting to the airport, I even had time to grab lunch at before getting on the plane. The problem was waiting for the damn plane to take off, we were almost two hours late and it was pretty much a given that I'd miss my connecting flight in Toronto to Boston. When I got to Toronto I discovered that I didn't miss it, however, as that connecting flight was cancelled. XD People had been stranded in Toronto for ages apparently because of bad weather, some people as long as 2-3 days, and I had zero luck in getting on a flight to Boston on standby that night. It was horrible really, some people were told that they were 1st or 2nd on the waiting list, only to discover later that night that they were like 30th or something like that. People were hella pissed, and while I wasn't jumping for joy I at least had a friend there to stay with. I called her after the last flight went out, it was kinda horrible actually because we were waiting to see if a 9:30pm flight to Boston could take us on standby and when it couldn't they were like "Ooh, there's one at 10:00pm, run to catch it!" and since we were already through US customs we had to go back through Canadian customs (even though we hadn't left Canada technically) and upon heading for that gate we were told that US customs closed at 9:00pm, so it was 100% pointless to tell us to try and go back in the first place. So very, very frustrating, I can see why people that were there for 2-3 days were piiiiiiissed. I just called Jillian, my friend, who picked me up and let me stay at her apartment while she went to stay with her boyfriend. She gave me a quick tour of Toronto, driving around the CN Tower, Skydome, etc. before we went back to her place and caught up before she left for her boyfriend's place.
Saturday, March 3rd
Jillian and I met up again in the morning and had brunch together, then went to the Hockey Hall of Fame. It was too bad that I didn't have more time to spend there, I think we were only there for a little over an hour, but it was great. I got some souvenirs there and a birthday gift for one of my friends before heading off to the airport and this time successfully arriving in Boston, yay! It was 6:30pm or so by the time we landed, with the game starting at 7:00pm, so
everyoung and I just went straight to the stadium from the airport, leaving my luggage at the airport and dropping my carry-on bag at a local bar, since you can't do that at the stadium, grrr. It was ok though, the bar was close by and we got to see most of the game, where Boston kicked Montreal's ass, woo! Good times. :D The rest of the night included just hanging out with Sara, which was awesome of course.Sunday, March 4th - Wednesday, March 7th
My time in Boston all kind of blurred together to an extent, but rest assured that it was all very awesome. I picked up a new pair of Docs which was awesome, rode the T a lot (yay for Charlie Tickets!) and basically had a fantastic time with the lovely Sara, ♥ We went to the mall, got some groceries too, and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff but it was all fun because it was all with her. :D On Wednesday we caught the train from Boston to Philadelphia, which was a nice 6 hour ride together, and
tanya_ltp picked us up at the train station. I ended up staying with her and Sara for a few nights, as my sister got stuck in Toronto like I did a few days earlier, and we watched a ton of Buffy that night which kicked ass. Also, Tanya's cat, Kaylee, is the most adorable cat ever. :DThursday, March 8th
I spent all day Thursday with Sara and Tanya, playing T's Wii all afternoon, which was an amazingly huge amount of fun. Rayman's Chronicles is so much fun, so many cute little minigames. Sara is really good at beating the crap out of bunnies for the record. XD We all went out for super at... I think it was Famous Dave's? A barbeque place at any rate which was really good, and I had a cornbread muffin for the first time ever. Very tasty! We watched a ton of Buffy episodes again that night in our mission to indoctrinate Sara into the fandom before we all just about passed out.
Friday, March 9th
I finally met up with my sister in the city on Friday, for all of five minutes before I took off with Sara and Tanya to meet up with
beanarie for a walk around Philadelphia and supper at T.G.I.F. It was pretty awesome, we got to see a lot of cool sights and it's always nice to meet up with online people face to face, especially so many of us at once. :D After Sara and Tanya went back home, JM and I just kicked around a little and went to see 300 at a theatre, which kicked so much ass. Good times! I finally got back to my sister's hotel just as they were going to bed, so it was a nice, busy day.Saturday, March 10th
I got up late and loved it, sleeping in until noonish before getting up and meeting Sara and Tanya at the Wachovia Center to watch my Boston Bruins in town to play the Flyers. Of course they lost 4-1 to a team that has an even worse record than they do, if you can imagine that, hehe. It was fun just the same and was the first NHL game I've seen every second of, from the skaters taking the ice, the anthem and everything. After the game we met up with JM again and had supper at the Hard Rock Cafe, followed by Sara and Tanya heading back home. JM and I hung out a bit more, having some coffee and contemplating another movie but we were both kinda drained so we called it an early night after walking around the city some more. I headed back to the hotel, then ventured out to a Borders to get a little thank you gift for Tanya and a little something for Sara, and a book to read myself, then just watched tv and chilled for a bit while my sister and Amy were out late.
Sunday, March 11th
Sunday I went to the Franklin Institute with my sister and Amy to see the King Tut exhibit, which, while fun, was a bit of a let down. There was no actual sarcophagus or death mask or anything like that, just some jewelery and things like that which were on the mummy itself, along with a ton of other objects from his tomb and various other tombs of course. Just not the King himself or anything really connected to him, I don't know. I don't know that much about that kind of thing so maybe I was just expecting too much, heh. After that I caught a cab to 30th station to see Sara off *sniff* and to give T her gift, then it was back to the hotel to meet Jen and Amy for supper. We went to McCormick and Schmidt's, a seafood place where I had a steak and a nice $10 glass of wine that was the best I've ever had, omg. After that we just went home and slept as we all had an early rise on Monday.
Monday, March 12th
Monday saw us checking out of the hotel in Philly by noon and catching our train to NYC at 1:22pm, which arrived on time and got us to Penn Station precisely on time. We caught a cab to our hotel room and dropped off all our things there before venturing out to explore a little. To our surprise you just had to leave the hotel, take a right and voila - Times Square! Pretty kick ass to just be right in the middle of everything like that, it was awesome. We didn't go out anywhere except to another TGIF for supper in Times Square, which was like twice as expensive as the other ones I went to, oops. That was the first and last time we went to a chain restaurant like that while in NYC, heh. We hit a Duane Reade's, which is apparently a big pharmacy / convenience store type chain down there, and got some soda and chocolate to keep in our room for snacks over the week and called it an early night.
Tuesday, March 13th
Today was the day of the Daily Show! We slept in late and walked down to the studio, then seeing that there was no crowd there yet we wandered around some more. This part of Manhattan, near the big convention center whose name I forget (Kevitts?) was peppered with auto dealerships and stores, it was boring to wander through. We got back to the studio doors in time to be like 11-12 in line and then it got huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge, so good on us. We got kick ass seats and you can barely see us as the camera swoops in at the beginning of the show but it was worth it. John Waters was the guest and while I wish we had tickets for Thursday (Sandra Bullock omg I would have died) it was still a blast. Jon rocks! After the show we walked back home, grabbing a quick bite to eat and calling it another early night.
Wednesday, March 14th
On Wednesday we tried to do a little shopping, intending on going to Bloomingdales or something like that on 5th Ave. It didn't really pan out but we did go as far as Macy's and shopped around. My sister bought some stuff which we later returned, heh, and I mostly just browsed. I think this was the day we went to Midtown Comics and I bought some World of Warcraft card games and Y The Last Man graphic novels, woo! As well as a little Iceman lead statue that kicks ass, apparently there's this series of Marvel figurines that comes out each month along with a magazine all about that character, I was so happy to see my favourite mutant as that month's figure. We had a quick bite to eat at McDonald's I think before going back to the room and changing so we could go see Mary Poppins at the New Amsterdam. Broadway shows for the win! It was actually amazing, even though I'm not a huge fan of musicals I loved it. The guy who played Bert was amazing, wow. I have the program from that and the free Playbill too, we also got a little balcony to ourselves too somehow, I have no idea how. They were only $50 tickets! It kicked so much ass that we later got tickets for The Producers (with Tony Danza XD) for Friday night at the St. James.
Thursday, March 15th
This was the first day we activated our New York City pass. We did a ton of stuff that my sister was looking forward to, which in all fairness I enjoyed too! First we walked up to Central Park, hitting the Central Park Zoo and wandering all around that. The polar bears were awesome, as were the penguins and many of the animals there. We took a ton of pictures which I posted earlier. Then it was across the park towards Strawberry Fields and the John Lennon memorial, where I took my sister's photo a bunch of times. He's her favourite Beatle; I'm a Paul fan myself, heh. Central Park was very confusing by the way, there were very few signs and the ones with maps of the park didn't even have a "You Are Here" arrow to let you orient yourself, thankfully we found a tourist chalet spot that gave us a free map and a nudge in the right direction. The last stop of the day was the American Museum of Natural History, where we spent a ton of time. It kicked ass, there was so much to see and do, but my feet were absolutely killing me by the time we were done. There's a ton of pictures from there too which I already posted. After that night we had supper at Planet Hollywood ($10 off for our pass too, woo!) and just went home and relaxed because we were both pretty tired.
Friday, March 16th
This was day two of our two day NYC pass, and we did more of the things I wanted to do. This included hitting the Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art, seeing tons of priceless works of art which was just amaaaaaaazing. Not that I'm an expert in art or anything but a lot of the things we saw were pretty much known world wide... a ton of Picassos, including my favourite (Three Musicians which a friend of mine did a version of and I have hanging in my office to this day), Van Gogh's Starry Night and Salvidor Dali's... er, the one with the clocks melting on trees and stuff. Shhhh, I suck. XD We also practically ran through Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, snapping pics on the way, before going to 30 Rockefeller Place for the last NBC Studio Tour of the day, which was cool. All of these things from Thursday and Friday were all included for the price of our pass, which was so worth the money. After another quick supper we went to see The Producers, which while quite good was nowhere near as awesome as Mary Poppins. Also we discovered upon arrival that Tony Danza was only performing through March 11th, oops. Ah well. XD
Saturday, March 17th
Our last day in the USA! We got up late because we were soooooooo tired, my feet were hurting so, so, so much from all the hoofing around. We checked out at noon as required, then waited in the lobby until our airport shuttle came at 1:30pm. We were lucky that our plane left on time as the weather was crappy the day before and apparently over 1,000 flights out of New York were cancelled. We got to Montreal on time and our flight from there to St. John's was about an hour late in leaving but got in alright. There was a chance that they wouldn't be able to land because of the fog but it was all good. And that's it!
