NYC Day 2 and 3

After the mad-rush of our trip into NYC, we did get a couple of hours to relax and try to take in the magnitude of the city and the opulence of our Trump Soho hotel room.

From the personalized welcome on all four phones - two of them in the bathrooms,

To the his and hers robes,

To the amazing view of Upper Manhattan from our corner window... Everything, "creates the sense that every guest is a VIP"... or so says the Trump promise, framed prominently on the leather appointed desk.

The other thing prominently displayed is the Minibar menu...

Seriously?! $95 for a SMALL bottle of vodka?  Sheesh!

But New York is not made for rest and relaxation, or frugality! 

The next morning we took the first of our scary cab ride, and $20 dollars later, we were delivered to Rockefeller Plaza.  

The cab ride, in comparison, turned out to be pretty tame, when we found ourselves in an elevator, being rocketed up 76 floors in 38 seconds!  

If you don't know, (I didn't know this) the 30 Rock building is what was being built in that picture of the construction workers eating lunch on the girder. For only $29.99, the friendly guides are happy to let you recreate that...

We then ventured outside, and were treated to a view that in my opinion is better than that from the top of the Empire State building.  You can see practically all of NYC from there.

And if you're curious as to what you're looking at - there's an ap for that.

From there, we moved on toward The Museum of Natural History. We decided to get there via Central Park, which was beautiful, but I really had to use the restroom, and wondered how I was going to find one.  

Well, if you're curious - there's an ap for that too.

And, finally, after walking several miles of trails in Central Park, in 95 degree heat, we arrived at The Museum of Natural History.  I'm not sure, but I will venture to guess that Kelsie expected to find this

What we actually found was this

But it was cool inside.  We wandered around, only getting separated and lost twice, until it was time to head back to the hotel to refresh and get ready to go to the Gershwin Theatre to see WICKED!

While we were getting ready, Downtown Dad, ever ready with his camera phone, caught this of fellow Trump Soho guest, Carlos Santana, as he was leaving for a gig somewhere in the city...

We decided to take the subway uptown to Wicked, it was cheaper, and faster!  As for seeing Wicked on Broadway - It was Amazing!  From our first glimpse of the stage, which was an awesome confection of steampunk, all through the show, not only was the company from the two leads down to the smallest flying monkey, spot on and perfect in their acting, dancing and songs, but the stagecraft and set itself became a stellar character as well.

The next morning, we took the Staten Island Ferry round trip for a pretty close look at the Statue of Liberty, with no lines and for free!

We actually got much closer than this picture would imply.  It was also very cool to stand on the deck and listen to many languages besides English excitedly talk about this national icon.

I was anxious to get home, back to normal. While I truly enjoyed the lavishness of our surroundings, you just never knew what was going to happen next...

As we left the hotel for a quick lunch, before heading out to the airport, we ran into Carlos again.