I'm the King of New York...

Around December of this past year, Allen called me with an awesome idea to surprise my mom for Mother's Day with a mother/daughter trip.  He suggested New York and I said yes in a heartbeat!!!  My dad has taken my once before and I actually spent a summer living in New York with one of my college friends, Jill.  I interned for JPMorganChase & she interned for Last Call with Carson Daly (you can guess who had more fun at work...)  I haven't gone back since Jill and I left in 2005 and was so excited to revisit.  Plus, it was so incredible just to spend the quality time with my mom.  We are pretty compatible travel buddies!

If you follow me on Instagram, you know I started off the trip in the Birmingham airport with a Starbucks treat and one of the more interesting spellings of Lyndsay I've seen...

Is the barista trying to tell me something??

After a little snafu with our cab driver, Mom and I got to the hotel around 5:30 NY time.  As a side note:  we bought groupons before we went for ground transport to and from the airport.  DO NOT USE GROUNDLINK.  It was convenient to have the driver prearranged and the experience in NYC wasn't too bad, however their customer service is horrendous - I've written a letter to their corporate headquarters and promised to share how terrible my experience was, so I'm holding true.  Another funny story - Mom & I obviously don't go to LaGuardia often - apparently, you can have a "Concourse D" which is in "Terminal B" and Delta also flies into two different terminals.  We both thought we were in a different terminal than we were and it took us a while to meet up!

We decided to take Thursday evening easy and walked around the corner to a little pizza place called Aperitivo for dinner.



So excited to be in NYC!

Delicious!!

Yummmm

We had a good laugh because neither mom and I really packed appropriately - it was a lot chillier than we thought it would be.  We were joking around that we must have thought the surprise was Hawaii because we both packed all super summery clothes (I blame the heat spell we were having in Bham and Dallas).  We also stood out like sore thumbs - we saw people in pea coats and all dark colors.  This was Mom's best attempt at a warmer outfit:

We had to forego fashion for warmth - I was cracking up at her all white ensemble and she'll probably kill me for posting..

On Friday after a good rest the night before, we headed out to make some plans for that evening.  When Jill and I were in NY, we would always try to get rush tickets (day of tickets that are significantly discounted).  It can be hit or miss with whether the seats are good or not and whether or not you actually get tickets, but we knew we had tickets for the next night to another show, so we thought we'd just try.  For more info on rush tickets, see this website.  We were able to get the last two tickets to Anything Goes for $30/piece!  After feeling successful about our purchase, we decided to do some shopping and stopped for lunch at BG's which is a restaurant on the top floor of Bergdorf Goodman's.  The food was amazing - we both said it was our favorite meal of the trip.  We shared the seared scallop appetizer and the chicken milanese salad.  It was plenty of food and soooo good.  The salad was surprisingly my favorite - the chicken was so tender.  We liked the food so much we tried to go back another time on the trip, but they were closed.  :(

Feeling fancy at BG's

We did some browsing and then did some walking around the area.

Enjoying the little bit of good weather

If you know mom or I at all, you know we may be ordering a salad at lunch, but we're both candy fanatics and can never pass on something sweet.  I had heard of Dylan's Candy Bar, but never been so we decided to stop in for an afternoon dessert (what, afternoon dessert isn't one of your regular meals?)  The atmosphere was so much fun.  A candy store on bottom and a cafe upstairs with cupcakes, yogurt and other desserts.  Mom and I both settled on a cupcake (s'mores for me and chocolate peanut butter for her) and headed over to sit at a table - that's us in the giant cupcake table below!

Sadly, I have to report - these cupcakes look great, but were NOT good.  They were extremely dry and hard.  Mom didn't eat any of hers - she shared a little bit of mine, but even between the two of us, we still left some on the plate (a true tragedy).

At Dylan's

That evening, we cleaned up a bit and got ready to go see Anything Goes.

Cheers!  At the Waldorf

Our tickets were in the last row of the theater, but there was a significant elevation and the theater wasn't too big, so we really ended up enjoying our seats.  Anything Goes was cute - neither Mom nor I had seen it before and it was one we wanted to check off the list.  It's got several cute love stories and was a real "feel good" show.

Anything Goes at Stephen Sondheim Theater

When we got home that evening, we were treated by Allen with chocolate covered strawberries waiting in the room - thank you!!

Saturday morning, we had REALLY given up on all hopes of being fashionable and both decided it was a tennis shoe day all the way.  You'll notice fewer pics were taking on this day! 


Mom's right on trend with her neon shoes

Because the weather was a little bit gloomy, we decided we'd try our hand at the ticket lottery for Book of Mormon (we both really wanted to see but couldn't find reasonable tickets), but not before we started with a traditional NY breakfast...

Loving the NY bagels

We put in our names for the lottery (we had actually also tried the day before) and crossed our fingers - I had good luck with Wicked when it first came out - I won the second time we tried, so I was optimistic.

Sadly, we were not winners, but all hope was not lost...one of the people won (who just happened to be a Mormon from Utah!) had Spiderman tickets for that afternoon and since he won the Book of Mormon tickets, he didn't need them.  Mom and I scooped them up (I think we only paid like $40/ticket) and decided we'd see the Spiderman matinee instead!!

Killing an hour before the Spiderman performance

Heyyyy Spidey!

The show was good but the special effects were incredible.  I certainly understand why its the most expensive production in the history of Broadway.  Spiderman would jump from the highest balcony and "fly" over the crowd.  There was even a fight scene with Spiderman and the Green Goblin suspended above the crowd.  

Stopping in Rockefeller Center after the show

After sharing a burger and the most massive sundae you've seen at HB Burger, it was time for the event I had been looking forward to the very most......

My mothers day gift to my mom was tickets to Newsies.  She hadn't seen the movie, but I knew she'd love it.  Let me tell you, it did NOT disappoint!  I absolutely loved the show - definitely in my top 4 of all-time (others I'd put in there - Les Mis, Wicked & Titanic).  The music was fabulous and the dancing was great too - there were two dancers in the cast who had been on So You Think You Can Dance (Alex and Jess).  I think I've still had the music stuck in my head these last few weeks (hence the post title...I'm also loving The World Will Know).  I'd love to see it again and would recommend to anyone!

Sunday was our last day so we decided to we needed to take the subway at least once and headed out to Canal Street in Chinatown.  Mom found a cute wallet and scarf, but I was a little stressed by the "pressure buying." 

Taking the subway to Canal Street

After a street vendor lunch and a quick souvenir stop for Tim, it was time to head to the airport.    Saying goodbye was sad, but I know it was a vacation I'll remember forever.  Thanks for the wonderful memories and for such an amazing trip!!