In the dark, there is freedom

Okaaaaaaaaay, let's talk New York vacation, eh? Just got back from a three day trip aaaand I have pictures! Yay!

The weather was not so bad. It stayed mostly in the 40s, and Thursday was overcast while it rained a bit on Friday. Of course, when I was leaving on Saturday, the sun came out, lol. Isn't that the way it always goes?

So, I took Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off from work. Wednesday was my relax and pack day, and then Wednesday night, Mom and I drove up to my uncle's house to spend the night. He lives less than an hour away from Orlando International Airport, so it saved us from having to get up at 4am. Then again, I'm not really sure if it was worth the aggravation of having to wait for my aunt and cousin to show up from their shopping trip. My uncle told them we'd be there between 8 and 8:30, and it was 9:30 when they finally showed up. They claim that they told my uncle they were leaving a key under the mat, but I don't know. I wouldn't put it past them to have placed the key under the mat after getting off the phone with my uncle, but whatever.

The bed in their guest room is soooooooo uncomfortable, and Mom was snoring, so I didn't really get a lot of sleep, which made getting at 6am a bitch. Mom woke up first, and then we got dressed and headed out. She dropped me off at the airport, blah blah blah, I ate breakfast and waited. The plane actually left on time (yay!) and I was in JFK by noon. Got my suitcase and hailed a cab, and I was checked into my hotel by 1:30.

The first day, I just kinda spent it wandering around the neighborhood. Apparently when I'm in New York, I forget that I'm a fat woman who rarely exercises because I tried to walk six city blocks. Talk about winded. I thought I was going to die. X(

I got up Friday and headed off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I saw about maaaybe a quarter of the exhibits, lol. I loved it though. I got some pictures!
( And here is where we go behind a cut for the first round of photos! )

So, I didn't take pictures of all of the Egyptian wing, but it was so awesome. They had another replica of a priest's tomb -- his name totally escapes me at the moment, but it started with a P and he was the head honcho of pharaoh ceremonies and stuff. Gah, if I had my museum map, I could tell you... Oh well. Anyway, they had actual pieces of the tomb walls behind glass, and they had it set up just the way the tomb would've been in Egypt. So the chambers and halls were really kinda narrow, and the guy said if you were claustrophobic that you probably shouldn't go in but I went in anyway because c'mon, how many times are you going to see something like that?

Then they had statues from Hatshepsut's tomb (she was an Egyptian queen) and all kinds of jewelry and artifacts, and it was just so neat thinking about the fact that I was staring at stuff that was made thousands of years ago. They had some of the sarcophagi that Egyptians were buried in (alas, no mummies) and all I can say is that they were really, really skinny and tiny people.

Next up after the Egyptian Wing was the American Wing and the first thing I saw...
( Going behind another cut for Round 2 of pics! )

Okay, so, the main reason that I planned this trip to New York was to see Nick Jonas in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Now, he replaced Darren Criss, who replaced Daniel Radcliffe. I really wanted to see Darren, but I couldn't swing the finances at the time. Getting to see Nick was such a pleasure though.

One of my goals for the trip was to track down Nick's billboard in Times Square. My friend emo_dj_steph lives in Queens, and we were planning to meet up and hang out anyway (because how often do you get the opportunity to meet an online friend when they're in your area?) and she's a Nick fan too, so I asked if she minded going on a hunt for the billboard.

She figured that the billboard was in the quintessential part of Times Square, on Broadway, where you see the ball drop and everything, so we started off on 42nd Street and started walking down Broadway, checking out all the advertisements. We didn't really see the billboard the first few blocks, so we kept walking and we finally started to get toward the end, and she said "You know, we're going to start running out of advertisements soon..."

We stopped at an intersection to wait for the crosswalk signal to give us the okay to cross, and I happened to be looking around at the ads and things across the street. There was this building with a black, shiny facade, and I gasped because I realized that there was a pair of familiar eyes reflected in the surface. So I pointed it out and was like "OMG, I see his eyes!" and she looked and said "Oh, okay, we must not be able to see it from the angle we're standing at, so let's cross the street."

So we did, and sure enough...
( Round 3 of pics )

( My review of Nick's performance in How to Succeed )

And then Saturday was spent flying home, LOL

What a trip though. I'm so glad I went. Oh, and apparently there was a Darren Criss Sex Riot while I was gone because outtakes from his People's Sexiest Man Alive shoot were released. Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng.

I'll be making an entry about that later when I go through all the photos and pick out my favorites.

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Darren Criss. He just fills me with such happiness.

Edit: They say a picture is worth a thousand words...