Those Last 75 Pounds: NYC Part 3 of . . .

NYC Part 1 & NYC Part 2 . . . because you just don't want to miss a moment.

Friday morning. Another beauty day. Chilly but not cold and not raining. :) In other words, perfect Michelle weather. Especially if I'm walking a ton and wearing a jacket. My plan this morning . . The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMoA). I need some culture yo. Since I'm not a museum-y person, I'd pre-booked a tour that looked like it was not your typical museum tour. Don't get me wrong, I love art. But it's like I only like the art I like and the rest of it bores me to death. Add in a dose of "it's too quiet in here" and another dose of "why is it so f*cking hot in here?" and I'm running for the nearest exit. If I can find it. Those damn places are a maze. Designed to keep you hot, exhausted and looking at art while you ponder "what the hell is that?" I digress. My tour, put on by Museum Hack was awesome. Loved it. Our guides were awesome and they switch off halfway through so you're not listening to the same person the whole time and they traipse you all over the place so you've seen a little bit of a lot of the museum.

When I arrived, I went in a little too far and was waiting by the wrong Egyptian mummy. Of course I'm not kidding. My tour time approached and was two minutes past so I started wandering and finally found the group. In short, I'm a dork. I walked past a super obvious mummy to find the mummy I hung out with for 10 minutes. The group seemed fun and right away I spot a guy wearing a CBC t-shirt. Turns out half my group is from Ontario. They lumped me in with that group of 6 and we were on our way. It wasn't until the end of the tour that our guide found out we weren't all together. Ah, Canadians. Love 'em. We were all buds by the end of the tour.

Huge tree, super old and cool decorations.

We checked out some weird stuff and some cool stuff. Most of my pictures are weird stuff hehe. Like this for example. A walking stick/musical instrument made out of a narwhal tusk.

All I could think of was poor Mr Narwhal. I said that oh so famous line and all my Canadian besties started laughing.

My awesome group.

After the tour was over and we parted ways, I ran back into the museum so I could see the impressionists. Particularly Monet. Of course I grew up with Monet posters on my wall with sticky-tack. Thankfully I've evolved to posters in IKEA frames with Command hooks. So you know, totally the same as these.

True story, I have this in my bathroom right now.

These paintings make me want to go to antique stores and find totally elaborate frames for my posters. Really step it up. I loved seeing these in real life. It was a little surreal.

After the museum, I didn't have any hard and fast plans for a little while and I was right at Central Park so now was the time for a stroll. I meandered at times using google maps to show me exactly where I was in the park. It's massive.

From here I realized I was really close to Shake Shack and I was also starving. That's the weird thing. I was walking so much, usually briskly and there is loads of places to eat but so often, I just wanted to see as much as possible that I usually ended up with just breakfast and a late supper. Maybe a snack in the middle. Walking down the street I saw the American Museum of Natural History. This was on my list of things to do and it is still on my list of things to do. I never made it back.

Got to Shake Shack and there was a line but from what I've heard, not nearly the line there is normally. Guess everyone was too full from Thanksgiving the night before!! I had the SmokeShack burger and fries. Described as a cheeseburger topped with all-natural applewood smoked bacon, chopped cherry pepper and ShackSauce. Delicious. And I felt so much better after.

Next stop . . . The Circle Line!!! Haha! I had heard of the Circle Line before from the movie One Fine Day with George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer. Their kids had a field trip on it and they were late so they literally missed the boat. I, however, did not. It was a very cool cruise. By that I mean it was cool and it was also FREEZING. It's a semi-circle cruise around Manhattan and when we headed out it was still daylight but quickly the sun started to set so we got both views of Manhattan.

At this point, my phone died and I had to start taking pictures with my point and shoot. Sad times. It's crazy that we are at a stage in technology that my PHONE takes better pictures than my CAMERA.

Brooklyn Bridge

Manhattan Bridge

Once I could tell we were pulling into the dock, I decided I was done with pictures and just frozen enough to head inside. I rode up top outside for the whole ride. We started out with about 60-70 people out there and by the end there was about a dozen hard core people out there. I'm cold but hey, I'm from Winnipeg. We are colder than Mars. Pretty sure I can take 40 degrees warmer than it was at home. I headed inside and while the boat was docking I struck up a conversation with a couple people. Turns out she lived in Jersey City and he was a friend of hers visiting from Texas! We were joking around and chatting about our trips and they invited me to come to Lucky Strike with them for drinks and appetizers. Of course, I'd love too!!! We headed across the street to the bar/bowling alley and had some delicious calamari and fish tacos and beer! When they asked what I was doing there and why I came by myself and I said it was for my 40th it was drinks all around and they treated me!

From there, we decided to hit Fifth Ave and do a little shopping and sight-seeing. We took a cab uptown and got out at Rockefeller Center. Here I am with my new friends :)

I actually did a little shopping too. I bought some super thin, super soft long underwear at UNIQLO. I'd never heard of it but really nice store and I love the long underwear. After that, I had to part ways but we made plans to meet up again the next day to go to the 9/11 Memorial.

I had to leave them because I had a ticket to the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular!!! I bought the latest showing so that I could have the most of the day. At first I wasn't going to go to this but after I got to NYC, I got an email pop up for sale tickets. Yes, I'd love to, especially for half price.