Statue of Liberty & all that jazz.

Wow, what an incredible day! This morning we met as the BYU group to go to the Statue of Liberty. Of course it took forever to get down there with the weekend subway schedules and the construction. There were about 12 of us traveling together, but 4 of us hadn't had a chance to grab anything for breakfast. So, we stopped at some little deli on the way and got separated from the rest of the group. We weren't too worried about it since we were just a few blocks away, we just ended up going straight south down the island instead of turning to go west, so we took the scenic route. It's a good thing we did though, because we ended up running into the Joseph Smith statue downtown, one of the things I really wanted to see while I was here. So, that was great.

Laurel, Chris, Sherilyn and I finally made it to Battery Park to catch the ferry and met up with Dr. Cressman, who gave us our tickets and then sent us to the front of the line since we were in a group. The was really nice, considering the fact that most people probably had to wait 2+ hours to get to the front, even at 8am! I LOVED the Statue of Liberty and took TONS of pictures...on the way there, on the island, in the statue, from the statue, leaving the island...lots! I wanted to catch up with Lyndsey & Brandon and the others that we had started with, but they were further through the process, so we didn't see them until later. I really enjoyed the staute though and was glad that it was compliments of the BYU program, because it would have been fairly pricey. The ferry first drops you off at the island and then goes to Ellis Island before taking you to Manhattan. I was between so many different groups of BYU students the entire day, that I think I ended up seeing every individual in the process of the day. It was a lot of fun. I didn't get off at Ellis Island because I had called my dad and found out that we didn't have anyone from our family go through there that he knew of.

It was hot, I was tired and hungry, so I decided not to get off, along with a few other BYU students. We got back to the island and Angie Wallace, Angela Fischer and I went to Little Italy to meet up with Lyndsey, Brandon, Meridth and her friend Cricket for lunch at this cute little restaurant called Da'Nico. We sat in the patio area out back and even though it was a steaming hot day, it was nice, cool and relaxing. The service was great! Their lunch menu came with bread appetizers, a meal with a pasta and salad, zappoles for dessert and was even a great deal! I ended up paying $12 something and that's only because my meal was a shrimp pasta. It was fabulous!! Afterwards, everyone split, but I ended up staying with Angie and looking around Chinatown. She needed to find some knockoff purses for her mom and sister and it isn't exactly the most safe place to go by yourself, so I went with her. I ended up getting this cute little pink Chinese outfit for Payton, but that's about it. Throughout all of Chinatown, there are people on the streets who will come up to you as Americans, and say "handbag?". If you're looking for knockoffs, that's when you follow. They'll take you to some obscure apartment somewhere that usually has no a/c and will show you all their purses. In one of the places, we passed their little "factory" where they were making the purses, too. In all honesty, I didn't really feel good about the situation and just kept thinking...wouldn't today be the perfect day for someone to break in and do a bust and find me there. Oh geez. I decided since I didn't feel good about it, I definitely wouldn't consider buying anything from those places. It was so hot outside and we were just longing for water and coolness.

After we went through Chinatown and Angie found what she was looking for, we headed to Rice to Riches, which is located at the corner of Spring and Mulberry, the northern part of little Italy, south of Houston Street (pronounce How-stun here). On our way we ended up being in an Italian parade, which was highly entertaining, although we didn't know what was going on until we got to the front of it. :o) Rice to Riches was great. It appears on a few movies and was given pretty good coverage in the movie Hitch where they even show the front of the store for a few seconds. It's a rice pudding place, and other than the one time I had rice pudding on the last day of school in Provo, I had never had it. But it was great! My favorite one was the chocolate chip. I sure hope that Pudding on the Rice in Provo has it! I also drank 2 entire water bottles just while we were there! It was a hot day.

Angie and I got onto the subway and she was meeting up with some friends at Central Park. I was going to go to Grand Central to catch the 7 and head back to the I-House. I think it was like 2pm and Lyndsey and Brandon wanted as many people to go to the Wicked lottery at 5:30pm to help them win tickets (since Brandon was in town and he had never seen it. I was tired though and had decided I would only help if I was still out and about. I got on the subway though and my plans changed...a young boy and his dad had a bag from the new Apple store that had opened. My dad asked me about it the other day when it had its grand opening, but I didn't know where it was at. So, I asked them where the store was and decided I would go for dad's sake and take a picture. Besides, I had heard that it was pretty cool -- a glass cube above ground, or something of the sort. So, I decided to go on up and check it out.

On my way to the Apple store, I found FAO Schwartz, the toy store. It was one of the places that I wanted to check out while I was in New York, so I was excited to check it out. I couldn’t believe the size, costs and quality of some of their products. The store was huge and everything was so nice! There was a seemingly life-size elephant and baby elephants for sale. I think the big one was $13,000 and the small ones were like $5,000. They were pretty cool though. That was just on the main floor. After that I went up the escalator to the second floor, where the real store is unveiled. Holy cow! I couldn’t believe the stuff up there. The first thing you see when you go up is the giant floor keyboard that Tom Hanks played on the movie BIG in 1988. You can buy a keyboard just like it, and only for $250,000. They also have a place where you can custom design a doll, find all the collector Barbies, even Tammy dolls, and even a nursery (with a nurse and all!!) set up with the dolls in the beds. I saw a life size Hagrid, Wookie and Darth Vader, each made COMPLETELY of Legos. There was also a 3-D movie ride inside the store, too, but I didn’t go on it because there was a little line. They had every game you can possibly imagine and every type of stuffed animal you could ever want. Not everything is super overpriced like the things I mentioned above, but of course those are the things that stick out the most.

It turns out that the Apple store was located right next to FAO Schwartz so I got to check it out, which was pretty cool. It really is just a glass cube above the store and the entire store is underground (see picture below). After that I just walked down 5th Avenue towards the Gershwin Theatre (where Wicked is) and checked it all out. I passed Tiffany & Co., the NBA Store, Trump Tower (but this is the one where they have the office they use on The Apprentice) and lots of other places. I stopped in the Disney store, which is 4 floors tall and filled with the coolest stuff. I couldn’t believe it. There were lots of life size Disney statues and products. There was even a huge tub of Mr. Potato Head products that you create your own. They had bodies and then various parts that you could pick and choose from, including a pair of Disney ears for hats and every type of outfit you can imagine. It was so cool!

I passed through Rockefeller Center and watched a man making a giant sandcastle on board. It was pretty cool! I stopped at Godiva and got a chocolate milk shake. I took a picture with NBC headquarters and Radio City Music Hall. I made my way over to the Gershwin Theatre and put my name in the Wicked lottery to attempt to win for Lyndsey and Brandon. There were about 10 BYU people there in total, but only 3 of us trying to get tickets for Lyndsey and Brandon (other than themselves). We weren’t really expecting to win since it was the Saturday of a holiday weekend (Memorial Day). About 7 names later…mine was drawn! I won the Wicked lottery!! I couldn’t even believe it! So crazy! Good thing I had already been. :o) After we got the tickets, we walked down to the Ed Sullivan Theater to take a picture in front of the David Letterman show and the Hello Deli. We walked over to Lindy’s to grab a bite to eat, but it was so stinkin expensive and I was so tired, that I decided I was just going to wait until I got home. They’re supposed to be famous for their cheesecake, but I wasn’t feelin it and I wasn’t super hungry anyway.

So, I just got water and then I decided to walk up to Columbus Circle to check it out. On my way I saw one of the three mini Statues of Liberty on Manhattan Island. I went to take a picture of it and instead, it looked like I was wearing the crown! It was a sign. That’s how much I love the Statue of Liberty! :o) I also saw Carnegie Hall, the Carnegie Deli, and ran into the edge of Central Park, another on my MUST see list. Then, I walked over to 59th street to visit Columbus Circle where there was…surprise, surprise, ANOTHER Trump building. The Time Warner center is also there which is a kind of mall, but with no real stores in it…just a bunch of rich fancy ones. I went to the third floor to take a picture of Columbus Circle (it’s a huge roundabout with a tall pole and a statue of Columbus on top), but couldn’t get any good ones because of the lighting. On the third floor of the building though there was this Sony electronic game thing that you could touch and move things around and check out parts of the city. It was cool. It reminded me of something out of Mission Impossible…I think that’s the movie…but it’s definitely something with Tom Cruise in it. Anyway, that was neat. I went into Borders on the second floor and found some NYC maps that I picked up of the subway system, bus system and then the businesses on Manhattan. I think they’ll be really helpful.

As I was going down into the subway, Laurel called me. She was at the I-House and wanted to go to dinner since the I-House was closed. I forgot about that, so we decided to meet at the subway and I would still get off at 125th and she would meet me there and we would figure out what to do for dinner (since it’s the weekend, I expected to have to go all the way to 145th and then catch it down, but the construction was done so I just went straight to 125th). We decided to get off at 116 and walk around to find some food and then ended up walking down to Tom’s Restaurant at about 112th. The food wasn’t too bad and thankfully was still open since it was almost 10pm. The restaurant was used in Seinfeld where Jerry and friends hung out; in the show it was called Monk’s Restaurant. It was also used for something else, but I don’t remember what. After we ate we walked all the way back to 125th and just enjoyed the evening.

By the end of the day, I’m pretty sure I had walked several miles. It was a long, long day, but a great one! I saw everything I wanted to see and even had some fun surprises. It was great!!

Well, I’m exhausted. G’night.

-mk

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So I FINALLY posted some pictures from this day. I took more than 150 pictures over the course of the day (mostly of the Statue of Liberty) so that's why it has taken me forever. Obviously I can't publish all of them on here, so here are just a few things I enjoyed.


Laurel & I from Liberty Island with Manhattan in the back. I obviously thought something was pretty funny, I just don't know what.




Just below Lady Liberty.




Man, I love this lady! (And I have like 85 pictures to prove it!)


John and I on the ferry leaving Liberty Island.


Ellis Island


The globe that once stood between the World Trade Center towers. It now resides in Battery Park as a temporary memorial of those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.


Little Italy!


Angela & Angie at Da'Nico.


Chinatown. I didn't take this picture for this reason, but can someone please explain to me what the yellow sign means? "Amy, May, Hair, Nar"



I'm guessing the Amy from the yellow sign was referring to Amy DeMott because it was found on the same street as this sign. I'm sure what your name REALLY means is Amy of (de) Mott. It's all making sense now...



The Grand Marshall of the random Italian parade that Angie and I were in. We were walking down the street and soon realized we were behind a band. So, we thought the band was just walking through the streets. Soon, we saw pageant queens and parade banners. We finally walked our way to the front to see what was going on and found out that this guy was leading it all. I wonder who he is...



With a sign like that, who wouldn't buy some?




A lifesize Hagrid made completely of Legos at FAO Schwartz.



The new Apple store on 5th Avenue. The entire store is underground and this is all you see of it.



Radio City Music Hall, across from NBC, down the street from Rockefeller Center.




Lyndsey & I in front of the David Letterman show.



I guess I like her so much that I became her! I found this statue on the street and when I tried to take a picture of myself, I was wearing the crown instead of her!



On my little adventure I ran into Central Park.




The NBC Building at Rockefeller Center.



Carnegie Hall

Wolverine & Friends

Man I love holidays in New York! Today we got out of work early to "prepare for the holiday weekend." But first, it started off with a catered picnic lunch in the office, complete with little sandwiches, watermelon and sand shovels for the pasta salads. It was fun. We got out of work at 3:30 (the latest of all the other interns, meaning NYC starts early!).

Afterwards, I met up with Lyndsey to do some quick shopping around. I went inside the world's largest Macy's, also famous for its Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was 8 stories and had 10 restaurants in it. It covers and entire city block and is HUGE!!! Outside I found this sign and thought of you, Dad. How true it is. :o)

We went back to the I-House to get ready for our Friday night plans--XMen 3. We started off by making up for last night's lack of celebration dinner and went to Spice (Thai restaurant) on the Northeast side of town. We've been to the one near NYU before but it's always packed. This other branch had no wait and was a lot quieter and calmer. Afterwards we went for ice cream at Maggie Moo's and headed to Grand Central Station to get in the right direction. We decided to walk to Times Square instead, where the movie was playing. On our way, we walked past the New York City Public Library. I'll have to go and take pictures another time because it was too dark to get much out of them. We also saw the Empire State Building all lit up in red, white and blue for memorial day and fleet week.

We watched the movie at an AMC theatre right off of 42nd street & Times Square. It was the most money I've ever paid for a movie ticket (I'd rather not say how much), but the movie was great and totally worth it. To get to the theatre, we had to ride up 3 stories of escalators. Then, when we got into the theatre it was HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE. Granted it was opening night, but I have never seen a theater that big in my life! The seats were super comfortable and we were sitting in great seats. There were about 15 of us BYU interns that went to the movie together. The engine in the basement of the theater broke so the air situation was a little less than desirable, but the great movie made it less noticeable. If you haven't seen XMen yet, but plan to make sure you stay after the credits. There is an important clip you need to see afterwards to get the full story. Highly recommended movie!

Anyway, time for bed. We've got to get up early in the morning for the Statue of Liberty. G'night!

-mk



The Chrysler Building lit up at night (on our way to Times Square).


Becca Foster, Lyndsey Payzant & Brandon Wells waiting for the movie to start. Lyndsey's ring needs to be re-sized so she's been wearing it on her pointer finger so it won't fall off.


Me & Taylor Simmons waiting for the movie to start.


Brandon Wells...the movie's about to begin!


Brandon and Lyndsey give a tired and cheesy grin on the subway ride home after the movie.

It's official!

For those of you who have been reading my blog for the last 2 weeks and thinking of what a bum I am...the secret's out so now you can know.

Lyndsey Payzant has been dating Brandon Wells for the last several months. Lyndsey is here in New York as an intern and Brandon just started his first "real world" job in San Francisco. They still talk on the phone every night and wish they were together. They've been talking about the m-word and Lyndsey even picked out a ring. Well, for the last 2 weeks, I've been helping Brandon with all the details of him flying out here to surprise Lyndsey and propose. I've had lots of late nights and although I had plenty of exciting new details to share. However, because Lyndsey, amongst other BYU interns actually read this blog, I couldn't post anything up here. I've included a picture of them right after it all happened. Lyndsey started to cry in this one. They're planning on September/October in San Diego.

How it all happened:

Lyndsey's favorite building is the Empire State Building and her favorite movie is Sleepless in Seattle. So, as soon as the decision was made for him to come out here to propose, it was a no brainer that it would happen at the Empire State Building (ESB). Last week was Meridith's birthday and she (already knowing that Brandon was flying out to propose at the ESB) told Lyndsey she wanted to go there for her birthday, but because it was Lyndsey's favorite building, she wanted her to go along too. Then, later in the week she said that Thursday would be a good day to go. I "thought about it" and told her that Thursday actually turned out to be the best option for me, too. Last night I tried to get Lyndsey to buy her ticket online but she decided not to. I could tell that she was trying to back out, but since that wasn't really an option, I wasn't encouraging it. Then, this morning on the train she told me how she didn't really want to go (she has already been before and didn't want to fork over the money to do it). I told her I would submit $2 into the Lyndsey-go-to-the-ESB fund and she said she didn't want me to pay for it either, but she felt bad backing out on Meridith. Knowing Lyndsey I knew that she would probably call me after work and tell me she was at the I-House already, so I called her during lunch and told her I already bought her a ticket so now she HAD to go. :o) After work she was just taking her time, stopping at Old Navy and doing some shopping and just strolling along. Brandon flew into New York this afternoon and was just waiting for us at the top of the tower.

Once we got up there, I walked around by myself because it was so crowded. I really went to find Brandon and to talk to him one last time about how the setup would work. I was to get Lyndsey to take a picture of Meridith and I from the southwest corner (because there were fewer people) and while she was taking it, he would sneak up behind her and say hello. Here's the picture she took while Brandon was behind her. Is it that obvious I was watching him come? :o)

He said hello and she turned to look at him. Her first response was, "WHAT?! What are you doing here? Oh my gosh. Hi" (with kisses in between all the phrases). Then she asked him one more time..."What are you doing here?" So then Brandon got down on one knee and pulled at the ring. As he did Lyndsey knew immediately what was happening..."Oh my gosh! No you didn't. No way!" He popped the question and it was over. Lyndsey was in so much shock because she had no idea. It was really funny. So, that's what's been going on.

Work was fine but I'm seriously so exhausted. Too many late nights. I fell asleep in a deli today during my lunch break so I need to get some sleep and avoid doing the same thing tomorrow at work. :o)

Congrats, Lyndsey & Brandon!

-mk

Taylor takes the cake

Tonight was the American Idol finals and Taylor Hicks won. He's good and all, but not who I would have picked. I was part of the other large percentage of Americans who figured that Kathryn would win it because she had the "Idol" look so I stopped voting after the first 3 weeks of competition. I think Taylor is very talented, but I'll admit, I through it was going to go the other way around.

That's about all that I have to write about today. I did some laundry and watched the Idol Finale with about 10 BYU interns so that was fun.

Anyway, its late.

-mk

What's in a name?

I finished up some projects at work today and then things were slow...until an hour before the office closed. I was all the sudden flooded with three important, large projects that needed to be done by the end of the day. Luckily, Melissa's work wasn't so timely so she was able to help me out.

After work she and I met up with Brandon (her husband) and Laurel to go to dinner and Serendipity for dessert. We ate dinner at the Bread Factory and I had this awesome pasta. It's fun there because you pick everything that goes in it...EVERYTHING. It was really good. Afterwards we went to Serendipity where we waited for about a half hour before being seated. While we waited we walked down the street to Dylan's Candy Shop. It's a child's dream and takes an adult spinning into youth again. It was two stories of candy from wall to wall, with t-shirts, pillows, gift baskets, everything, with candy on it. Even the stairs are lit with candy between the light and the cover of the stairs. There's an ice cream shop within the store and the tables have glass tops, under which candy creates the design of the table. It was really just a fun store! (Tomorrow night's project for me is to do pictures so I'll post those soon).

We went to Serendipity afterwards and ordered dessert. I must say, I wasn't all tha timpressed with the place. I expected it to be a nice, pleasant experience. Instead, I found a clutter hut of all sorts of random and sometimes inappropriate just...junk! I thought it would be a cute little family restaurant, but it wasn't. It was pretty trashy. I knew that it was going to be expensive and that the minimum payment per person was $6.50. What I got was pretty good for the most part (chocolate cake with ice cream) but it cost more than I would have liked to have paid and the service wasn't fabulous. Everyone was crunched in really tight and to be honest, going there again is an experience I could live without. It was cool to be able to say I've been there, especially since several movies have been filmed there at one point or another (Serendipity, One Fine Day, etc). There's a place that Dr. Wilson was telling me about, so I think we'll try there next week.

I had a conference committee call at 10pm and now it's done and after midnight so I'm exhausted and headed to bed (which is why I'll post tomorrow).

G'night.

-mk

Monday, monday...ba da, ba da da da

There really isn't anything too exciting to report today except for the fact that I finished DaVinci Code! It was really good. After work I came home and read the last 100 pages of the book. Now I'm getting ready to start Trust or Consequences by Al Golin. We have to read it and write a paper on it for internship credit so that's my next task at hand.

I also got a lot of pictures from Melissa and Laurel so soon (I know I keep saying this), but soon I'm going to have all the pictures updated.

That's about it for tonight. Nothing exciting happened at work and like I said, I read all night. So, peace out!

-mk

Dreams & life

This morning I had a very interesting experience, one that I knew would happen sooner or later to some effect, but I certainly wasn't expecting it now.

Last night, Josh G., a guy I dated in high school, was in my dream. Every once in a while I'll drop him a line to see how he's doing and after him being in my dream last night, this morning was no different. Last I spoke with him I thought he mentioned something about making a record (he plays guitar) but I wasn't sure so I decided to Google him first to see if anything came up. I wanted my email to sound intelligent, ya know. I didn't find a record, but instead I found that he had a myspace account. I was excited to see what he was up to and find out about his life. But there was one surprise on there I wasn't prepared to find. Josh was married. Being the only guy I've ever dated, it was kind of weird, anyway. But I think what shocked me most is that he didn't even tell me or the rest of our friends from high school. There was a group of 5 of us that were really close and I think MAYBE one of the guys heard, but the rest of us didn't even know. I sent him an email congratulating him, likely with him being as surprised that I found out as I was surprised to find out myself. I'm really happy for him. I honestly am. There were times I wondered what would become of him, particularly recalling the difficulty he had in sharing how he felt about life and his family. So the fact that he's been able to overcome that enough to get married is great! It's just weird that he didn't tell any of us when I just spoke to him in August and I believe he got married in November/December. Anyway, it was just weird. From the looks of things, he and his wife, Shana now live in Austin.

Before church we went to Caitlin Winmill's apartment as interns to get our visiting teaching assignments for this month and next. It was nice to be in an actual apartment as see what they're like around here. The answer is small...but nice. Caitlin was actually in my freshman ward at BYU so it's fun to see someone else I know here outside of the interns. Afterwards, we went to church together and I had some good lessons and talks there. Sunday school was much better this week, likely because we actually had someone who was excited about the lesson.

The 5 Browns gave a fireside tonight so they were at our ward today, parents included. The fireside was...interesting. Their music is incredible, but the fireside definitely could have done without the "talks." I'll let you all form your own opinion about the family, but the music was great. They're a little difficult for me to watch perform, but other than that, they're good. For those of you who have been to the Manhattan Stake Center (the one that is in the building of the temple), know that the space in that building doesn't permit five pianos to be in the same room for obvious reasons. So, they showed a video of them and some of the things they've done and then each of the kids participated in one musical number or another. The oldest son, Gregory, who I think is actually the 3rd child, did an AWESOME job! The oldest, Desiree (I think that's her name) also did a great job and her husband, Brian, who plays the violin, participated on a couple songs, as well. Very talented kids.

We came home and ate dinner after a very long day and Laurel and I sat in my room and talked for about 2 hours. It was really nice and its fun to just sit and heart to heart talks with good friends.

New York has been good for me and has really taught me a lot about myself and others. I'm really grateful for this experience. I hope you're all doing well!

-mk