Skating @ The Rock

Even before I moved to NYC I had planned on being in NYC for my birthday so I could celebrate by skating @ Rockefeller Center. However, since my b-day fell on a Wednesday this year I had to fudge a little and opt for the Saturday before. I let everyone know my plans and was fortunate enough to have 2 friends fly in and a few local friends join me for this "event".

The plan was to meet up @ 10am (I was told by a local, the earlier you get there the better - but I knew 9am would probably be pushing it for a Saturday Morn so thus the 10am.)

At any rate, we got in line and the line was not tiny. We found out that skating sessions were an hour and half long then they took a break for the Zamboni to go over the ice and then they started again. When we got in line, they were on said break. As we inched closer the reservation I had made for Brunch was inching closer, too.

After getting past the halfway mark my friends were determined to see it through and when all was said and done, we waited about an hour and half and paid $26 to skate 20 minutes minus the time it took to change into rental skates in a surprisingly tiny locker area. But we DID skate and scurried to get all the photo ops we could - including some with a skating Santa! ;) The 2 males in the group were also first time skaters! What a great place to make your first strides as a skater! It was my 2nd time and I had a moment of panic as I first got on the ice - what the hell was I thinking?! But soon I felt a tad more comfy - I think I managed to circle a couple times with pause for pics! ;)

Reservations were easily changed (thankfully) and as we were walking over one of my friends detoured to a street vendor. As she was looking @ ties, the rest of us started looking, too...out of the 6 of us, 4 made purchases and the vendor nearly missed the sale as he had stepped into a Cafe Europa a few feet away for a snack! I upgraded (?) to a hat with ear flaps for $5.

Brunch @ Cafe Un Deux Trois was a perfect capper to skating. It wasn't too fancy (they had crayons for you to draw on the paper tablecloth) and the food was fairly tasty and not terribly pricey for midtown Manhattan.
Once the meal was over, the group split up for the day. One of my out-of-town friends and I stuck together though, as we were going to try and get tickets to see Mary Poppins. On the way there we were sidetracked...by Ice T! Yep, Ice T is a spokesperson for Dell and they had him live and in person signing autographs and posing for pics (which later appeared on the ABC Jumbotron in Times Square) in the ABC studios building.

Back on track, we headed to the box office and got tix for $60 in the balcony.

Had a bit o time to kill before show time so we wandered over to Grand Central Station to see their light show.

Back to the theatre - When we went to find our seats we were surprised to discover that the "balcony" seats were in fact our own little side area - a small part of our view was obstructed (which would explain the price) but it was still a fun place to be perched! It had been a while since I'd seen the movie "Mary Poppins" so I'm not sure how much was added or changed but I do know it was quite a production! Very enjoyable (especially visually) and worth the money spent!

Post show it was time to celebrate another early birthday! We headed to Joe's Bar to have a drink with one of the first time skaters. I had never been to Joe's Bar before, but when walking in it felt like I had walked into a small town bar in Nebraska. There was even a guy sitting at the bar with a mullet! ;)

On the way to Joe's and back we ran into clumps of "Santas" that were participating in SantaCon. (Rather we tried to avoid running into them because at that point in the evening - the Santas were a little too jolly.)

Wonder if the skating Santa from earlier in the day was amongst that crowd?! Ho, ho, ho!