Travel Yayas: Saturday.... and our NYC Finale

Here it is – the last day and the wrap up. I’ve been slow in getting these last few out, but I’ve been enjoying the luxury of time. So this is it, the final chapter. We had some random quotes that didn’t make previous entries (I’ll post at the end), and I also wanted to add some pictures that I left out of Friday’s blog. I wanted you to see the lady with the parrot (who, incidentally we saw later in Central Park with her parrot perched on her park bench as she read), the yellow highlighter hair, and Dana’s panoramic photo of our view at Yankee’s Stadium.

Also at the end, we had a goal to post pictures of the 8 things that we should never post pictures of… we’ll see how we did. And I’ll post a list of what we did and who we saw. J

Parrots in the Mac Store

The yellow doesn't show as well in the pic - but you get the idea

My swamp water

Now, notice the level of her tea - HOURS after she got it

Also, I found a picture of BP on the train up to the game with her tea – now keep in mind that this is her first tea and that the rest of us have had two glasses of tea this size (and finished them) while we sat in the tea shop for a period of at least an hour - and a picture of my "swamp water" tea. So BP has been able to drink this much tea in a very long period of time.

OH!And we reviewed video of us at the Today show and I captured some frames of our moments of greatness just in case you blinked. Also at the end, we had a goal to post pictures of the 8 things that we should never post pictures of… we’ll see how we did. And I’ll post a list of what we did and who we saw. J

Me, BMc and BP with Al on air

I'm in the white, BM in the teal and BP in the peach

Here we are with Matthew...

And with Hoda and Kathie Lee

It’s Saturday, our last day, our 9^th day in the city; and today we have thoughts of HOME! We are walking wounded. I have a blister that no shoe I have will accommodate, Becki has knee twinges that we’re still not to speak of, BM has a red rash, BP has foot issues and her shins are starting to hurt… Dana is the only one that I haven’t heard about aches or pains, but she can be stoically quiet about that stuff sometimes, so I’m sure that there’s something.

We clean up the apt and I finish up the Thursday blog – yes it’s Saturday and I’m finishing the Thursday blog (this is how I got so far behind). I swear Thursday kicked my hiney in so many ways. I was so brain dead that I really didn't take notes during the day, it just took longer to reconstruct it with the detail that we like (I know it makes for a book, but it's for us and the ya-yas that couldn’t make the trip to remember it by). I didn't do anything to it on Thursday, I needed to just go to bed. Then I worked on it Friday morning, and again last night until about 3:00 (we all got to bed late after the Yankee game and the Empire State building, so it pushed back my time to work on it too)... Then I finished it up today while we were all packing. It was the day that would never end.

People have asked how I managed to remember the amount of detail that I included in the blog, and typically my process is to write notes in complete thoughts as they happen, the more complete the better. Instead of writing a quick text to someone, I just have a notepad open and keep little quotes or moments documented as we go – the others have even gotten into the habit of turning to me and saying “blog that”. I’ll have time while we’re on the train or cooling off with our tea, and then I just string together the stories. Even that takes a little while, but it's fun, not tedious. With little or no notes, it’s tedious; more work and the blog doesn’t have the same feel to it.

So Saturday… we clean up and get packed. Dana has been "finishing packing" for two (or maybe three) days now. I’ve been chuckling at her every time she says that, we get back and we’ll sit around, or I’ll work on the blog, and Dana packs. I'm not sure how to take that long to pack - but certainly not the model packer, I'm definitely on the other end of the packing spectrum. We leave in a few hours and I haven’t even given a thought toward packing, I just pile things that are mine together in a corner and put them all in my bag. I think Dana must have a plan and a system. She’s a master packer. If you need a packer, she’s your girl. I think we may need to make a tutorial video on packing with Dana as our instructor… Ok Dana, I’ll stop razzing you about packing… I kid.

We eat up the remaining food or at least nibble on the rest of the crumb cake, the black and white cookie (it's more like the texture of a cake than a cookie, it's like a "cake cookie". I tried one a few days ago from Carve and talked about it...even blogged about it… Mentioned it again
today...). And then BP tries the cookie -it's her cookie from the Cake boss - and she exclaims, "HEY! This really is like a cake. Like it’s like a CAKE, like a cake cookie...". Um yes I've been saying that. BP says "I know that, but I didn't think that it was like a cake-cake"... It's not, I tell her. “It's like a cake-cookie”.

The Brittanys head out to Time Square for one last trip, they have last minute items them want to get. Bmc has been comparison shopping for hoodies and she's going back for the one that she loves. It's an iconic "I heart NY" sweatshirt, but it's embroidered instead of screen printed. They get one last hotdog from a street vendor and he’s really flirting with BP – he thinks that she’s like 17 and says that BMc looks 20… and he really, really, really hopes they had a good time in NYC.

Black and white cookie

Our land lady Ludy (say that 5 times fast) comes by and offers advice on how to get back to the
airport by the subway (there are many transfers and busses are involved). We're just going to take a taxi. It's about a $30 trip total and when we split it, it's definitely worth it - but she
continues to explain the process in great detail despite acknowledging that a taxi is a good decision. We gave her a deposit for damages and she doesn't look around at all, but she gives
us the full deposit back and just asks us how our trip was. We thank her for the advice about the unlimited metro pass - we got our money's worth out of it for sure. It was great to have to freedom to be able to get on any train or bus that we wanted without worrying about the fare. The city of New York lost out on that deal.

It’s about 11:00 and Ludy has previously told us that we could be out by 1:00, but has amended that to 12:00 because the people need to clean and she has new people coming at 1:00 to check in. That’s cool – we’re flexible, we’re interpreters. I’m now jealous of Dana’s three days of packing and wondering why I didn’t do that. J We text the girls that they have an hour less then we thought, so they start to head back – I get the blog up and starting gathering things from the apt and throwing it in a pile. Everyone is cleaning and sorting stuff and food – and while it’s earlier than we expected, we figure that we might as well head to the airport. By the time we get packed and find a place for our bags and get some place, it will be time to go anyway. And we’re not really sure how long it will take us to get to the airport and get checked in.

We say goodbye to our little apt – it served us well. I’m a big fan of roomarama.com – if you’re going on a trip I recommend it. It’s a safe and secure way to negotiate a vacation rental. We used it all through Europe and it’s the 2^nd time I’ve used it in NYC. It’s much better than a hotel in my opinion (especially in New York where the hotel tax is nearly the price of your room, so even if you think you got a good deal on a room, double that) – and you get your own kitchen so you can buy food and eat cheaply for breakfast or snacks. And because it’s negotiated through a 3^rd party it’s safer and there is a system for handling issues. You can use it to go almost anywhere, check it out.

We head down to the lobby to talk to the concierge about calling a cab since we need one that will fit 5 people and bags – but he’s not into that. He says that we just head outside and hail a cab. I am not a fan of this plan. While there are MANY cabs out there, we need a specific cab, and I think that may take a while to randomly drive by where we are, and in the meantime we’re wandering the streets with all our bags (not really concerned about the safety factor as much as we’re tired and these bags are cumbersome). So in short, I LOVE THIS PLAN. I get a little dramatic at this point – I’m so grateful for travelling companions who put up with my antics. The doorman of our building is supposed to help us hail a cab, but he’s a little green – he says that he JUST got to NYC, like *JUST* - we tell him we’re going to Laguardia and he doesn’t know where that is… its in Queens… I don’t know where that is… across the Brooklyn Bridge.. I don’t know where that is… EAST. Across the river… I don’t know where that is… Ok. You are so helpful during this time of need. I’m not sure that he knows where HE is.

We walk a few feet in the direction of 9^th Ave because there will be more cabs down that way than on 50^th, and as we walk we come to the conclusion that we’re going to have to take two cabs – and it’s probably practical anyway because we’re on two separate flights. BMc and I booked on Delta and the other 3 are on Southwest. We decide that in the future we will all book together, and the flight will be non-stop. None of this all day travel thing with lay-overs. We’re all leaving at about 3:30, but BMc and I are on a direct flight and will be home by 5:30pm. The others have a 3 hour layover in Baltimore and won’t be home until 9:30. The Southwest flight has already been delayed, but because of the layover it won’t effect them really.

As soon as we decide that we’ll probably need to take two cabs, Dana is on it! She hails a cab like a pro – the speed of it really surprises the rest of us. It was like it was barely out of our mouths… and BAM, cab! BMc and I load up because our flight is leaving first because of their delay – and we part way pretty abruptly. The others continue walking down toward 9^th Ave and we wave goodbye – See you in St. Louis! (They’re parked at my house, so I’ll be going back to the airport to pick them up). Becki texts and says that at the time she didn’t realize that this was goodbye – we wouldn’t be seeing each other until we landed since we were at different terminals…

BMc and I have a nice cabby – he feels the need to justify all of his traffic decisions. He’s taking the tunnel if that’s ok… we have no idea – he could totally be taking us for a ride (ha!). We’re flying out on Delta and there are two terminals for Delta: Delta and Delta Shuttle.. but he takes us to terminal D (for Delta). There is quite a line to check in, and then once you do the check in you have to wait in another line to drop off your checked bags. BMc and I have developed system of sharing a checked bag so that we’re not both paying and it’s worked well for us. By the time we’ve dropped off the bag we get a text from the others that they’re through security. WHAT? How did we leave first and they’re already through? We don’t even have security in sight – turns out that we are Delta Shuttle, so we have to go to C terminal. Just before we head out the door to find the bus I spot the sign that I posted on Facebook that make for fun conversation. I turn to Britt and ask her what she sees… I wish I had a picture of her face! Just picture wide eyes and wide mouth…

Seen at the airport - "vagina" in an energy ad

We head outside (heat) with our bags and wait for what seems like forever in the line for the bus to the other terminal. We get a text that the others are at their gate. Dude. A bus pulls up and only 5 people can get on. The bus is like a small school bus, the system seems flawed. At the stop the driver has to get out and get out the bags of the people getting off the bus, load the bags of the people getting on the bus, and then move on to the next terminal. It’s a much slower system than when BMc arrived and headed over to the Southwest terminal to meet the others. There was this huge bus like a city bus, you got on with your bags and put them in a luggage rack if you felt you needed to; but it was very efficient. I’m wondering where that bus is, and I ask the Delta lady that is helping keep the people in line in check (not very well, there are a lot of crabby people who have been waiting for a bus for a long time and then told there wasn’t enough room)… I ask about the big bus and she cocks her head and looks at me like I’m speaking another language. I go into further detail, it’s a large bus, big, white, you get on with your bags, it stops at each terminal… We don’t have that. What?? I say, “Well, that’s not true because we used that bus when we arrived – you can’t tell me that it doesn’t exist – we used it”… Oh, do you mean the A-C terminal bus? Well… does it fit the description that I have been giving you? Yes? Well then I think that must be the bus… I don’t really get any further answers from her because another short bus arrives. Some people are so cranky that they’re defying the rules and want to just get on the bus with their luggage – that is nipped in the bud. You MUST load your bag at the back and then get on the bus, or you don’t get on the bus. The bus has stopped further back than the other bus, so now the people at the back of the line are of the mind that they’re at the front of the line and that doesn’t set well with those of us that have seen more than one bus come and go… but its an empty bus and we all get on and get going eventually. As we’re get going we spot the other kind of bus on the inside track of the terminals – while our bus has to go through regular traffic and takes a long time to get from terminal to terminal. We figure that maybe the other bus is owned by the airport, and may be for arriving flights, not departing – but it sure beats this Delta bus.

We eventually get to our terminal and it’s vacant. If we would have gone there first there would have been no lines – but we still have plenty of time. We are pretty happy that we left for the airport when we did, we would have been nervous if we had left later with all the time it has taken us to get to this point. Security is a breeze – although I do get stopped because I have a foot bandage. I wrapped a little of self-sticking bandage around the bottom of my foot to keep the blister from rubbing. They swab it and do their bomb chemical test on it; but it’s the nicest group of TSA people I’ve ever seen. We get to the gate and find food – BMc wanted one last slice of New York pizza, but that’s not an option. We do have a sit down place with interesting sandwiches (very good) – Britt has a pastrami and I have a Cuban. The service is just awful though – they know that they’re the only game in the terminal and if you don’t like their service you can just go hungry. I consider that at some point while standing at the bar doing by best impersonation of “the invisible man”… at some point my disguise defies be and they actually see me, only to tell me that it will be just a minute… anyway, we eventually eat and hang out waiting for the flight. In the bathroom I overhear a sweet little girl and her mother – I didn’t get to see her, but she sounds to be about 3 or 4… she’s saying “Come on honeybun, let’s go honeybun” in a cute little sing song voice. Her mother asks, “Honeybun?” and she says, “That’s what I call myself!” Awww… it was so great. I love seeing glimpses of that kind of power and confidence in little girls (before it’s crushed and jaded) ….

Our plane is FULL – there are kids all around us and we are so interesting to them; like we’re the monkeys in the zoo. There is a little girl about 1 or 2 years old in the seat in front of BMC and she’s just STARING at Britt through the crack in the seat. Britt stares back and even startles the girl by saying “HEY!” (when Britt is startled by looking up to eyeballs peering at her through the crack) – it doesn’t make her any less interesting. The girl’s brother is sitting in the row in front of us but across the aisle. He takes no shame in just constantly staring. He lays on his arm rest, head on folded hands, and is looking at me like I’m tv. His father tries to get him to turn around, his mother even pushes his face (lovingly), trying to get him to turn around, but he is not to be swayed. I feel a little like Snoop Dogg at a Yankee’s game…

Gotcha!

I overhear our stewardess talking to the girls behind us, they’re about 10 years old, two of them travelling with what looks like an older sister about 18 years old. She asks them, “Hey, are you the rollercoaster girl?” They say yes, and talk about how they got to be on the Today Show and they met Kathie Lee and Hoda – and Channing Tatum was on that day so they chatted with him in the green room. I’m trying to place “roller coaster girl” and keep listening – they talk about how funny her dad was screaming – and I know who they are! We had seen their video on the Today Show – the youtube video is called “Never Again Grace”. She and her father were on a ride and he’s screaming like a little girl, and she’s just laughing and having a great time. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeBUCvxlPEk) – it’s really funny, you should check it out. We hear all the back story. They were at a park and the ride had video camera in the seats; instead of looking at pictures of you after the ride, you can watch and purchase your video. Grace really wanted to ride it, but because of her age she had to have an adult with her. Her mother usually goes on the rides with her, but she wasn’t there, so her dad who hates these rides, went. They start the ride and his reaction is immediate – his face looks like a 3-month old crying baby stuck on a adult’s body, that’s what makes it so funny. They actually stop the ride before it’s supposed to be over because he’s screaming so much – so you see the ride stop and then him say, “oh we’re going again?”… he doesn’t want Grace to have to get off, so he continues. They get off the ride and they head down to where you can watch the videos and there is a HUGE crowd gathered around laughing hysterically… he gets up there to see what it’s all about it, and “Hey, that’s ME!”… Great story! You have to see it! But the Today show played it on the show Tuesday, and then after it had such a great response they invited them to come on the show. So they were contacted Tuesday and told they had two hours to pack and be at the airport! The older sister was supposed to be going on a school trip and they had to intercept the bus she was on and get her to the airport so that she could travel with them (not sure why the parents couldn’t go). And Grace’s friend was with them – apparently it was actually her dad who posted the video to Youtube so she gets some credit. They had a great trip, Today Show sponsored their stay from Tuesday to Saturday and they were able to go to the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Central Park… But she’s our celebrity of the day; Grace, the roller coaster girl.

All of these people peed

The entire plane is peeing. We are in the second to last row, so maybe that's it but I have never noticed any group of people having to use the restroom more than these. Even the stewardess just came back to check on it to make sure everything was ok because "it's been used a lot". The people sitting next to us agree, they said they had just made the same observations. We don’t think that it's just because we're in these seats, although it does make it a little more annoying because we’re in the “exchange” position, where the people coming and going must share the aisle to get by one another, so every person that has used the bathroom has also invaded our space, and there has not been a time when there hasn’t been someone waiting, so we’ve constantly had people standing right over us. We agree that everyone single person on this plane has peed, and it’s a small plane (only two seats on each side of the aisle) - I think some had to have peed twice. I want to poll the plane by a show of hands and get a count of how many people have used this restroom. We’re about to make our descent and the pilot comes on to say that this is the time to use the restrooms before we land. I don’t follow that logic, I think that now is the time to sit tight and wait to pee when we land.. in just a few moments. We have this discussion with a very nice Indian woman in a beautiful sari (who is waiting for the restroom), she has also noticed how busy it’s been and is concerned that it will be clean.

We land without incident, and despite leaving about 30 minutes late, we’re 30 minutes early… doesn’t make sense. It’s a balmy 105 degrees in St. Louis. The stewardess asks us if we’re from here as we get our bags together, and after we say yes she says that she figured that, almost didn’t ask because she figured that no one would be vacationing here, it had to be your home city. I know that she’s saying that because of the heat wave, but still… Patti picks us up and BMc heads home to spend time with her hubby…

MEANWHILE...............

In the meantime – I asked Becki to blog what was going on with the Southwest peeps. This is their blog – I make a few parenthetical comments, can’t help myself:

We grabbed a taxi about 5 min after Susen and Bmc- he was very polite and very quiet. I had to cover my eyes several times and there were many sharp intakes of breath as we navigated NYC traffic. We really did expect to hit a car once or twice. Scariness. We got to Laguardia- no lines anywhere and flew through check in and security. Again- BP is a second class citizen. She is in the B boarding section while Dana and I are both A. (And they had all checked in the night before, on the way out BP had never heard of checking in 24 hours before the flight and ended up in C group, and almost missed the plan altogether when the steward closed the door without boarding the entire C group).

Downside- no sit-down restaurant, so we've been piece-mealing things together from the various shops and fast food restaurants. Our flight was originally set to leave at 3:35. Then I got a text it was delayed to 4:10. Then I got another text that says the delay is changed to 3:45. The board currently says 3:55 takeoff but no info has been announced/texted to that effect. It's a crap shoot at this point.

My dad called and said there was a big storm in Washington DC and thousands are w/o power. Guessing that may be why the delay since we’re flying through Baltimore. Dana and I are marveling at people traveling alone who are sound asleep at the gate. What if they sleep through boarding? What about their stuff? No one’s watching it. The cutest little guy is sitting near us. He's definitely a card. He reminds us of Amy's Jason. He is excited about *everything* and wants to see planes, planes, planes!

And our latest update is takeoff at 4pm... Someday we'll get home Boarding finally at 3:45. (With the Delta delay, they actually end up taking off before us). The world’s most annoying flight attendant is on our flight; repetitive and overly happy. We may use seat cushion/flotation device to knock her off the plane. The flight attendant reminds us of the mother leaving answering machine message in Rent. Very sing-songy And high pitched, “Don't forget to buckle uu---up”; “Make sure your tray tables are in the UPright poSIIItionnnn..”; “There's plenty of seating back in the rear of the plaaa-ane…”. She starts to sing something else, and her fellow steward stops her, “Don’t do that.” Whew!

We touchdown in Baltimore 10 min early but have to sit on the runway until our gate is cleared. There's only 3 hrs til our connection. We may not make it. (Sarcasm noted).

We finally get to our gate and run for those cushy chairs with the outlets so we can charge our phones. And we find out- lovely- they're not working. Turns out the airport is running on minimal power. Yay. BP notices an outlet by the window and as soon as someone gets up, I zoom over to use that one. It works! So I charge and try to pass the time til our 8:05 flight. (With the time difference, the others have already been home for an hour and an half before we board). Looking for refreshment at BWI, BP notices a Jamba Juice, but got upset because they don’t serve juice, just smoothies. False advertising!

On the plane, BP finds a kid pack and crayons in the seat pocket – it keeps her quiet for about 20 minutes. J She starts practicing her Spanish via the kid pack, and she’s wearing her Southwest wings…

Nice wings

BP and Dana are seated next to each other and BP starts reading Dana's kindle over her shoulder (even after I offered her a magazine) and asking Dana questions about the characters in the book. Dana was little puzzled by this joint reading effort, BP doesn’t see anything wrong with it. She’s so cute. We get cheese nips on the plane for a snack which really excites BP… "I love me some cheese nips".

We land about 9:20, get bags and meet Patti and Susen for pick up… heading home after a long day of travelling.

LOOSE ENDS AND OTHER STUFF................

We all had what we called our “welcome to New York” moments – some noteworthy ones that may not have been mentioned…. BP says that hers was when we first went to Rockefeller Center we were crossing the street and we heard this cat meowing… we’re looking around for a cat – and we soon realize that it’s a homeless man in a wheelchair who is heading our way. He’s just meowing away. You’re welcome.

McKay says hers is when we were at the Today Show for the Kenny Chesney concert and a guy drove by and squeezed a rubber chicken at her for no reason. And of course we’ve had several interesting encounters with people on the subway. My favorite is still the man with the hand gestures. I still do his little dance.

Random quotes that I just couldn’t leave out but that for some reason didn’t find their place in the blog:

Dana: “Can you burp me?” (she had some pain in her shoulder blade and felt that “burping” her may help – I’m still not sure what happened there, or how shoulder blade pain is related to being burped, much less why you would need to BE burped, versus just burping…)

BM: “I share much better than I did when I was 6.” – Becki gives her an cock-eyed look because she just had a sharing issue with cheesecake where she told us all to back off and not touch her… BM defends herself, “Well, I just didn't want to share cheesecake. That might have been a small piece...”

BM: She’s ready for her after dinner meal and we point out that we have snacks at the apt, like hummus… “Hummus is for when I get back to the apt and my dinner has worn off because I walked 12 miles to get back to the apt.”   (Ahhh… I was wondering what hummus was for)

I think my favorite one that got left out was when we were on the double-decker tour bus and Brittany was sitting next to a couple that got up and moved, but left something on their seat. BP was very nice and ran up to them with the thing that they had left – but they were not grateful at all. They just look at her like she’s bothering them, “We didn’t need that”… no thank you for the effort or anything. Just total blow off.   They make the observation that New Yorkers really ARE rude.   I laugh and tell them, “There are no New Yorkers on this bus”… oh yah.

And I’ll end with a BP classic… “Everyone in new York has been on jail.” (What??) “Well half the people in my town have been in jail. And New York is a lot bigger.”   Oh well, yah, when you say it like that, it makes perfect sense. We love BP.

Believe it or not, BMc has convinced me and Patti to go back to NYc in August, a little more than a month from now, so we’ll have some addendums. This will be a short weekend trip so that Patti can see Tribes and Brittany can try to hang out with Russell (even though she has yet to be approved as a friend on Facebook, unlike myself – smile).. We found cheap flights and an even cheaper place to stay, so it’s totally doable. I know people that make annual trips to Vegas, and I think that I could be that person that makes annual trips to NYC to check out a show and restaurant.

Here’s a list of what we did during our time there…

·         Time Square
·         Peter and the Starcather – Broadway Show
·         Had NYC hotdogs from street vendors
·         Today Show
·         Rockefeller Center
·         Double-decker bus tour – Uptown, Downtown, Night tour
·         Soho
·         Greenwich Village
·         The Mac Store
·         FAO Schwartz
·         Dylan’s Candy
·         Bloomingdales
·         RENT – off broadway
·         Harbor cruise around the island
·         Statue of Liberty
·         Dash (The Kardashian’s store)
·         Lombardi’s in Little Italy
·         Bryant Park – Tropfest
·         Mani-pedi
·         Bought shoes at Foot Locker
·         Toys-R-Us Time Square
·         Street Fair
·         NBC Studio Tour
·         The Daily Show Live Taping
·         Washington Square Park (chess and the Arc)
·         Grimaldi’s Pizza in Brooklyn
·         Junior’s Cheesecake in Brooklyn
·         The Way Station (Bar with a TARDIS!)
·         Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan
·        Cake Boss in Hoboken
·         “One Man, Two Guvnors” (Broadway show with Tony award winning actor)
·         “Tribes” – Broadway
·         Central Park – Carousel, Literary Walk, Strawberry Fields, Bow Bridge, Bethesda Fountain, Friends fountain, many rocks..
·         9/11 Memorial
·         Katz’S Deli
·         Trump Tower
·         Breakfast at Tiffany’s
·         Wooster Street Social Club
·         John’s Pizzeria on Bleeker Street
·         David’s Tea
·         Yankee’s Game
·         Empire State Building

Who we saw…

·         Christian Borle (Smash, and Tony Award winning actor)
·         Naked Cowboy
·         Kenny Chesney (from afar)
·         Lester Holt
·         Doctor Who (look-a-like)
·         Hugh Jackman and Rose Byrne at Tropfest
·         Naked Indian
·         Hoda and Kathie Lee
·         Jon Stewart
·         Russell Harvard
·         Mare Winningham
·         Judith Light
·         Jeff Perry (Grey’s Anatomy and Prison Break)
·         Al Roker
·         Ann Curry
·         Matt Lauer
·         Matthew McConaughay
·         Jennifer Aniston
·         Snoop Dogg
·         Roller Coaster Girl

OH – and last thing – our Facebook challenge:

1. DON’T POST: Every single piece of food you ate – I think it’s easy to say that we definitely did this one proud… I personally like to see pics of people’s food at interesting places. Maybe I’m in the minority.

2. DON’T POST: Comments about how much better this trip is than your real life… I think that we covered that. Although toward the end we were all ready for our “real life” beds, if not our real lives.

3. DON’T POST: You, and absolutely nothing else – Here’s a quote from the article about what they hate about this… “please resist the urge to stand in the foreground of every single picture you take. We’ve all seen that pose, the arms by your side, sort of an awkward half-smile. “Well, here I am, in front of this thing,””… I don’t see an issue with that. I’ve always heard that you should have subject in the photo… we have lots of those… look here’s a few now:

BP with "THE" rock

Becki blocking the box

4. DON’T POST: You looking like an idiot. Hmmm… It’s hard not to do this with this group (see above). They count things like pointing at things or anything with your tongue out. Using that as criteria, we definitely have this one covered. I won’t show you the most apt example – of me sprawled out on the chariot in the carousel in Central Park. You’re welcome.

5. DON’T POST: Anyone that is less than 75% clothed .... Well, it wasn’t us – but we saw those models scantily clothed and posted that…

6. DON’T POST: Feet - We saw this as a personal mission… there were lots of feet. Feet in NYC, feet with new shoes, and feet in “first class” of the Southwest flight…

7. DON’T POST: Beers in a dimly lit bar. Beers on a dimly lit street. Beer OMG beers!Technically no beers… but we do have a couple of nice shots of alcohol and the souvenir cups that they came in. It was one of our favorite parts of the Broadway experience, drinks brought to you in your seats.