CrazyMrsNancy.com

Attention : You can find the soundtrack for this entry here.

It's about time I blog about New York City, eh? We have been back for 2 weeks now, and we're finally starting to shake off that nasty nasty cold that we brought back! Despite being sick as a dog though, I'm still happy as a clam. I think it's the traveling. Looking forward to Mexico. I think that I must have been a nomad in a past life.

NYC was awesome,as always. We arrived at our hotel in New Jersey in the early afternoon, checked in and stretched and hopped on the bed for a minute. That always feels incredible after 18 hours sitting on a bus. Then we took the bus to Manhattan, and it's starting to feel natural to me. We're not panicked, we still have Heather's great NYC map, which we should really return some day hehe. And we know where we're going. We got off at Port Authority, each bought a Metro Pass, and took the Subway to Little Italy for dinner. How did people ever chose new restaurants before yelp? We went to Il Cortile, and it was amazing, as you can see on the Facebook pictures. We walked through Chinatown, I bought some pretty purses, and then we took the Subway back to 33rd & 7th to catch our shuttle back to NJ.

The next day (Dec 30th), the first thing we did was get in line to go on top of the Empire State Building for the first time. We went up the Rockefeller(GE) Building twice before, but this was our first time at the ESB. Admittedly, the lines are much shorter, the process is much smoother, and the top is generally less crowded at Rockefeller. You can't beat the incredible Central Park view, and obviously the Top of the Rock is a great place to see the Empire State itself.  However, I really had my heart set on the Empire State because it offers unobstructed views of my favorite NYC building : The Chrysler Building. (When you're on Top of the Rock (GE Building), the Met Life building is in the way.)  The whole ESB process took 4 hours. After that we went back to Chinatown for more shopping :) In the afternoon, we went to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular... and wow, it really was spectacular. The costumes, the sets, the grandeur of the Radio City Music Hall.... The Rockettes!! Spectacular! Then of course we went to take a peek at the Rockefeller tree & skating rink. Then we made our way back to Herald Square and went shopping at Macy's and its glorious 10 floors. The 7th floor is almost entirely dedicated to plus-sized women's clothing. aka. Nancy's Heaven! (I have created a private album on Facebook to show my mom and girlfriends what I bought, so if you want to see it give me a shout in the comments and I'll add your name to the album!) 

On New Years Eve, we started the day with more shopping. Steph went to shop at Game Stop and other 'boring to me' stores while I shopped at JC Penney's and found incredible sales! In the afternoon we went to see Mary Poppins on Broadway! We chose it because 1 - We got a pretty good deal for tickets in the Mezzanine, and 2 - It's a classic that we knew we wanted to see someday anyway. We were both pleasantly surprised! It IS pretty magical. The effects are really entertaining. It was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! I wore my sparkly glitter top that day, and left a trail of glitter everywhere I went. Seriously. When I tried on clothes in dressing rooms, the room was completely covered in glitter by the time I left. When I went to the washrooms at Mary Poppins, I left a visible trail of glitter. When I got out of my crammed seat in the theatre, the girl next to me gave me a nasty look while it floated in the air all around us like a cloud of glitter. We wanted to stay in Times Square because they were already barricading people, so we went to waste a little time at McDoanld's and met people again this year. We met a really nice guy and somehow remembered his website. A little later his musician friend arrived and showed us his CD album, but I can't remember his name... Steph says that when I went up the stiars to go to the washroom at McDonald's, he could see glitter falling off of me every step I took LOL. We didn't have to wait in line at all to get into our Applebees NYE party. Again this year, we met a couple to hang out with for the evening. Their names were Jo and Lee, and they are from London. (You can see a pic of me & Jo wasted in the FB album hehe.) Around 11h40pm, we all went outside to watch the ball drop (seeing it from behind.), and I understand now why TGIF is worth the extra money... we didn't have a dedicated area, and ended up completely, utterly SMOOSHED in the crowd. To the point where I had to take deep breaths to not panic. Everyone was pushing and shoving, I couln't straighten my back. I was leaning forward and bent to the left until the ball dropped. Steph almost got into a fight (SO out of character for him) with a guy who had pushed me and was hurting me by doing so. I was really scared that they would fight and they ended up shaking hands and wishing each other happy new year, no hard feelings. That's my man. He can look tough but he's my teddy bear :) We had NO problem catching a subway at all this year, but just because of a little luck hehe. We made it back to the shuttle for 1am and were back in our hotel by 2am... but I stayed up until 4h30am packing. I had to cram all that shopping in the suitcases! We had to check out and leave our luggage on our busses and reserve seats at 9am.

As you can imagine, I was DEAD tired by the time we took the NJ Transit bus back to Manhattan for one last time. I wasn't the only one, the bus stopped to let out one of the girls from our busses group so she could go yawn in technicolor in the snow outside. Ew. Just seeing her... do that.. made me really nauseous but thankfully I was fine after a good breakfast at Au Bon Pain. Yep, I'm still in love with their muesli! Yum. After that we went to Union Square, where I went shopping at DSW and Filene's Basement while Steph found and sat at a Starbucks. White chit chatting with a DSW sales girl, she whined that it's not fair that we plus sized women don't have many shopping options.... My eyes nearly buldged out of my head and I told her it's a good thing that she lives in NYC and not in Moncton hehe. If I lived in NYC, I might possibly stay fat forever. Except I wouldnt, because you do NYC on foot, it's the only way. So much to see! I lost 5lbs again this visit, despite the italian and tiramisu and street hot dogs etc.  After that, as I promised Steph in exchange for all the shopping... we went to see Avatar 3D. I was SO flambeed tired, that I fell asleep about 42 times during the movie. Woops! I'll have to rewatch it, but Seph tells me that it's awesome hehe. You should have seen the movie seats! Holay! They were about twice as wide/large as the seats here! The movie theatre was about 7-8 floors, it was pretty amazing. After the movie we did a final bit of shopping in Herald Square - Conway, Sephora, M.A.C, Philosophy (in Macy's), etc.... and then it was time to say goodbye, beautiful city! And just as when we drove to NYC, we drove back home in a big snow storm. Thankfull we had good bus drivers and we got home safe and sound.

Just as we arrived in Salisbury (near Moncton) I told Steph - Wow, my throat is sore! That, my friends, was the start of what I hope is THE biggest/only bad cold I'll catch this year. It started on Jan 2 and I still have uncontrollably embarrassing coughing fits today. In fact, I completely embarrassed myself at Addition-Elle 2 days ago by accidentally farting while having a coughing fit in the store. Woops! I hope I coughed loud enough to cover the toot! 

But even with being sick like that and missing 2 days of work, I am so happy. I've never been this happy. Like I said, I must be a nomad at heart. I'm really looking forward to Mexico in 3 weeks, and spend all my free time reading TripAdvisor forums :)