The City that Never Sleeps...Unless You're Hungry

July 18, 2014

It has officially been over a month since we visited New York City. We've been meaning to blog this for quite some time, but haven't been able to until now. Let's see, it all started on a dark and stormy night...

Okay, it didn't. It started, at least for me (DaNae), on a dark and early work morning. For me (Jason), it started on an oddly normal morning. Jason and I both wake up at ungodly hours, but today we didn't mind as much. Today we were going to New York City. Jason has never been before. I have tried on numerous occasions to see if he would be interested in going to NYC for our anniversary one year. He wasn't against it, but said he'd rather visit other places first. I was hoping this trip would change his mind. We were only visiting for the weekend in order to see my brother in an off-broadway play. There wasn't time to see everything in NYC in just a few days. I was hoping this would leave Jason with a strong desire to return for more.

I won't bother with our work day adventure, because it's not nearly as fun as the rest of the weekend. Immediately after work, Jason and I went home and finished packing. Okay, okay... Jason was already packed. He was smart and did it the night before. I on the other hand, began packing an hour before we left. Only thirty minutes after Jason was home, my parents could be heard outside our door. We grabbed our carry-on bags, said goodbye to our beautiful cats, and met them at the car.

We wanted to leave early in the day, but our jobs had other plans. It was around 6 p.m. when our plane left Atlanta. It wasn't long before we returned to the stable earth in Charlotte, NC. The joys of layovers. We grabbed a granola bar and Famous Amos cookies and then eventually returned to the air. Once landing my dad called the taxi service for our prepaid car.... it's much cheaper to call in advance than just picking one up at the airport. Our taxi driver, Muhammad, was very nice and told us about the history of NYC and each street as we made our way to the hotel. We scheduled for him to meet us at our hotel on Monday morning to take us to the airport... he instructed us to simply call his cell phone rather than the company line on Sunday to confirm. He also informed us that cash was preferable :^)

It was around 11:30 once at our hotel. We stayed at the Time Hotel in Hell's Kitchen, right across the street from the theater showing Chicago. We picked this hotel because my brother was also staying there. He had already been in NYC for a few days, preparing for the play. We texted my brother to let him know we were checking in and planning to eat at Serafina, the restaurant in the hotel. Jason and I hadn't eaten anything (excluding the cookies and granola bar) since around 11:30-12:00 that afternoon... we were super hungry! The front desk person called the hotel upon our arrival and said we would be able to eat at Serafina as long as we were seated by 11:45. Apparently the restaurant closes at midnight...I thought this was the city that never slept!? We made it in no time and were still able to eat. Jamie joined us shortly after we were seated. Here are pictures:

 (Please ignore my thumb...oops)

Delicious!! We all went to my parent's hotel room to talk for a bit. Suddenly we smelled the strong scent of oregano. It was as though their room were an Italian herb garden. Turns out the TSA agents found mom's oregano oil in her bag and decided it would be funny to leave it open... everything she owned smelled strongly of oregano. Joys of security people. Mom's a good sport though and simply laughed it off--after trying to clean it out of her bag.

We decided not to stay too long talking... it was after all midnight and Jason and I had been up since 4:45 (for me) and 5:30 (for Jason). We went to our room and quickly fell asleep. Jason commented on how quiet it was in our room, especially for being in the center of NYC. The next day... we would get to see NYC.