the latest nyc adventure

my beautiful friends...












my lovely friends aubrey and nicole (who i know from working in maine) came to visit last monday night through wednesday morning. we spent the day tuesday in the city. it was one of the most fun day trips i've had to new york. the adventure started after we could not find a single legal parking space at the princeton junction train station. we decided to drive instead. please don't tell my mom i drove in manhattan!

we started by going to strawberry fields in central park then headed down to times square. we met up with another friend, michael, bought theater tickets and had our first celebrity sighting of the day. there was a big to do in that middle part of times square between the virgin megastore and mtv. it was the game (who is apparently a rapper who is buddies with 50 cent). i didn't know who he was but aubrey and nicole did and were excited to see him!

then we made our way to canal street for some shopping and little italy for dinner where we had our second celebrity sighting. well, maybe not celebrity but famous person. at least someone who is in movies and on t.v.! we chose to eat outside at a nice italian restaurant and a guy from the next table over turned to ask us if he could smoke his cigar. i totally recognized him immediately but didn't know his name and couldn't remember for the life of me what the name of the movie was that he was in. finally, i asked my friends and they knew immediately i was trying to think of "can't hardly wait". our neighbor at the next table over was freddy rodriguez (one of the jock friends of the popular guy in that movie and also on the t.v. show "six feet under")! i'm sure he was aware that we had recognized him. he was a really nice guy and had a great smile. at one point, his wife's chair tipped over and hit me and he was really sincere and apologetic. i was quite excited to see my first celebrity in a normal setting (even though not an a-lister ... i think maybe he's a b-lister ???).

next we made our way back to the theater district to see 'rent'. this was my third time to see it but the first for everyone else and i was glad for them to see it because i love it so much. i must admit that drew lachey (who i saw the first time i went to see it) has been the best mark of all. but i was really excited to see my favorite lady from the supporting cast had moved up to one of the main roles!

then we walked to rockefeller center and back up fifth ave. to central park where we had to say goodbye to mike. then we made our way back to the parking garage. after all the walking, i was super thirsty so i decided to stop into a duane reade to get some water. celebrity sighting number three. okay, i didn't actually see him but my friends did. apparently garrison keillor was walking out the duane reade as i was walking in. i'm so sad i didn't get to see him!

once in the car, we drove all the way to the world trade center site. i must say that driving in new york city is not as hard as previously thought. though, driving at night is much easier i'm sure. but still, i find that i've had more problems driving in other cities (i.e. dallas, houston, chicago) than in nyc.

we got back to princeton around 2 in the morning. aubrey and nicole had to leave at the same time i left for class on wednesday. they had a long day of driving to chicago ahead of them. but it was an awesome visit for the short time they were here!

(i still can't believe we saw so many famous people! i never see famous people! i only always just hear the stories of how everyone else has had a run-in with a celebrity. three in one day. my friends are lucky!)