AYCJ - Day 6/7 Sleepless in New York

You know when your friends tell you they pulled an "all nighter" or "didn't sleep at all" and you think about how they must surely be lying because YOU slept at least 7 hours the night before and you're still cranky. So you chalk up their "all nighter" to being an incredibly late night--say 4:00 or 5:00.

Well I just pulled my first ever REAL all-nighter. Our red-eye to JFK was so short it wasn't even worth sleeping. Plus it was crowded and the flight attendants were gabbing so loudly and so incessantly that even with my earplugs in I could hear every word of their mundane lives. Except when one began having a cow and became completely incoherent. Anyhow. Blue Terra Chips aside, I was NOT happy with JetBlue.

We decided that our time in the city was so short we would just stay awake. But then we pushed it further by buying tickets to Promises, Promises for that night. It was really stupid, but really fun. Hours of relative alertness: 8:20 AM (MST) on Day 6 to 12:00 AM (EST) on Day 8 minus a 45 minute nap at the hotel.

So let's start at the beginning: Day 6 began with a little visit to the law school for work. It was lovely seeing it all again. I loved law school. Anyway, we hung out in Provo before being whisked away to a fabulous dinner with our foodie friends who went all out cooking for us. Most of the credit must go to the talented and lovely Beatrice who slaved over a hot stove. Bellies delighted, they took us on a little tour of SLC before heading to the airport.

The flight was...well you can only imagine. At 5:30 AM we dropped off our bags and ate waffles before heading into town. If this tells you anything about how ridiculously early it was--we were there before they rang the NASDAQ bell.

And this fits nowhere into the story, but I just LOVE the subway. In New York the stations are typically varying degrees of filthy and accidentally catching the express train can totally screw with your plans, but I LOVE it. Hong Kong's was the best/cleanest/easiest with the added bonus of nice stations, but almost any well designed mass transit will typically delight me to no end. The freedom of feeling like I can walk anywhere is exhilarating. They're so cheap, so well designed, and so differently-convenient. Except Rome's. Which was just scary and full of gypsies and pick pockets. Anyway: underground mass transit is very much my cup of tea.

So on the SUBWAY (see how I worked that in there? I'm amazing.) we went to Battery Park to pick up the boat to take us to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. Both of which were mind-blowing and my mind needed no help seein's how it was running on two Excedrins and a waffle. Our time spent on the boat was the best time of the entire day. Maybe. It's so hard to rank these things. But anyway, it was warm and sunny and the rocking put us into a delightful stupor if not a full sleep. Ahhh... so lovely.

Around 4:00 we were able to return to the hotel and take a shower and a quick nap before heading out to our show. We confess that the main attraction was the fact that Kristin Chenoweth (of Wicked and Pushing Daisies fame) starred. But I succeeded on its own merits and not just hers. We bought the nosebleed student seats, but as it was a Tuesday night, theater traffic was light. We were able to move all the way up to the 6th row balcony without incurring the wrath of the ushers. It was awesome.

For some reason we felt fully awake during the whole production and decided to take a walk afterward. Because we're insane. We ate a cupcake at Crumbs and looked at the lights in Times Square before deciding to go to bed. Which we did.

10 hours later we experienced a much shorter and lower key Day 8...