What we done did on Sunday

First up this morning was the NBC Studio Tour. Taking just over an hour, this was a surprisingly cool experience. We saw Brian Williams NBC News studio, the Late Night set, and, best of all, the Saturday Night Live stage. All were surprisingly small, given how they look on television, but we had a great time and enjoyed the whole tour. It's definitely worth seeing.

After lunch, during a LOUD Dominican Republic parade, we visited the incredible Radio City Music Hall. We had no idea what an amazing place this is. Unusual for tour groups, we got to go up on the immense stage. The public spaces are art deco 20's cruise ship decor recreated recently after a $70 million restoration. Unfortunately, a rare technical screw up by me resulted in very few pictures, including no picture of us on the stage. :-( But, also a tour definitely worth taking.

Afterwards, we descended to the New York subway to travel up to the American Museum of Natural History. We weren't on the right line and so had to go downtown to transfer. We also had a couple of other minor setbacks, but we eventually made it. The signage was even less helpful than the DC Metro signage (admittedly a MUCH smaller system). The overwhelming issue in the subway, though, was the heat. It must have been over 90 degrees on the platforms.

The Museum was much bigger than we expected and quite nice, but really disappointing in that it looks almost nothing like the museum in "A Night at the Museum". Of course I know how they make movies and why I shouldn't have expected it to be too accurate, but there have to be legions of disappointed kids out there. There just was very little resemblance.

Afterwards, we walked down Central Park West to find the Plaza Hotel (from Home Alone 2). On the way I recognized the Ghostbusters Building without any idea where it was. I was all like, "Hey, that looks like Sigourney Weaver's apartment building from Ghostbusters," and I was right. Go me! It even has a church next door. I thought that was really cool.

After finally finding the Plaza Hotel with a bit of help (very little) from my mom on the phone, (Mom did help us, it just took her a while) we returned back to our hotel before setting out for dinner. We had considered trying out Food Network-featured Pop Burger near the Plaza Hotel but with my Blackberry out of juice, we had no way to check it out on the Internet. Turns out, I don't feel too badly about it.

We went across the street and down a bit from our hotel for dinner and had excellent hamburgers and kobe beef hot dogs at Mother Burger. Sitting outside with good food was very pleasant. Then we headed over to Time Square landmark, Junior's Cheesecake, for dessert. I loved the atmosphere and the desserts were great.

All in all a great, if tiring, day. We walked approximately 10 miles!

Tomorrow, NYU and Phantom of the Opera!