New York Recap: Part 4

Sweet Sunday and the Journey Home

Following Saturday's full day of adventure, we were ready to take it a little easier on Sunday. Robin, our tour guide extraordinaire, had told us that she had planned a surprise for us at 12:30 on Sunday and we had reservations for dinner at 7 pm...other than that, we could do whatever we wanted.

We took our time getting ready on Sunday morning before heading over to the Rockefeller Center observation deck. I really didn't expect much after viewing NYC's nighttime skyline from the Empire State Building that first night, but it was well worth the time to view it again during the day from the Top of the Rock. We had such a wonderful view of Central Park and traced out the areas we had visited during our Winter Wonderland tour on Friday. We covered a large area and my feet totally agreed!

We had entered the park at the right bottom corner of the picture (you can't see it for all the buildings). We walked to the opposite side crisscrossing until we cut back across just below the large body of water in the picture. That is a lot of park, my friend!

After taking pictures from the Top of the Rock, we headed back to Times Square for our surprise. Robin had purchased tickets for Brunch with the Harlem Gospel Choir at the BB King Blues Club and Grill. We were going to church!

The show was fantastic. It was so much fun watching the choir as they got the audience involved. The Harlem Gospel Choir does not perform for you to sit and watch...they call you to participate in worship. You spend half of the time on your feet. The good southern food was just icing on the cake.

After brunch we headed out to do some souvenir shopping. We took our time as we made our way back to the room...stopping at The Phantom of Broadway, The New York Store (I think we actually stopped at two of those), the M & M store and finally stopping at the NBC store.

Once back at the room, we decided to rest before dinner and to get back early in order to pack for the airport the next morning. We headed back out to Tavern on the Green for dinner. The place was just as beautiful at night as it had been on Friday in the snow.

Dinner was good, though we all enjoyed lunch on Friday better. The atmosphere was more laid back during the day. The evening crowd tended to be a little dressier and geared more toward couples and romance. As we were leaving, we spotted the carriages. We had discussed reserving a carriage earlier in the trip for Sunday night, but had been unable to contact anyone to make the reservation.

Our driver was from Turkey and was in the states studying for his business degree. He pointed out several movie scene locales as we toured the park...the fountain from Friends, the bridge from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, the fountain from Ransom and several others. The snow was beginning to melt but the park was still beautiful at night.


It was an amazing ending to an unforgettable trip. We went back to the hotel and did some miraculous packing. Since we had tried to keep it to one suitcase for the trip...getting all those souvenirs back home was quite a feat!

We woke early the next morning so as to meet the limo downstairs in plenty of time to make it through the long security lines we had seen at La Guardia when we arrived on Thursday. Thankfully, the long lines did not exist on Monday and we breezed through to our gate. The flight home was much quieter than the flight to NY...or maybe it was just because I couldn't hear out of my left ear so I couldn't tell if Robin or Stacy were talking to me. By the time we reached Houston I could barely make it off the plane. I came down with fever and chills that evening.

We took a few of these self portraits...but this is one of my favorites. It was a great time! As a matter of fact, as we sat at dinner on Sunday night we began planning our next Girls Weekend. We are thinking either San Francisco or Nashville!