New York City

Day 2 of our trip and my feet were already feeling all the walking we did the day before! Luckily, I did bring a pair of shoes that I had worn all the time when I lived in New York City. I wore them today and pretty much for the rest of the trip.

We started our day waiting for the digital rush for &Juliet to open at 9AM. Unfortunately, the digital tickets sold out super quickly (basically in 30 seconds) and we did not get the rush tickets for the show. We made the decision to head over to the theater on our way up to The Metropolitan Museum of Art (or The Met for short) and see if they had any standing room tickets or cheap tickets available to purchase when the box office opened at 10 AM.

They didn’t have any standing room tickets available yet, because the show hadn’t sold out at that point, so we decided to purchase the $79 tickets for the back row of the balcony. The only catch for us was that our seats weren’t together, but that wasn’t a deal breaker. Pro Tip: if you aren’t set on having tickets purchased before the trip, go to the box office when they open and purchase tickets there. That way, you’re paying only for the price of the ticket and avoid having to pay fees and taxes.

Tickets secured and Starbucks in hand, we made our way up the East Side to the Met, taking a detour through Grand Central Station. This is a spot my mom has to go to every trip and I’m always happy to tag along. Even though we’ve both been a few times, I don’t think we have seen every section of the museum because of how large it is.

After taking the iconic and slightly basic photos on the steps of the museum, we made our way in. Tickets for the museum are $30, but are valid for both The Met and The Cloisters if you can make it to both in one day. The Met also offers NYC residents a pay what you want ticket price, with the suggested being around $5-$10. This allows residents the ability to take advantage of all the different exhibits they bring in throughout the year.

Since we came to NYC a few weeks after The Met Gala, we got the chance to see the Karl Lagerfeld exhibit. Unfortunately, the exhibit is over as of now, so I’ll add pictures of the exhibit to the bottom of this blog post to share with y’all. There is always something to see at the Met Museum that you either missed the time before and has been added recently. I strolled through the marble statue hall to have a small Pride and Prejudice moment after stopping by to see my favorite Degas paintings.

Once we finished our time at the museum, we stopped at one of the food trucks outside of the museum to grab lunch. I went with the classic New York hot dog from a street vendor with a Diet Coke. We walked down 5th Avenue to the entrance into Central Park where we could sit on a bench to eat our food before heading to the next museum. We both really enjoy people watching in the parks, especially those walking their dogs. The dogs of New York are always such fun. There was a golden retriever that refused to take a walk into the park and wanted to stay in the area we were in that who provided great entertainment for everyone sitting around.

After lunch, we went up a few more blocks to go to the Carnegie Mansion. I was excited to go to this museum because the mansion itself is an iconic building full of historic architecture and design, but unfortunately we were really let down by this experience. The Smithsonian owns the building now and puts in exhibits corresponding with Cooper-Hewitt Design. The exhibits they had there were not our cup of tea as far as things we were interested in. We also wish they had more history and information on the mansion itself because it is a historic landmark. There was just one screen on the side of the floor by the elevators where you could look through the layout of the house and see pictures of what the rooms looked like when Carnegie lived there. He contributed so much to this world and there are so many buildings named after him in the city itself that it would have so cool to see more of a focus more on his and his achievements.

After that, we decided to head down to Bryant Park to start finding a place to eat and drink before the show, since we had tickets for the 7PM show. We stopped off at Bryant Park to sit down in our favorite park to relax a little and figure out where to go. We wanted to originally go eat at a rooftop restaurant that was around the corner from the park. Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed that night because they were having a private event.

We ended up going across the street to an Irish Pub to grab beers and burgers. Overall, we thought the experience and food there was meh. They sat us in the back of the restaurant in a spacious booth, but the air conditioning either couldn’t reach us or wasn’t working because it was warm and stuffy. While we were waiting for our food, we decided to Facetime my dad to check in on our dog and see how she was doing. While we were Facetiming with him, we noticed that an office group was slowly making their way in. The large group crowded around us, making us feel closed in. I tried to not feel too annoyed by it because I was once in an office group similar to that when I was living in the city.

After finishing our meal, we decided to make our way over to the theater to have a chance to grab a drink and get settled in before the show. The Stephen S. Sondheim theater is a gorgeous theater with a massive lobby area and very well maintained bathrooms. This was definitely one of the more modern theaters they have refurbished in recent years.

& Juliet was a fun filled show to see full of top hits from the 90s and early 2000s. I really enjoyed watching the story and really got into it. I also loved seeing the audience reaction to the show, especially with the older generation. If you want to know more about the show or read more of my thoughts about it, you can read my full review here.

After the show, we decided to head back down to our hotel and get settled in around 10PM because we knew our internal clock would have us up early again tomorrow and we wanted to be rested for another full day of activities starting with participating in rush tickets for the show we wanted to see next.

Here are more pictures of our second day in NYC, including pictures from the Karl Lagerfeld exhibit: