We both got up early after a good night's sleep and got ready to do ice skating at Rockefeller Center. We headed down to Gastro Pub to try out their breakfast bar, and it was excellent. Eggs, bacon, hashbrowns. Lots of energy for all the skating and walking we have planned today!
I approve of tater tots as hashbrown substitutes.
We geared up for skating and set off towards Rockefeller Center. The Rink doesn't open until 9, and I had gotten the first skating slot, but we got to the plaza around 8:15 and after taking a couple of pictures Mom spotted the Today show window a few steps away and we made a beeline for it. We saw a group gathered around and walked around to go through security so that we could join. The cast came out not even 15 minutes later! Mom got some great shots of Al and even got a selfie with Hoda!
How excited is Mom?!
So. Excited.
After the cast headed back inside we headed over to the Rink to try and figure out where the entrance was. We made a loop under and around the Rink but finally found the entrance line and got in and got our skates and beanies on. Both Mom and I had said that we were going to for a good time, but not necessarily a long time, so we got out on the ice and made every effort not to fall.
We made three loops and both decided that was plenty!
After we finished skating we stopped by the Big Three Shops: FAO Schwartz, the Nintendo Store, and the Lego Store. FAO Schwartz was huge and had a ton of fun things inside.
Mom danced on the "Big" piano and we both posed as Barbies.
Mom got a cute little bunny embroidered for a friend's little boy and then we headed over to the Nintendo store next. And Readers, I had to hold myself back from running through the entire store like a four year old on a sugar high. For real though, look at this statue of TotK Link!
You know how excited Mom was to take a selfie with Hoda? This is me at that same level.
After I tore through the Nintendo store (I did get a TotK Zelda Amibo) we headed to the Lego store next, where Mom and I both had planned to do Serious Shopping, because my nephew Christopher is REALLY into Lego. We quickly located the WALL of Lego City and spent the next 45 minutes pestering my brother Cade into helping us narrow down which of the bajillion REALLY COOL Lego sets Christopher doesn't already have.
Lego Rockefeller Plaza, more Lego City sets than I ever imagined even existed, LIFESIZED Lego NYC taxi, and the custom minifig I made for Christopher.
We did a quick Amazon search and decided that buying online would be a bit cheaper, and certainly easier to navigate home on the train. So we made our shopping lists, waded through the tubs of parts to outfit our minifigs, and headed back to the hotel to do a quick pitstop before heading over to the Museum of Broadway.
The Museum of Broadway is relatively new, but it has an amazing collection of Broadway memorabilia, costumes, and set pieces from the last hundred years. Mom and I had a blast going room to room and looking at all the different costumes and artistic displays for the most well-known and beloved shows. Mom was taking so many pictures her phone went dead, so I had to pick up where she left off!
So many amazing costumes!
We hadn't had a chance to get lunch, so after we walked through the Museum we picked up a pretzel from a food truck for a snack.
Eat from a food truck? Check.
We stopped by the M&M store on our walk back and made custom colored bags of M&Ms for our sweet snack of the afternoon.
Yes, of course mine are all purple.
We got back to the hotel room for an afternoon rest and immediately shucked our shoes. 14k steps already today, PLUS half an hour of skating. We are earning that pizza we're planning on getting tonight...
We headed back out around 5 pm to walk the few blocks down to John's pizza (Ariel's recommendation!) and we had our slices of New York Style pizza. The restaurant is inside an old church so it has really cool architecture and murals, and the pizza was excellent!
Pizza was properly folded as New York pizza is meant to be.
After our slices we walked the short distance to Hamilton and got in line around 6:15 to get into the theater for the 7 pm showing. There were rivers of people going into the theater, but we found our (excellent) seats and got settled in for the show.
The show was a ton of fun and the music was amazing as always.
After the show we dove back into the sea of people and scurred back up Broadway to our hotel. Once again glad we picked a (relatively) centrally located base of operations for this trip. We clocked in at 20k steps for the day, so our little feet are hurting! Time to get some sleep so that we can go on our island hopping adventure tomorrow!