I'm alive. . .really.
I figured it was about time I updated my LiveJournal and let all 2 people that read this know that I’m alive.
I spent the most incredible week on the East Coast from May 22-30th. I absolutely love Connecticut and NYC and can’t wait to go back. But alas, I don’t know when that’ll be.
So I flew in Saturday morning to Newark airport. It was a long flight but I flew first class so it was fabulous. I was so excited that I was actually fed a meal on the flight…twice! :o)
I met San, Cara, and Emily at the airport. . .Cara and Em ended up getting an earlier flight from Chicago which worked out perfectly because as soon as my luggage came, I turned around and found them coming towards me. We hugged, chatted about our flights, and talked Harry Potter. Good stuff.
We decided to take a detour. Instead of going straight to Fairfield, we decided to drive through Manhattan and check out what was going on at Radio City Music Hall. My God, I don’t think I’ve seen so many toll booths in my life. And there was one point where I seriously thought we were going to die. I think we were going through the Lincoln Tunnel from NJ to NY. Not sure which tunnel it was. But whoever designed this area was obviously on crack. There are 6 lanes and 6 toll booths. Once everyone passes the toll booth, there is maybe an area of 200-300 feet where there are no lane markers and everybody tries to squeeze into 2 tunnels. I repeat. TWO!!! The buses from the far left lane were trying to cut across all the lanes (if you want to call them lanes) of traffic to the far right tunnel. It was mass chaos and I don’t know how San managed to drive through it so calmly.
So we drive through NYC, made a few circles because of blocked streets, and thoroughly enjoyed the signs that said there was a $300 fine for honking. Of course, everyone honks in NYC and I didn’t see one cop give out one ticket. For shame! :o)
We finally emerged from the madness and had a lovely drive to Fairfield. The area is absolutely beautiful and I don’t know if I ever saw so many trees in my life! Ok, slight exaggeration. But the trees in the northwest are mostly pine and other evergreen trees. These were the big huge maple kind or whatever they were. . .ya know, the ones that have those big gorgeous green leaves that turn those lovely colors in the fall. Makes me wanna go back there this October. . .but I can’t.
Met San’s family and settled into the house. I felt like I was in a bed and breakfast. That’s how lovely her house was. I got my own room downstairs and Cara and Em shared Rachel’s room upstairs. Poor Rachel was kicked out of her room and had to stay with Tom.
We got up early Sunday and headed back into the city where we waited at Radio City Music Hall for the WORLD PREMIERE OF HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN!!!! We didn’t get to see the movie (we weren’t special enough) but we did get to see the stars and Cara even got her book signed by Rupert. (aka Ron Weasley). I got some awesome pics of Rupert and Emma (Hermione Granger) but alas, no good ones of Dan (Harry Potter). Rupert and Emma were allowed to signed autographs but Dan was whisked away to the red carpet. . . we think it may have been a safety issue for the him because the teenage girls went completely nutters when they saw him. Let me just insert here that we had an awesome spot. We were in the front of the crowd and near the beginning of the red carpet. I was even in the line of fire for a few press pics.
Check out:
London Features and look at the last two pictures with Rupert Grint in front of the crowd. See someone familar? ;o)
And HPANA. I look like I’m being punched in the face! LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!
I've created an online album of the trip but I'm hesitant to send out the link. I'm still waiting for Em and Cara to post their pics so I can add them to my album. Secondly, I'm going to email the link to people in my address book but I'm waiting for Pepperdine to give me my new alumni email address. Apparently Pepalum is closing down in a few months. I signed up for the new email address and they promised me a password in 1-2 days. It's been a week. Figures. Anyhoo, here's a few pics from the premiere. Hopefully I can figure out this upload and cut thing on LJ.
Edit: Hmmmmm. The pictures seem to be tempermental. The Rupert pic showed up in one preview and then only the Emma pic. Now neither pics shows up. Maybe they'll show up eventually. Ah well.
We were a bit disappointed that they didn’t hand out screening tickets like they did at the CoS premiere but at that point, we just wanted to get into some air conditioning and grab something to drink. We walked a few block to Applebee’s and sat down to eat and share some of pictures. (San and I had digital cameras
On Monday, Cara, Em, and I headed back into the city. San had to work but she was able to secure us tickets to be in the audience for MTV’s TRL where Dan and Emma happened to be guests. :o) We walked around and grabbed lunch at TGI Friday’s. Let me insert here that while I was there, I counted at least 4 Friday’s in and around the Times Square area. I probably saw a total of 6 Friday’s during the whole trip. AND the security guards at the information center were probably giving us weird looks because of the number of times we visited that center within the time span of 2 hours. There was a moment of near heart failure when we discovered that we needed to have a confirmation number to get into the show that they happened to email to San that morning. . .after we had left for NYC. To make a long story, we went to the nearest Kinko’s and had San fax us the confirmation since we couldn’t get a bloody printer to work to print off the bloody email.
Being in the TRL audience was an incredible experience. No I did not ask for a hug from Dan or Emma but it was just a surreal experience to be in the same room with them. The studio for TRL is small so at some points, you were just a mere couple of feet away from the stars. They are absolutely adorable and look much younger and smaller in person. Cara, Em, and I did feel slightly out of place. . .we were probably the oldest people there. Only people 16-25 can be in the audience and most of the audience was made up of teenage girls wearing considerably less clothing than we were.
Later that night, we went back to San’s house to watch the show which she so kindly taped. Despite the fact that the lady at TRL said that it was impossible not to be seen, I was not shown once. We actually weren’t sitting in the best section and I knew the moment we sat down that we wouldn’t be seen on TV because there was no backdrop behind the bleachers we sat at. However, they did show a close up of Em (who was sitting in the front) clapping, to her complete horror, the new Britney Spears video. It was actually quite funny. If you don’t know Emily, she detests all things Britney.
Tuesday we headed back into the city but this time our focus was on shopping and sight seeing. And of course, we picked up the PoA soundtrack at Virgin Megastore…oh, and the soundtrack is fabulous by the way. We walked around Times Square and Rockefeller Center. We were actually trying the find the back entrance to the NBC studios. . .we knew that Dan was going to be on Conan and by God, we were going to get his autograph. After circling the block, we gave up and continued our search for a store that sold a DVD of Noises Off. You see, Cara and Em have been raving about this movie for ages and Em was going to bring the DVD. We were going to watch it Monday? night but when we opened the case, we found Love Actually instead. Em is still blaming her sister Katie. :o)
So we searched and searched but none of the music/movies stores had them. Of course, that wasn’t the only thing we did. We did walk around a bit and stopped at Tiffany’s and Louis Vuitton and stuff. After a while, we figured we would turn around and perhaps try to find that back entrance one more time. It was close to the end of the taping and we figured we might catch him one last time. As we were about to cross a street we saw a huge bus stop in front of us with the infamous “Something Wicked” poster from PoA. We took as a sign and followed it as it turned down 5th avenue toward the Rockefeller Center and the NBC Studios. I had mentioned earlier how I wanted to stop at Trump Tower but I changed my mind. . .I wanted to see Dan damn it! But as we walked passed it, Cara reminded me of my previous wish and when we stopped to look at the directory, we noticed it had a Tower Record store inside. We thought, why not? It might have the DVD. We walked in and actually weren’t too optimistic. The store was small compared to the other’s we visited. No sooner do I walk up to an employee to ask him if they had the DVD in stock, I hear a squeal across the room. They found it! We took it as a sign that Harry lead us to there. :o) Anyhoo, we quickly made our purchase and headed back towards the NBC studio.
We actually had no trouble finding the “back entrance” at all. NBC studio has two main entrances and I had previous guessed that the one on 50th was where Dan was going to exit the building and I was right. We didn’t have to wait long but unfortunately Dan was rushed in the Limo so fast that we couldn’t get him to sign our books/soundtracks. :o( Sad.
So that concludes our three days of stalking Dan. The rest of the time was spent site seeing and more shopping. We spent Wednesday at San’s house. . .we figured if we were staying in Fairfield, we might as well see a bit of the town. :o) We watched Return of the King and pigged out on a ton of yummy food. We headed out to a small bar called Archie Moore’s that night and grabbed some grub. Over all, it was a relaxing day and nice break from the NYC madness. Thursday we headed back into the city and did some more sight seeing and shopping. We stopped and H&M and bought some cute clothes and then spent some time in Central Park and ate at the zoo café there. We stopped at the Plaza Hotel (which is tres nice) to walk around and we bought San a little something at the spa there. Afterwards, we headed back to Times Square because we needed to meet up with San and Rachel but we stopped at nice little café and got some milk shakes (and rest our feet) and then did some shopping at Sephora before we met them outside Toys R Us. We headed over to the Majestic theatre where we all saw Phantom of the Opera. I’m now absolutely in love with that musical. Soooo good. I think my favorite song is “The Mirror (Angel of Music).”
Friday was another day to just veg out at San’s. We had lunch at Rooster’s and got a whirlwind tour of Fairfield. We even stopped at the beach to take a few pictures. I love Fairfield. We then drove back to San’s house but not before we past poor Tom walking home from school. She didn’t even stop to pick him up! She laughed! . . . it was actually quite funny. :o) She then cooked us a delicious meal that night and we were all pleasantly surprised that she didn’t burn tea. We just sat outside talking, eating, and generally had a grand ol’ time. Of course, whenever someone mentioned that Saturday would be my last day (Em and Cara were staying an extra day), I would cover my ears and change the subject. I sooooo did not want to leave.
Saturday was my last day in New England. We headed back to the city one last time. Let me just say that Cara, Em, and I got to know Grand Central Terminal reallllllly well on this vacation. I do love the train system. . .so convenient. We took a taxi to Battery Park where we hopped on a ferry to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Because of time, we didn’t stop at Liberty Island but we did walk around the museum on Ellis Island and ate lunch there. Such a beautiful place. We then headed back to Battery Park where Cara and I got some really awesome fake Louis Vuitton bags. . .that girl sure knows how to bargain. She got the guy to go from $70 to $30 for a huge purse. I got mine (which was a bit smaller than hers) for $25. :o) We ended up walking to Ground Zero and it still amazes me the destruction that occurred there on 9/11. It really is one big hole in the ground. The area is completely fenced off but around the fence there a bunch of displays about the history of the area, the World Trade Towers, and of course, 9/11. Just being in the area was a surreal experience. Ground Zero is the only place where you can find… stillness in the midst of the chaos and noise of New York City. It’s not exactly peaceful. . .I wouldn’t call it that. But the people who come to the area to pay their respects are silent. . .they are in no hurry to get anywhere, they don’t shout at one another for getting in each other’s way, the cars don’t honk at one another in traffic. It’s like it’s own odd bubble in the middle of NYC.
Afterwards, we walked to Canal Street to do some last minute shopping for our friends and family back home before catching a taxi back to Grand Central Terminal. That is one experience I hope never to repeat. The way our driver kept switching lanes and honking at other cars, I felt like Harry on the Knight Bus. And I know Cara and Em felt the same way.
Sunday was a sad day. San drove me to Newark and Cara and Em came along for the ride. We said our goodbyes and hugged and promised to see each other again. We’re thinking Chicago will be our next meet up…sometime later this year or early next year. If not then, definitely London in November 2005: Goblet of Fire premiere. ;o)
I spent the most incredible week on the East Coast from May 22-30th. I absolutely love Connecticut and NYC and can’t wait to go back. But alas, I don’t know when that’ll be.
So I flew in Saturday morning to Newark airport. It was a long flight but I flew first class so it was fabulous. I was so excited that I was actually fed a meal on the flight…twice! :o)
I met San, Cara, and Emily at the airport. . .Cara and Em ended up getting an earlier flight from Chicago which worked out perfectly because as soon as my luggage came, I turned around and found them coming towards me. We hugged, chatted about our flights, and talked Harry Potter. Good stuff.
We decided to take a detour. Instead of going straight to Fairfield, we decided to drive through Manhattan and check out what was going on at Radio City Music Hall. My God, I don’t think I’ve seen so many toll booths in my life. And there was one point where I seriously thought we were going to die. I think we were going through the Lincoln Tunnel from NJ to NY. Not sure which tunnel it was. But whoever designed this area was obviously on crack. There are 6 lanes and 6 toll booths. Once everyone passes the toll booth, there is maybe an area of 200-300 feet where there are no lane markers and everybody tries to squeeze into 2 tunnels. I repeat. TWO!!! The buses from the far left lane were trying to cut across all the lanes (if you want to call them lanes) of traffic to the far right tunnel. It was mass chaos and I don’t know how San managed to drive through it so calmly.
So we drive through NYC, made a few circles because of blocked streets, and thoroughly enjoyed the signs that said there was a $300 fine for honking. Of course, everyone honks in NYC and I didn’t see one cop give out one ticket. For shame! :o)
We finally emerged from the madness and had a lovely drive to Fairfield. The area is absolutely beautiful and I don’t know if I ever saw so many trees in my life! Ok, slight exaggeration. But the trees in the northwest are mostly pine and other evergreen trees. These were the big huge maple kind or whatever they were. . .ya know, the ones that have those big gorgeous green leaves that turn those lovely colors in the fall. Makes me wanna go back there this October. . .but I can’t.
Met San’s family and settled into the house. I felt like I was in a bed and breakfast. That’s how lovely her house was. I got my own room downstairs and Cara and Em shared Rachel’s room upstairs. Poor Rachel was kicked out of her room and had to stay with Tom.
We got up early Sunday and headed back into the city where we waited at Radio City Music Hall for the WORLD PREMIERE OF HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN!!!! We didn’t get to see the movie (we weren’t special enough) but we did get to see the stars and Cara even got her book signed by Rupert. (aka Ron Weasley). I got some awesome pics of Rupert and Emma (Hermione Granger) but alas, no good ones of Dan (Harry Potter). Rupert and Emma were allowed to signed autographs but Dan was whisked away to the red carpet. . . we think it may have been a safety issue for the him because the teenage girls went completely nutters when they saw him. Let me just insert here that we had an awesome spot. We were in the front of the crowd and near the beginning of the red carpet. I was even in the line of fire for a few press pics.
Check out:
London Features and look at the last two pictures with Rupert Grint in front of the crowd. See someone familar? ;o)
And HPANA. I look like I’m being punched in the face! LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!
I've created an online album of the trip but I'm hesitant to send out the link. I'm still waiting for Em and Cara to post their pics so I can add them to my album. Secondly, I'm going to email the link to people in my address book but I'm waiting for Pepperdine to give me my new alumni email address. Apparently Pepalum is closing down in a few months. I signed up for the new email address and they promised me a password in 1-2 days. It's been a week. Figures. Anyhoo, here's a few pics from the premiere. Hopefully I can figure out this upload and cut thing on LJ.
Edit: Hmmmmm. The pictures seem to be tempermental. The Rupert pic showed up in one preview and then only the Emma pic. Now neither pics shows up. Maybe they'll show up eventually. Ah well.
We were a bit disappointed that they didn’t hand out screening tickets like they did at the CoS premiere but at that point, we just wanted to get into some air conditioning and grab something to drink. We walked a few block to Applebee’s and sat down to eat and share some of pictures. (San and I had digital cameras
On Monday, Cara, Em, and I headed back into the city. San had to work but she was able to secure us tickets to be in the audience for MTV’s TRL where Dan and Emma happened to be guests. :o) We walked around and grabbed lunch at TGI Friday’s. Let me insert here that while I was there, I counted at least 4 Friday’s in and around the Times Square area. I probably saw a total of 6 Friday’s during the whole trip. AND the security guards at the information center were probably giving us weird looks because of the number of times we visited that center within the time span of 2 hours. There was a moment of near heart failure when we discovered that we needed to have a confirmation number to get into the show that they happened to email to San that morning. . .after we had left for NYC. To make a long story, we went to the nearest Kinko’s and had San fax us the confirmation since we couldn’t get a bloody printer to work to print off the bloody email.
Being in the TRL audience was an incredible experience. No I did not ask for a hug from Dan or Emma but it was just a surreal experience to be in the same room with them. The studio for TRL is small so at some points, you were just a mere couple of feet away from the stars. They are absolutely adorable and look much younger and smaller in person. Cara, Em, and I did feel slightly out of place. . .we were probably the oldest people there. Only people 16-25 can be in the audience and most of the audience was made up of teenage girls wearing considerably less clothing than we were.
Later that night, we went back to San’s house to watch the show which she so kindly taped. Despite the fact that the lady at TRL said that it was impossible not to be seen, I was not shown once. We actually weren’t sitting in the best section and I knew the moment we sat down that we wouldn’t be seen on TV because there was no backdrop behind the bleachers we sat at. However, they did show a close up of Em (who was sitting in the front) clapping, to her complete horror, the new Britney Spears video. It was actually quite funny. If you don’t know Emily, she detests all things Britney.
Tuesday we headed back into the city but this time our focus was on shopping and sight seeing. And of course, we picked up the PoA soundtrack at Virgin Megastore…oh, and the soundtrack is fabulous by the way. We walked around Times Square and Rockefeller Center. We were actually trying the find the back entrance to the NBC studios. . .we knew that Dan was going to be on Conan and by God, we were going to get his autograph. After circling the block, we gave up and continued our search for a store that sold a DVD of Noises Off. You see, Cara and Em have been raving about this movie for ages and Em was going to bring the DVD. We were going to watch it Monday? night but when we opened the case, we found Love Actually instead. Em is still blaming her sister Katie. :o)
So we searched and searched but none of the music/movies stores had them. Of course, that wasn’t the only thing we did. We did walk around a bit and stopped at Tiffany’s and Louis Vuitton and stuff. After a while, we figured we would turn around and perhaps try to find that back entrance one more time. It was close to the end of the taping and we figured we might catch him one last time. As we were about to cross a street we saw a huge bus stop in front of us with the infamous “Something Wicked” poster from PoA. We took as a sign and followed it as it turned down 5th avenue toward the Rockefeller Center and the NBC Studios. I had mentioned earlier how I wanted to stop at Trump Tower but I changed my mind. . .I wanted to see Dan damn it! But as we walked passed it, Cara reminded me of my previous wish and when we stopped to look at the directory, we noticed it had a Tower Record store inside. We thought, why not? It might have the DVD. We walked in and actually weren’t too optimistic. The store was small compared to the other’s we visited. No sooner do I walk up to an employee to ask him if they had the DVD in stock, I hear a squeal across the room. They found it! We took it as a sign that Harry lead us to there. :o) Anyhoo, we quickly made our purchase and headed back towards the NBC studio.
We actually had no trouble finding the “back entrance” at all. NBC studio has two main entrances and I had previous guessed that the one on 50th was where Dan was going to exit the building and I was right. We didn’t have to wait long but unfortunately Dan was rushed in the Limo so fast that we couldn’t get him to sign our books/soundtracks. :o( Sad.
So that concludes our three days of stalking Dan. The rest of the time was spent site seeing and more shopping. We spent Wednesday at San’s house. . .we figured if we were staying in Fairfield, we might as well see a bit of the town. :o) We watched Return of the King and pigged out on a ton of yummy food. We headed out to a small bar called Archie Moore’s that night and grabbed some grub. Over all, it was a relaxing day and nice break from the NYC madness. Thursday we headed back into the city and did some more sight seeing and shopping. We stopped and H&M and bought some cute clothes and then spent some time in Central Park and ate at the zoo café there. We stopped at the Plaza Hotel (which is tres nice) to walk around and we bought San a little something at the spa there. Afterwards, we headed back to Times Square because we needed to meet up with San and Rachel but we stopped at nice little café and got some milk shakes (and rest our feet) and then did some shopping at Sephora before we met them outside Toys R Us. We headed over to the Majestic theatre where we all saw Phantom of the Opera. I’m now absolutely in love with that musical. Soooo good. I think my favorite song is “The Mirror (Angel of Music).”
Friday was another day to just veg out at San’s. We had lunch at Rooster’s and got a whirlwind tour of Fairfield. We even stopped at the beach to take a few pictures. I love Fairfield. We then drove back to San’s house but not before we past poor Tom walking home from school. She didn’t even stop to pick him up! She laughed! . . . it was actually quite funny. :o) She then cooked us a delicious meal that night and we were all pleasantly surprised that she didn’t burn tea. We just sat outside talking, eating, and generally had a grand ol’ time. Of course, whenever someone mentioned that Saturday would be my last day (Em and Cara were staying an extra day), I would cover my ears and change the subject. I sooooo did not want to leave.
Saturday was my last day in New England. We headed back to the city one last time. Let me just say that Cara, Em, and I got to know Grand Central Terminal reallllllly well on this vacation. I do love the train system. . .so convenient. We took a taxi to Battery Park where we hopped on a ferry to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Because of time, we didn’t stop at Liberty Island but we did walk around the museum on Ellis Island and ate lunch there. Such a beautiful place. We then headed back to Battery Park where Cara and I got some really awesome fake Louis Vuitton bags. . .that girl sure knows how to bargain. She got the guy to go from $70 to $30 for a huge purse. I got mine (which was a bit smaller than hers) for $25. :o) We ended up walking to Ground Zero and it still amazes me the destruction that occurred there on 9/11. It really is one big hole in the ground. The area is completely fenced off but around the fence there a bunch of displays about the history of the area, the World Trade Towers, and of course, 9/11. Just being in the area was a surreal experience. Ground Zero is the only place where you can find… stillness in the midst of the chaos and noise of New York City. It’s not exactly peaceful. . .I wouldn’t call it that. But the people who come to the area to pay their respects are silent. . .they are in no hurry to get anywhere, they don’t shout at one another for getting in each other’s way, the cars don’t honk at one another in traffic. It’s like it’s own odd bubble in the middle of NYC.
Afterwards, we walked to Canal Street to do some last minute shopping for our friends and family back home before catching a taxi back to Grand Central Terminal. That is one experience I hope never to repeat. The way our driver kept switching lanes and honking at other cars, I felt like Harry on the Knight Bus. And I know Cara and Em felt the same way.
Sunday was a sad day. San drove me to Newark and Cara and Em came along for the ride. We said our goodbyes and hugged and promised to see each other again. We’re thinking Chicago will be our next meet up…sometime later this year or early next year. If not then, definitely London in November 2005: Goblet of Fire premiere. ;o)