New York part two

Tuesday

We decided to begin our day at the Natural History Museum and we ended up spending virtually the whole day there! An astonishing place, we spent our time visiting the many dinosaur, animal and space exhibits, including he full size model of a blue whale suspended over two storeys of the marine life exhibit. The Hayden planetarium was incredible and the manner in which the animals were displayed was just beautiful, with each species positioned in its own mini exhibit made to mimic its natural environment. A truly magnificent museum, however, it did mean we never quite made it to the MET.

From the museum we headed into Times Square to get some food before seeing Book of Mormon at 7pm on Broadway. We decided to try some cheap options and went with pizza for $4 a slice. Thanks to Starbucks the internet suggested a little place just off the square where we had some of the very best pizza I've ever eaten. (It was the best - Andrew) (additional: It was called Patzeria Perfect Pizza)

Finally we arrived at the theatre and took our seats for Book of Mormon. It was phenomenal! Not only were the production values sky high but I've not laughed that much in one sitting for quite some time. The performances were incredible and the story, true to form, was utterly hilarious but also very controversial and I wouldn't be surprised if some people walked out. If it ever comes to Australia, we would see it again in a heartbeat. We decided to grab some snacks afterwards so we went back to Rockefeller centre and finished the day with tasty pastries and coffee.  A brilliant day.

Wednesday

Well, this was an interesting but complicated day. We had tickets to stand in line for the Daily Show and we knew we needed to get there early, so we decided to try and get cronuts back in SoHo and then head to the theatre in the lower west side. We found the Amstelle bakery again however they were sold out of  cronuts already so rather than waste the trip we decided to have a very fancy breakfast at Balthazar's. This restaurant is a very well known eatery and luckily they were able to seat us, though if it had been any other time I don't think we'd have had a chance. We had a very decadent brekkie of juice, coffee, sticky buns, crossiants, Christmas bread, cranberry loaf and rye. Really magnificent food but it's a once in a trip kind of thing as it was quite pricey. By this stage it was getting to around 12.45pm and we knew we needed to get there early, around 1.30ish for the 2.30pm handout, according to people who had been before. We did a little window shopping in SoHo and Tribeca and then began to make our way to the studio.

We underestimated the distance to the studio but still arrived at around 1.45pm when we were met with a line that doubled back and went around the block. This did not bode well. In conversations with others in the line, some were confident we would still get in whilst others decided not to bother waiting. After an excruciating wait we ended up missing out on tickets by about ten people. This was really disappointing and we were told to email the producers and explain our situation (only one more day in NY etc) and see if they could get us tickets for tomorrow. We were devastated BUT a man by the name of Ben took us aside an said that he had 4 tickets for tomorrow if we wanted them and if we gave him our email he could send them through. We gave him our details, thanked him profusely and just hoped he'd do as he promised.

At this point it was around 3pm, too late to try and get to the Statue of Liberty (which was the plan for tomorrow) and too late for the MET as well. We found a Starbucks as soon as we could to email the producers, thinking that Ben might not come through, and waited for a bit to see if anyone replied. More on that later...

We then decided to go down to the World Trade Centre 9/11 Memorial. It was an amazing sight to see how big the towers were and to see the new tower almost completed. It was a pretty emotional place and the memorial was a very fitting tribute.

As it was nearing dinner time by this stage we thought we'd try and go to Otto's, the Italian place Jo suggested, since we now had time and could look up the location. We headed back to the east end of 5th avenue and eventually found Otto's! There was a 45 minute wait, but figuring we might as well, we ordered some cheese and drinks to tide us over in the front bar. The cheeses (goats cheese, pecorino and another hard one) were lovely and each was served with its own accompaniment of truffle honey, spiced apricots and brandy cherries. A table eventually came up and we ordered peperoni pizza and the spaghetti and meatballs, which, I'm sorry to say, weren't that great. The pizza base was a little soggy and the peperoni tasted weird and the meatballs were just meh. The atmosphere was lovely, the music was great and there was good service but it felt like a slightly anti-climactic end to a somewhat disappointing day. We did some general window shopping for an hour or so and went back to our hotel.

Thursday - Last day in NY

Good news! Ben came through for us and he sent us his Daily Show tickets for our last day so we were able to get our hotel to print the information and we began our day early. Andrew had been given a list of places that apparently had good coffee, so we went on a mission to find one of them near 30 Rock called the Bluebottle. We tracked it down and also bought some pastries for breakfast and did have the best coffee so far in NY at the cafe.

Paranoid as a result of yesterday's failure to secure tickets, we went to join the line at 1pm and were very pleased to only find around 20 people there. We settled in for a long wait spent the time chatting and watching as the line grew and grew. By 2pm it was already doubled back and almost around the block again. Needless to say that when they started handing out tickets at 2.30pm we were very, very relieved to be in the first 35. With our tickets secured and sure of our instructions we had around an hour and a half before we needed to be back at the studio. It was a little warmer than previous days so we went for a stroll along the water before going to a pub opposite the studio to wait in the warm. Andrew finally got around to ordering a chilli dog, which he quite liked, and soon it was time to line up again NB: If you're ever going to go to a taping of anything in the US, be prepared for lots of queuing and airport style security, including metal detectors, bag searches and sniffer dogs - this happened both at Lettterman and Daily Show.

Finally, after more waiting we were in the studio of the Daily Show! We were both very excited and even more so when the warm up comedian explained that it was the last show of the year. This show would also turn out to be John Oliver's last show as well, so the taping was a little longer than we expected. John Stewart was funny, amicable and brilliant as always and he came and actually took questions from the audience prior to the taping. As it was John Oliver's last show there were a few moments where both men were clearly trying not to cry and it was really lovely to be there for that.

Following the taping we decided to go and do Top of the Rock which involves taking an elevator to the top (70th Floor) of the NBC building (30 Rock) and taking many, many, many photos. It was superb! The weather wasn't quite as cold as it had been, there was virtually no wind and being able to look over the city at night, straight at the Empire State Building and other famous landmarks was incredible. Both of us commented that it didn't feel real, and we were blown away by how magnificent the city looks from above. We spent around an hour and half up there, taking some video and photos, then we decided we needed some food.

I (Jess) thought that a fitting end would be icecream for tea, so I had a Ben and Jerry's 'Ron Burgundy - Scotchy Scotch Scotch' and 'Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream' hot fudge sundae. It was amazeballs. Andrew wanted some street vendor (yuk) food so a hotdog and pretzel in Times Square ended our last day in NY. We never found time for the Statue of Liberty, the MET or MoMA but that just leaves us things to do for next time. NY is a phenomenal city and one I could most definitely live in very happily.