Saturday, January 30, 2016

Birthday Escape

Last October, I got bumped from a flight and was given a travel voucher for my troubles. Awesome!! I started looking into destinations to take JP for her birthday. We've talked about getting away, but never do. This was my golden opportunity to surprise her. 

We've never been to New York City and have always wanted to go, so I started looking into it. Just before Thanksgiving, Hilton sent me an email about their Black Friday hotel sale: 1/3 off, so I booked two nights at one of their fancy NYC hotels at a rate that we could afford. Now all I had to do was keep it a secret until January...


We were scheduled to fly on Friday, 1/22/16, the same day that a major nor'easter was forecast to destroy the east coast. All week I monitored the weather outlook as the hype and excitement built. By Wednesday night, it looked like NYC had a 100% chance of 5-8" of snow. I decided that I had to spill the beans to JP - I didn't want to drag her on a trip through East Coast Travel Hell if she wasn't up for it. Delta beat me to it and sent her an email telling her to check in for her flight to NYC. She called me with more than a few questions. When she finally realized that we were going to NYC for the weekend, a 40-mule borax team couldn't have pulled her away from going. We rescheduled our flights to add a day and leave on Monday rather than Sunday, just in case the city got some snow and slowed down the airport.


Our flight in was flawless. It only took 30 minutes to get from LaGuardia to midtown Manhattan. We checked in to the 42nd floor of Towers the Waldorf Astoria and set out to take in the city. We had dinner at a seafood place a few blocks from the hotel and then headed west to the Lincoln Center to snap a selfie. 


We had reservations at Dizzy's, a jazz club near Lincoln Center on Columbus Circle that overlooks Central Park. It was truly magical listening to professional live music with the city as a backdrop. Halfway thru the show it started snowing.

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