**WARNING** Longest Post EVERI have really been procrastinating this post which is really sad because this was definitely a GREAT day in NYC. I'm worried I won't be able to convey the GREATNESS of the day...but here goes.
First we started out early at the Today Show; we got there about 6:30 and there weren't too many people. They were giving away Mariah Carey fans promoting her new album. Woohoo! We were excited with just that. Soon word spread that she would be making a surprise guest appearance on the show that day!! Man, were we excited. We stood around making friends, trying to stay warm. We met one girl, Gina, and her mom. They were very nice. Gina wanted to have her pic taken with the crazy girl...ME!! Ha! Too funny!! We were having a good time! Her mom bought us lattes to help us stay warm. Jeana and I decided to have our picture taken with the guy that stands outside on the Today Show
everyday. I'm sure you've seen him if you watch. Anyway, when you check out the pics it's the one with the 'guy'!! Too funny! Nancy and her boss, John, hung out with us for awhile but had to get back to their conference. Unfortunately, that's when the action started.
Al Roker came out and made his way around the crowd shaking hands with almost everyone. As we were standing there waiting for the action a girl was walking around behind everyone giving out pink t-shirts and Mariah Carey posters. She said she was from the company marketing MC. We were pumped to get a free t-shirt. Anyway, she told our friend Gina she had something else right before she was shooed off by NBC security but that she would be back. WHAT...MORE!!! In the meantime, Al, Meredith, Matt, and Ann all came out and shook hands and filmed more of the show. They were all very nice but Jeana and I thought Meredith and Ann were much prettier in person then they appear on the show. Ann seemed to go out of her way to talk to people...very cordial.
So the girl comes back around after awhile and asks me if we could be available from 1-4, "oh are you a fan of Mariah?" Heck yeah!! So she proceeds to tell me that Mariah is having a signing at Macy's today and wants some of her fans to ride over on her bus with her to the signing. It's not a done deal yet but she would call with details if it's a go. So I give her my name, phone number and age along with Jeana's info. We were totally freaking out. Soon after, Mariah came out on the Today Show and she walked right over to us...the girl two people over apparently knew her and Mariah walked straight to her. You should have heard us...we were screaming MARIAH!!!! It was crazy!! Mariah does her little interview and they rush out and that was about it.
We hung around for just a little longer, well until they took down the Today Show banners. We decided our next stop would be Central Park by way of Subway through Grand Central Station. Jeana and I both loved GSC. I wish we would have looked around a little more. We went into the market in GCS, we were so fascinated at all the fresh foods they had. It was so neat. We both recommend touring GSC if you take a NYC trip. This was our first ride on the Subway and we didn't have our tour guide with us...we were a little nervous, but we did REALLY well! We made it to Central Park, actually with hopes of seeing more famous people, but as far as we knew we didn't see any. CP was very relaxing and ginormous!! We took a break on a park bench and enjoyed the great weather and scenery. Making our way through we decided we should head towards Harold Square (this is where the girl told us we would meet the bus). We did NOT want to miss it. We did some shopping around there and had lunch in a little corner diner. I will say one thing that we're spoiled to in OK...you can pretty much find a fast-food restaurant on any corner but in NYC it's all little diners or pubs and you just have to hope the food is good. We did pretty good on the picking though!! While we're eating, my phone rang...EEEK!!! Guess who!!! Oh man! Honestly the whole day we were hoping it would happen but these things just don't seem to pan out or it seemed too good to be true. So when the phone rang we were giddy with excitement! The girl told us to meet the bus no later than 2:15 on 60th and Lexington..."if you aren't there by 2:15 the bus will be gone." It was already 1:30 and since we didn't know exactly where we where going we wanted to get going.
We got on the Subway and it didn't take long for me to realize that the street numbers were getting smaller...GREAT!! Sheesh! So we hopped off and got on the subway over. It took us further downtown until we could get on one that would take us uptown. We finally made it to 59th; by this time is was a little after 2pm. This is where that great advice came in from Day 1 "Locals think places are a lot closer than they really are." A guy on the subway told us it would take us less than 5 minutes to get to Lexington. REALLY???? We RAN at least a mile. We were huffing and puffing when we finally found the bus, at 2:20ish. Envision this in slow-motion; Jeana and I running up to the bus with a huge crowd in front of it, both of us in our twinkie hot-pink Mariah Carey t-shirts, license out about to pounce on the security guy standing outside the bus. We looked like crazed fans!! The security guy says, "Slow down girls, these things never get started on time, you're ok!" Talk about embarrassing. Anyway, he called us Oklahoma after that! Ha! Sorry, we didn't help the reputation of our great state any!! Sheesh!!
Finally the time comes for us to get on the bus. A guy from her crew comes out of the bus and tells the crowd that if you think your name is on the list to line up...HELLO!! Our name was on "The List". Hehe!! So Jeana, me and about 18 other people load into her bus. They have food and drinks for us and MC music blaring. At that point we were just glad to be able to sit down in the A/C and rest. Whew!! We were on the bus for about 2 hours. They made one stop and we could tell Mariah got off because people outside started screaming and the camera flashes were going crazy. We were supposed to ride over to Macy's with her for her new perfume signing. Apparently plans changed because Macy's didn't want us to do that but Jeana and I were cool...how often do you get to do what we did?!?! They did take our address but we'll see if they ever send us something.
Sorry for such a long story but it was a CrAzY day...a definitely one we'll never forget! After all that we met Nancy in Times Square for dinner and more shopping. When we got there she called us and said she found the Naked Cowboy...we were cracking up. So of course we had to have our pic made with him. That was funny! We ate at Bubba Gumps and then went into Toys R Us. I think one of the best parts of our trip was all the fun people we met along the way. I guess it pays to be friendly!! Hehe!! Needless to say we were exhausted by the end of the day.
I hope you didn't get too burned out reading my post...it was a difficult one for me to write! If you have questions you can leave them in the comments or just ask!!
Day 3 coming soon...don't worry, it's not this packed full!! Hehe!!
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