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Becca and I flew to New York City at the beginning of March. Our mission: visit Columbia University and NYU and see some Broadway shows. Mission accomplished! We arrived in NYC in the wee hours of the morning, and savored a delicious breakfast at DB Bistro Moderne, located on W.44th St, right next to our hotel, The City Club Hotel. The weather was beautifully clear and sunny but really, really cold. We walked over to Times Square, explored for a bit and then ducked into the swanky, plush and modern lobby at the W. Before I knew it, Becca had fallen sound asleep on one of the couches in the lobby. I woke her a little while later and we hopped into a taxi and made it to Columbia on the upper west side of Manhattan for our information session and campus tour. Such a beautiful campus, with old buildings, sculptures and beautiful paintings and art work inside many of the buildings. We lunched after  at Ollie’s Noodle Shop, then back to our hotel for an afternoon snooze. I went over to Times Square and was able to purchase half price tickets for us that night to see Phantom of the Opera. Our seats ended up being in the second row! Fabulous and fantastic. After a wonderful sleep we were up the next day and off to visit NYU. It’s a completely different campus setting than Columbia, more scattered about and  located in Greenwich Village. Becca enjoyed the tour and we  had the opportunity to meet with the head admissions counselor for the theater department at Tisch School of the Arts. Lunch at Il Cantinetta afterwards was delicious. SOHO beckoned to us: we wandered about, visited a few shops and then hopped on the subway back to our hotel. After a short but delightful rest we headed for  dinner at ‘Cafe Un, Deux, Trois’ where Becca enjoyed a steak sandwich et frites and I delighted in my salade chevre chaud (goat cheese salad). Excitement mounted as we walked over to The Al Hirschfield Theater just off of Times Square to see Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) perform in ‘How to Succeed in Business without really trying’. Such a great show: dancing, singing, awesome sets, wonderful humor and acting. We celebrity stalked after and saw Daniel Radcliffe emerge around midnight from the side door of the theater. Becca and I were chanting, ‘Daniel, Daniel’. Saturday morning found us sleeping in then out the door to explore 5th Ave: Urban Outfitters and H&M were pleased that we stopped by. We took some pictures over at the New York Public Library  then headed north on 5th Ave over to MOMA (the Museum of Modern Art). Becca really enjoyed the art in the museum, particularly Jackson Pollack’s works. We enjoyed a delicious lunch at the Modern restaurant in the museum and then headed over to Central Park. We wandered about in there for a while: walking, sitting on large rocks, taking photos and then exited by Columbus Circle where we headed down 8th St and stopped in for an early dinner at Mariella’s Pizza. Energized by our pizza we walked from there, through New York Times Square and back to our hotel where we took a quick rest and then headed out to see a play at NYU. Afterwards we stopped in at The Red Flame Diner by our hotel as Becca was in need of a late night snack: eggs, sausage, fries and a milkshake helped fill her belly and we were both ready for a good nights rest. Sunday morning we  left our bags with the hotel and headed down to SOHO where we met up with Elizabeth DiCandilo, a friend of mine from Off The Map, at Aroma Coffee Bar. It was a great breakfast and fun to meet up with her. One of our favorite clothing stores from Barcelona, Decigual, was right around the corner from the coffee shop so we stopped in there for some retail therapy. We hopped on the subway after and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I wish we’d had more time there to explore, but it was time for us to catch a cab, pick up our belongings at the hotel and get to the airport. What a fun adventure. Thanks New York!