After our stop at Rue 57 I went to Duane Reade to pick up some SF Red Bull and some other drink mixing accoutrement while everyone else headed to the apartment to start getting ready for the evening out. As I walked into the lobby and said hi to the door man, Amanda was coming off the elevator and didn’t look too happy. Well it seems as if the door to our fabulous apartment was stuck – as in the lock was broken. Not a good thing. The door man was little to no help what so ever except to tell us we were pretty much screwed since the super had already left for the weekend. He suggested we call a locksmith – o yes, because I have a 212 locksmith on speed dial on my phone. So he was kind enough to call one for us and tell him to hurry it up. So here we were all running around in towels and pj bottoms and tank tops with half applied make up and hair in rollers and towels and anything else you can think of and there’s some random man whom we believe to be a locksmith standing in the door way with tools spread out everywhere and baracading us in.
He “fixes” the lock and we tell him thank you very much, blah blah blah, just thinking that of course he’ll just charge it to the apartment owners or the building or something. NOPE! He says it’ll be a bit less than $500! We tell him we don’t have that and go round and round with him about taking a card or a check – no he must have cash. So we all dug into our “secret” stash of shopping money and paid the man. The best part was when, as we were all heartily discussing the situation and telling him we didn’t have that kind of cash, he just looked at Brittany who had her name monogrammed on her towel wrap and said uh…. Brittany, you will have to go to the ATM.
Door fixed – drama over…
Got dressed, left apartment, no deaths of the door man or the locksmith.

One of the things on “THE LIST” was to eat at Carmines – known for their family style service and fantastic food! Well we tried to get on the list, however the earliest we could get a table was Monday night… well that just wouldn’t work! SO after all we had done in just one evening, we thought we’d just pop in to have A drink – simple math, science and physics and every other law tells you that 5 girls on vacay can not have just ONE drink… We got a great table upstairs and had a really funny waiter –Trinidad. He sure got a kick out a bunch of Southern girls. The upstairs floor manager was from Texas and also had a fond appreciation for us! Any time we would need something we would just yell for either of them and they’d be at our side, normally already with drinks in hand! They were fabulous! So drink after drink after shot after drink we stumbled back to our hotel and learned all about some green olive sandwiches from Brittany – fyi those consist of mayo and green olives on a hot dog bun and they must be washed down with a Dr. Pepper! Our plan for the next day was to hit the TODAY show and get on TV … but it was about 3 in the morning and we were going on no sleep in 24 hours…

After our trip down to the tree we started the trek back to our hotel and were in need of something to warm us up (read more drinkies). One of the things I was told was a must was to go to the top of the Rainbow Room at the NBC Building and have a drink and enjoy the amazing view. SO since we were right there… that’s where we went – all the way to the top. However first we were told we’d have to wait in line –WHAT – we wait in line for no one, no thing, no how – and where was this line this elevator spoke of? HA! No waiting allowed – well except for like 5 minutes. Then we whisked to the top, checked our coats and ordered drinks. The bar area is beautiful and we actually presented the Rainbow Room a prize – most expensive drink we’ve had to pay for – ever. $27 a martini! (Note the part about us having to pay for them) Apparently the winner prior was the Wynn in Las Vegas, but I wasn’t there for that so not sure the exact context of that. No matter – we were on vacation! We had one drink, Brittany had an entire bowl full of nuts and we got some great pictures and headed back down the elevator! … and on to our next adventure.

This is my most favorite picture – I’m so glad Amanda took it for me!!!

After dinner we headed which ever way Times Square is from where ever we were… yeah it made about that much sense to us as well but we made it to the tree by golly! The tree had been lit on Wednesday night, so thus we weren’t there for the actual lighting but we figured it was for the best as they got all the kinks out prior to OUR arrival! It was truly beautiful and we got yet another great group picture with the angels. We stopped a few times for some pictures along the great white way…

We asked our great door man at the Paramount for some suggestions for dinner and he suggested etcetera etcetera which was a few blocks away from our hotel in between Broadway and Hell’s Kitchen. So we called to get reservations and then just headed out to see what we could find. We found an Irish Pub right next to our restaurant so of course we went in – we needed a drink!
The pub was great and the drinks were STRONG! We also had some great seats in the front of the bar right by the window and the Christmas tree – can you say photo op boys and girls. I know I was really glad that all our waitresses were never at all bitchy about taking our pictures, then letting us see if it was good and the potentially retaking it – so thank you to all the nice waitresses that obliged our vanity!
We downed our drinks and headed to dinner – such tasty food and fortunately for us Ari has a good appreciation of wine – and could order like a PRO for us! Let’s just say this was only the beginning to eating and drinking very well for a few fabulous days, so it was a good thing we had all been running our asses off – no really … true story.