NYC 2017 Day Three

Day Three Already?  Time sure does fly when you are having fun.

Last night when we got back to the hotel I went online an bought some tickets to a matinee for today so we wouldn't have to waste time getting down to the TKTS booth.

We stopped at a little diner up the street from the hotel for breakfast, Van Dam Diner.

It was raining a bit, enough for me to get my umbrella out so we came across the diner just in time.

I had the bagels & lox.  My Honey always orders it and then I wish I had so I wanted to avoid that scenario this morning.  I also had a side of bacon because....bacon!

Breakfast was great, no capers with the bagels & lox but I survived.

When we left after breakfast/brunch, it had stopped raining so perfect timing!

This is the street we walked everyday to get to the Subway station, as you can see, not much going on here.

As we had a bit of a late start we pretty much had to head right over to the show for 2:00pm.

This was a show about how Gander, NFLD and it's residents stepped up to feed, house & cloth all the passengers from all the planes that were diverted there during 911.

The population basically doubled overnight.

Not a great pic but I have some friends from Newfoundland and this newfanese is pretty bang on.

Ready for the show.

This was my favorite show of the trip this time.

I liked the way the did it, the actors played various roles and they did a little newfie jig number.

Actually a Great Big Sea song so that was fun.

I found it very interesting to learn about what went on there.  I heard about it before but didn't give much thought to what it would have actually been like.

Things like being stuck on a plane for over 28 hours, diverted to a strange place without knowing why, finding beds for that many people & clothes (they weren't allowed to have their luggage), feeding them, finding meds for those that needed it.  Also, they touched on the animals that were in the baggage, they had to fight to be able to go in and feed and take care of them.

What Gander did was touching & a perfect example of maritime (and Canadian) hospitality.

After the show we went to an old favorite, Schnippers.  We have gone there almost every visit to New York.  We first heard about it on an episode of Throw Down with Bobby Flay.

They are known for their sloppy joe's so Bobby Flay challenged them to a sloppy joe throw down.

Bobby Flay did end up winning but we still wanted to check it out.

As far as we were concerned, Schnipper's was a winner to us.

Also, they have fabulous shakes, they have a salted caramel one which we always get and then I opt for the orange float.

We look forward to coming here each trip.

We had about 2 hours before the ICCA Competition was scheduled to start tonight so we decided to do a little exploring.

Schnippers is on 41st and the ICCA Finals were on 74th so we meandered our way over there.

As usual, we saw a few interesting things on the way.

For some reason we found this tiny little NYPD car amusing.  Seeing a huge cop getting out of it would have been more amusing still.

Did they get tired of carrying the sign?  Not sure why it was in the garbage?

I want these doors for my house - they are absolutely stunning.

Came across The American Folk Art Museum so we checked out.

Admission was FREE!

We weren't sure how much further we had to walk so we didn't linger long but they did have some cool things.

I love this, I also purchased a little angel magnet that looks like it was created by the same artist.

Here she is - at home on my fridge now.

My Honey was quite excited about his purchase too - the Predict a Pen.

You ask it a question and it give you an answer - he was getting me to ask him a lot of questions just so he could consult the pen.

Saw this giant Playmobil guy on our travels also.  I lived in Germany for a few years and these toys were a big item there.

My brother & I had tons of them and I remember that I really enjoyed playing with them as a child.

Saw this pretty lady across the street from the New York Ballet building.

Isn't she great?

I love this little ornate building tucked in next to the more modern building.

It only took us about an hour to get to 74th and my feet were in need of a rest so we found a little café and stopped in for a snack (can't recall the name of the place).

I ordered the almond croissant and an earl grey tea.

The tea was delish but this croissant was awful, it was flat as a pancake and not at all flaky.

It was kind of a waste.

Luckily all was not lost because My Honey ordered this cute little lemon tart and he was willing to share with me.  It was tart & sweet & perfect.

I just can't get enough of these buildings, they are just so beautiful, can't resist taking picture after picture.

Then it was time for the show, the whole reason for our trip here to NYC this weekend.

I was a huge Glee fan.  They would go to competitions in the show and it got me thinking that they probably have competitions like this in real life.

Spoiler alert...they do!!

I did some research and discovered Varsity Vocals, followed their page on Facebook.

We've been talking about going a competition for a couple years now but for some reason when the announcement for the finals popped up and the venue was in NYC we just decided "what the heck"!

I had some travel points to use so we booked and presto, here we are about to see the show.

They let everyone into the building but not into the seats and the place was just packed solid with people.

I WAS SO EXCITED AT THIS POINT!

I am so glad the we came and saw this - wish I could come every year.

There were 10 groups of finalists and they were from all over the states, one group was from Waterloo, Ontario and another group was from London, England.

Each group had 12 minutes allotted for their performance.

The performers are just so talented and I thought it was just wonderfully entertaining.

I was so disappointed when they announced the last group because I just didn't want it to be over.

The High School finals were held last night so they also had the top 3 groups from last night do short performances tonight while the judges were deliberating.

They had all the groups come back out at the end of the night to do a group number - so much fun.

I can't even tell you which team won, they were all outstanding in my eyes.

We may not be able to attend every year but we will definitely attend again at some point in the future.

They did announce that they are adding another competition to their roster.

Right now they have the High School finals and the College finals and starting this fall they are going to host Open finals which means anyone can try out.

I have a feeling there is going to be some outstanding talent at that one.

Our hotel was on Van Dam St. - neat name.

Another full day, can't believe the trip is coming to an end.

My phone has been dying half way through out the day the whole trip.  My Honey has a camera so I've been getting him to take pictures for me but I do need to get the phone issue dealt with.

Maybe I need to buy a new battery?

Will see when I get home.

Another wrap, until next time, be happy!