Why I love my sister (...and NYC)

My sister is the best. This is what she has planned for the weekend.

Friday (all of these times are -ish)

--5p: A+T arrive LGA

--6-630p: A+T arrive my apartment (tell *yellow taxi: "I'm going to 7th Street in Manhattan, East Village, btwn Avenue C and D." Then ask him to take the BQE (unless there's construction) and call me when you get across the Williamsburg Bridge. I will meet you outside. My cell is 917-822-1600. 

--630p: Drop luggage inside; look at my apartment; take care of anything you need to do post-travel, change clothes?

--7p: Take 6 train to City Hall, walk to Ground Zero, Wall St, Federal Reserve (other?)

--9p: Take 2,3 from Wall St to Clark St -- land: Brooklyn Heights; eat dinner -- Famous Brooklyn Grimaldi's pizza? / ice cream at Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory (if open?)

--10p: Walk into Manhattan across Brooklyn Bridge; take 6 train City-Hall to Bleecker

--11p: Arrive Le Poisson Rouge club/concert venue for Glitch mob

Questions: Do we want to buy $15 tickets online? Or pay $20 at door? How does pizza restaurant sound for dinner? We can have snack before 10p if that is late for eating. What time do you want to plan to leave the venue? We'll taxi home to my apartment ~10min. 

Saturday

--Take 6 train to Upper East Side- 86th St, walk north to 89th to 5th Ave

--Walk south down 5th to see Guggenheim (btwn 88-89th); Do we want to go into lobby? Do we want to pay admission/see the collection?

--Continue walking south to MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art; btwn 82-82); They have donation-admission. We should plan to go in. It's huge; how long do we want to stay/what collections do we want to see? Look at options on their web site. Ashley suggests visiting roofdeck; this is a good idea. We should also see the Egyptian pyramid. 

--Eat lunch in MET-Egypt 

--Exit MET, walk around Central Park 

now what... ? we could:

--go to Midtown (with possibilities MOMA, Rockerfeller Center/ my office building/ ice skating, shopping on 5th Ave at big name brand stores like H&M, Zara, Express, &tc or shopping/ ogling at famous department stores Takashimaya/ Saks/ Berdorff's/ Bloomingdales, &tc)

--go home to change/rest/chill in East Village (depending on time) + more funky shopping/coffee down here

--go to Chinatown for trinkets/ Chinatown pastries + meat on stick 

--7:30p: Go to Murray Hill for cocktails at my old roommate's place (Murray Hill is on east side, off 6 train around 33rd St I think); leave before dinner starts

--Have dinner (maybe with cda?) --Where? Ashley suggested sushi.  

--Go to Times Square for drinks (maybe at sky-rise super-tall penthouse kinda place? or is there a late-night show we want to see?)

Sunday

--This seems like the best day to stay close to home and have brunch, & partake in fun, cool shopping in the East Village/ Nolita and/or Chinatown as desired (I should look at a list of stores before we leave my place so we don't end up misdirected). Ashley-- if we happen to be near MitchellGold & Williams (furniture store) I would love to get your input on this couch I've been looking at. :) 

Travel Tips

Some nice little tidbits I have learned in the last year:

Southwest

If your scheduled flight is more than 15 minutes delayed they can switch you to another SW flight, free of charge. Ask them at the counter - their system shows delays that the monitors won't yet.

American Airlines

They have reduced mileage awards they don't promote very heavily. You are supposed to have this particular credit card, but they have never checked when I used it. You just need to know the booking code that's on the website when you call in.

Booking on the phone

If you have to book over the phone, most airlines will charge you a reservation fee. Have them transfer you to tech support and act computer illiterate - they won't charge a reservation fee. I have done this with United before.

With American, try and get the operator to waive the fee. If they don't, file a complaint. I received a $40 voucher for complaining about being charged a $20 reservation fee per ticket.

Use Expedia. etc to find flights, not to book them

Don't ever book flights using these travel services! They jack up the costs, add fees and the airlines can't help you directly if something goes wrong or you want to transfer. Just use it as a service to find cheaper airfare and book directly with the airlines themselves. Besides, they won't show you Southwest's flights anyways.

Provo, Utah