How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

You move to Vienna, Austria!  :o)

Jeremy and I just returned from New York two days ago, and we are wonderfully jetlagged!  We traveled to NYC for the last part of Jeremy's Philharmonic two week tour for him to play at the world famous Carnegie Hall.  He traveled (without me) to Cologne, Paris, London, and Amsterdam as well.  I'll let him tell you all about that if he ever decides to get back on here to post again!  We had a plethora of friends and family travel up to see us and the concert, so it was a great homecoming time!

We arrived on Wednesday, Feb. 27, although since Jer was coming from Amsterdam, he was on a different flight.  So, I headed to the hotel ready for a much needed shower.  Unfortunately, I had a jetlagged breakdown to the night manager threatening him with European craziness because he wouldn't give me a key to my room without my husband present (it worked by the way).  But then I took a look around....this was the nicest hotel I've ever been in!  And I'M not paying for it!!  It was really modern, but super nice.  I took the elevator up 14 floors, and I even got to enjoy some donald duck cartoons on the way (awesome).    Sadly, Jeremy's flight was delayed a ridiculous 4 hours, so we missed the Broadway show we had already purchased tickets for on the internet.  That sucked big time, but I got to hear some snazzy renditions of Broadway songs in the subway stations, so I guess it all evened out.  He got in about 10pm, and we crashed hard in our sweet hotel room. 

The next day was a fun (and cold) day of sightseeing with Jeremy's parents and family friends, the Bouldins.  We went to Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, Times Square, Ground Zero, and Battery Park.  Jer and I broke down and bought one of those cool NYC pictures in Battery Park to hang in our office.  After much deliberating, we decided we could get it home without breaking it if we took it in the airplane cabin with us.  Of course, as we were crossing the street right after purchasing it, a big gust of wind blew it directly into my knee, and it was smashed to smithereens.  The second purchase made it home more successfully!  That night we went to the hilarious Blue Man Group.  If you've never seen them, I would definitely recommend it!  

Friday, Jeremy and I had the opportunity to go eat with Dr. W.J. Julian, Don Hough (Jeremy's trombone instructor at UT), and his wife, Louise.  Dr. Julian was the band director at UT for over 30 years and is responsible for most of the traditions of The Pride of The Southland.  He LOVES the Philharmonic, so he wanted to treat us to a very fancy meal at La Grenouille.  This was seriously the nicest restaurant I've ever been in.  It had a dress code, so I felt all stuffed up, but the place was frickin' classy.  I wanted to take some pictures, but I felt like that would be frowned upon!  In fact Henry Kissinger was sitting at the table right next to us if that gives you an idea!  We had around 12 waiters constantly buzzing around us bringing things the whole time.  And to top it off, I had the best dessert of my life - chocolate soufflé!  After that Jeremy and I did a little shopping, then split up for me to go meet my in-laws and him to go meet a variety of UT peeps for supper.  My group went to eat at Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co. on Times Square, then we enjoyed the super awesome movie, Semi-Pro!  

On Saturday, we were joined by more family (Jeremy's aunt, uncle, & cousin), and we headed off to NBC studios.  We got to tour some of the studios (Brian Williams Nightly News and Saturday Night Live), and it was seriously cool!  The thing that struck me was how small the studios were.  On Saturday Night Live especially, that door that all the hosts come out off looks huge on TV, but it's smaller than my living room!  We even got to hear the band do some warm ups.  After the tour, we headed down to the store and got some various t-shirts from out favorite shows.  We grabbed lunch, then Jeremy and I went off on our own to Macy's to take advantage of our Euros to dollars exchange!  It's so nice when you pay 50 dollars for something it's actually only 30 euros.  I also had a lovely little incident while we were shopping.  I had separated from Jeremy to go to the women's department, and I was idly skimming a rack.  Out of nowhere this woman comes up to me, screams in my face, then pushes me to the ground.  Now, I consider myself a fairly spry little dame, but this woman completely took me off guard.  I was sitting there in the floor with a Tommy Hilfiger shirt in one hand and my purse halfway over my head....and I couldn't help but wonder, "what just happened here?!"  By the time I regained my senses, she was already gone and screaming/cursing at the poor sales woman in the dressing room.  Just goes to show you that you aren't even safe in the expensive department of Macy's!  I still maintain that if I hadn't had all my weight on one foot, then she would have never knocked me over.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

That night we all got dressed up and made our way to Carnegie for Jeremy's concert.  I felt so special sitting there thinking, "that's my husband up there!!"  The concert was obviously wonderful, and he made me so proud.  Afterwards, we went to Carnegie Deli for the world famous mile high sandwiches and desserts.  I also saw an actress sitting next to us that I can't for the life of me figure out what movie she was in.  Jeremy thinks I'm crazy, but I promise you, one of the days, there will be a new post on here with her name and movie title!!

Sunday was the last day of our trip, and it was pretty uneventful.  We got up and had breakfast with the parents and the Bouldins before we saw them off in a limo to the airport.  Then we met Vern and Jan Kagarice (UNT trombone instructors) for lunch at Cafe Europa (very fitting name).  It was so nice to get to see them and spend some time with them!  Jeremy had to go play an afternoon concert, so I hopped on the subway to do some last minute shopping errands.  I'd like to pause here and say that being in NYC made me truly appreciate the quality of the public transportation in Vienna.  Vienna's subways are cleaner, newer, quieter, brighter, and cleaner.  I never really noticed the quality of Vienna's subways before, but I guess that was a good thing because NYC's was awful!  I was able to find the last of the things on our "to buy list," so I went back to Carnegie to wait for Jer bear.  As soon as the concert was over, we got on chartered buses and had police escorts through the city to make our flight!  I tell you what, I felt like SOMEbody!  We made the flight by the hair on our chinny chin chins and endured the grueling 9 hour flight back.   

It was a great trip, and I loved being back in a city of English.  We also got to see friends and family, so it was worth the flight and jet lag.  When we get pictures from Jeremy's parents (hint, hint), I'll be sure to post some photos!