Familiar Faces

I love it when I get to meet up with friends from back home here in New York City! Recently, I got to hang out with Casey Matern and Stephanie Johnson. You may recognize Casey as The Chaperone with me in The Drowsy Chaperone this past summer or as Tracy in Hairspray the summer before. The lovely Stephanie Johnson produced both of those shows. They were here on a fun little trip to see some shows. They also brought along their friend Blair; she was so nice, super funny, and she's Scottish so that's cool. I was so glad that they were able to make a little bit of time for me to hang out with them. 

They took me to the View Restaurant at the top of the Marriott Marquis Hotel. I had heard of it before but I had no idea how cool it was going to be. The location is on the 48th floor of this massive hotel that is right smack in the middle of Times Square. The top floor already has an awesome view of all the city lights, but the coolest thing about it is that the whole restaurant rotates. There are these big windows on all the walls so you can see the whole city as the floor of the dining room rotates around. Basically the dining floor is like a big doughnut and it takes about an hour to get around the whole city so it's not going fast enough to give anyone motion sickness. It was a super cool atmosphere and the view was incredible.

Casey and Stephanie were so sweet and treated me to the dinner and dessert buffet. The food was so good. They had tons of different salads including green salads, pasta salads, corn salads, shrimp salads, and quinoa salads. There were meat options of beef and chicken; both were delicious. They also had these garlic mashed potatoes. I already have a deep love for mashed potatoes and these were melt-in-your-mouth-perfection-in-a-potato mashed potatoes. The food was absolutely wonderful and I ate way too much, but I definitely didn't care. The dessert buffet was super pretty. There was a gigantic chocolate fountain that you could dip marshmallows, strawberries, little cookies, and pretzels in. I love chocolate so the chocolate fountain was heaven for me. There was also an assortment of little cakes and cupcakes. I didn't have too many of those because I was so full by the time I got around to them. In addition to the dessert buffet, there was a cheese buffet. Stephanie said that the cheese buffet was fantastic; I was again too full to try it. We also got these yummy drinks; I had a virgin blossom which had pineapple, raspberry, and strawberry in it. It was super sweet and really good. 

The whole night was so much fun talking to them and hearing about the shows they saw. It was cool to get to get to know Blair and tell them all about my experiences since I have been here. I am so grateful to have been able to meet up with them, and not only that but go to the super cool restaurant. I would highly recommend it to anyone coming to NYC. They have a dinner-late night option or a Brunch option. I think it would be super cool to go back for brunch and see the view of the whole city in the daytime. Thank you Steph, Casey, and Blair for the wonderful evening; it was so great to see you guys! Come visit again soon!

I have also run into my good friend Justin Hoffer since I have been here. He was living in New Jersey for the summer selling pest control. I was able to meet up with him before he headed back to Utah. It was so great to get to see Justin because I hadn't seen him since graduation. Over dinner and milkshakes at Junior's, I got to hear all about Justin's time in NJ. He had some of the coolest experiences and met so many different people while knocking on doors doing sales. He told me some awesome and hilarious stories of his adventures. I loved catching up with him. 

It is really great whenever I get to see a piece of home in the city. It makes me really happy to see someone familiar. So if anyone is ever here in NYC, and has some time I would really love to see you! Reach out and please come and visit me!