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We woke late on Saturday and had a leisurely breakfast of chocolate chip muffins, cran-grape juice for me and a chocolate breakfast shake for the husband.  I made us bring food from home for breakfast, as we often spend way too much money on mediocre breakfasts when we travel - I’d rather spend not much on mediocre breakfasts by bringing the food ourselves.

We took the ferry to the city, but as it was the weekend, we had to take the hotel shuttle to the port with weekend-Weehawken service.

Once we made to the other side of the Hudson river, we walked the short way around the Javits center to get to the front door, having learned our lesson from the day before.  We walked in late to a Batman panel that had the potential to be cool, but it was just some dude telling us how cool he was, his whole bootstrap story.  Which is a good story, don’t get me wrong, I have one of my own, but it just wasn’t what I was expecting.

We then went to the crowded food court to get lunch of a blood-dripping rare cheeseburger (for the husband) and a grilled chicken sandwich for myself.  My sandwich was good, but the husband ate his as quickly as possible so as to not think about his raw beef.

We caught the incredibly not-funny star trekkin’ improv comedy group, the moderately boring champions online/star-trek online panel, and the heated genders-in-comics panel.  After some wandering through the vendor room, we decided to call it a day, even though we had planned to hit a comedy show in the city that evening.

We rode the ferry back, and since it was a warmer night than the previous one had been, we braved the elements and sat on top.  It was a scenic ride back with the city all lit up.

In the room, we tried to order Papa John’s pizza, but all the stores I called referred me to another store, with the final store giving me a number that was disconnected.  After that failure, I just called roomservice to order a well-done burger and some french-onion soup.

The soup was sweeter than I expected, and I followed it up some famous amos cookies.  The husband thoroughly enjoyed his no-traces-of-pink burger, and I stole his pickle.  We caught some Alien-Predator movie on HBO, and I finished up our Jayne hats (I never got around to weaving in the ends).

We headed to bed early so we could get up nice and early to get in line for the Chuck panel - the real reason for our trip.

 We made it to the Rockefeller Center and checked out the NBC store.  After perusing the merchandise, we settled on a Nerd Herd hat and a couple of Buy More badge thingies.  We then followed the signs upstairs to take the tour.

We got two of our very own NBC pages to take us through the tour where we sat in Conan’s studio, saw Will Forte’s plaster head (it’s for mask-making purposes), and even saw some of the SNL cast at work!  We stood outside the SNL theater and saw Andy Samberg, Will Forte, Jason Sudeikis, and the husband claims he caught a glimpse of Keenan.

After the tour we wandered back to Times Square and ate in the most expensive TGI Fridays on the planet.  With time to spare before our show, we hit the M&M Store and looked at all the adorable chocolatiness inside.  Then we hit Midtown Comics, as they were just around the corner from our theater.

When it was finally not too early to loiter in the lobby, we headed over to the Nederlander theater.  The theater doesn’t seem to have any back entrance (it’s currently being renovated), so we watched cast, orchestra, and crew walk in past us.  After Lauren Graham made it down the hall past us with curly blond hair and in a hat the covered the top half of her face, I realized I had just seen Lorelai’s nose!  Just a few feet in front of me!

When they opened the doors, we found our seats at the tippity top of the theater.  It’s a small theater, though, so even the bad seats really aren’t that bad.  Shortly before the show started, however, the husband suffered from a rare (for him) nosebleed.  Luckily, I carry one of everything in my married-lady purse, so I handed him my pack of tissues, and a few minutes later he was good to go.

Guys and Dolls was in the second night of previews, so the director came out to let us know there might be some snafus.  The show started 10 or 15 minutes late, but was thoroughly entertaining.  The only snafus seemed to be with Lauren Graham’s wardrobe, as she played a stripper and some of her clothing didn’t want to go without a fight.

The last ferry left just as the show let out, so we walked around the block to the Port Authority to catch the bus back to Weehawken.  While we were trying to decipher our bus schedule and the charts on the ticket-selling machines, the 11 o’clock bus left, so we had to sit and wait for the 11:30.

We made it back to the hotel without incident, chatted with a nice couple in the elevator, and went to bed thoroughly exhausted.

The husband and I took an impromptu trip to the big apple on account of Ms. Yvonne Strahovski was suddenly slated to be at the New York Comic Con.  Seeing as he runs a big Strahovski fansite and New York is only a 4 hour drive away, of course that meant we had to go!

We hit the road Friday at 5 am in order to avoid rush hour traffic in DC and Baltimore.  We stopped at one of the oh-so-convenient Jersey turnpike stops (Sunoco and Cinnabon have to be making serious money off their exclusive deal) at 8 am to get breakfast, support Sunoco, and call the hotel and beg for an early check-in.  A nice lady at the front desk assured us it would be no problem.

After un-eventful traffic all the way up, we hit stop-and-go traffic once we took our exit in Jersey.  It was actually a relief, it meant I had time to figure out which lane to be in and inch my way over - and I didn’t end up accidentally driving through the Lincoln tunnel, which was my biggest worry about the drive up.  I have a very strict NO-DRIVING-in-New-York-City policy.

We found the hotel, checked in, and slept for a few hours before heading into the city.  We had a long day ahead of us - tickets to a show that evening - so we wanted to make sure we were up to the challenge.

As the husband put his shoes on in the hotel as we were preparing to head out, he informed me that he had never eaten a hot dog from one of those New York hot dog stands.  I assured him that we could remedy that quite easily.

We bought ferry tickets from the concierge - tickets that he pulled out of his pocket - and made our way to the ferry landing just outside the hotel.  As we were waiting for the ferry, the husband noticed that our tickets had come from a ticket 10-ride pack, and had a face value of $1.50 LESS than what the concierge had charged.  Which explained why he seemed to be pushing the ferry on us, and only gave us a bus schedule and pointed out the bus stop after I requested such information.  (Thank goodness for hotel reviews!  Otherwise I wouldna known about the bus …)

We landed at the 39th street pier and walked the long way around the Javits Center to find the front doors.  We picked up our Comic Con badges, then since it was only 30 minutes till they opened the doors, we stood in line to check out the vendor room.

After a quick jaunt around the vendor tables, we headed out to the city.

We walked our way to the Rockefeller Center, but not without passing several hot dog stands.  We stopped and got some dogs and bottled water, so now the husband can now say he’s had a New York City hot dog!  And it was not nearly so exciting as he had hoped.  It was, however, the cheapest meal we bought on our trip …