Thursday, March 13, 2008

Photos - Day Five

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Photos - Day Four

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Today began early. We were up by 6 AM. We had to be up early to make it into the city for our tour. We had decided to take the Park 'n' Ride the night before. We left our hotel at about 7:15 AM and headed to the bus station. When we had arrived and parked, we went to purchase our bus tickets. I thought it would be much more complicated, but it turned out to be quite simple. The bus just went from our location to downtown with no stops in between. After we waited for the bus, we had a long ride. From what I heard, the buses were running late and traffic was awful since we were riding amid rush hour. After we had made it downtown, our next task was to find 30 Rockefeller Center for our NBC Studio Tour. By the time we had gotten out of the terminal and made our way to 30 Rock, it was almost 9AM. Luckily, they had room on the 9:15 tour, and we waited a few minutes for that to begin. The tour showed a brief video of the NBC Studios history and shows, then led us around the building. We saw the evening news studio of Brian Williams. You will not see any photos from this tour as we were not allowed to take any while there. After seeing Brian Williams' Studio, we were led to Conan O'Brien's set. The set was much smaller than expected. Also, they pump refrigerated air into the studio, so it was kind of chilly. Next, we saw the SNL sets. This was closer to what I expected. Much bigger than Conan's studio. After this we saw a demonstration of the makeup that the actors and actresses use. We also saw a demonstration of a newscast and weather set with green screen. Courtnie was fortunate enough to participate in this. She did a great job reading from her cue cards and pointing to the weather map! This was the end of our tour. Following this, we had a few hours before we had to line up for Conan. We decided to look around town and see some of the closer sites. We took pictures outside of 30 Rock and the plaza. We walked down to Grand Central Terminal and walked inside. It looks just like the movies portray. As we walked, we looked for restraunts to eat at later. Seth, being a member if the Masons, wanted to see the Grand Lodge. We walked towards this and engulfed ourselves in the fast pace of New York City. When we got to the Lodge, we inquired about a tour. Luckily for us, they were giving tours. We were given a tour of the building and it was extensive. We saw many of the different meeting rooms used by the many Masonic Lodges that meet there. If I remember correctly, the building had 19 floors and we saw about 15 different meeting rooms. The standout here was the largest meeting room which had a fantastic ceiling. This same ceiling was duplicated in the grand ballroom of the Titantic and featured in the movie Poseidon. After the tour, we asked our guide if he knew anywhere we should grab a bite to eat. He suggested the Shake Shack (can be found on the map at left). We headed towards the park to see what it was all about. Supposedly, this place has been featured on the Food Network and many other places. We waited in line and got some food. My shake was great. We ate and walked back towards 30 Rock. When we got back to 30 Rock, we had to meet up with some of our friends to give them our extra Conan tickets. After we met up and got in line, we waited for Conan's show. We had only been there 15 minutes when representatives for Conan came out and were ready for us. We were given actually tickets and seating assignments and told to come back at 4:15 PM. We didn't realize we would have so much time before the show. We decided to walk to Central Park. We strolled around part of it and took some pics before we need to head back to Conan. We headed back to Conan and got in line. After we were filed into the studio, they showed past Conan clips on the monitor while we waited. A warm up comic came out to get us pumped for Conan. He was pretty funny. Conan came out to address us before the show too. Cory was so close to him. I think he almost had an aneurism. We also listened to some tunes from the Weinberg 7 before the show. They are a very good stage band. Once the show started, we saw Jonah Hill, John Tesh, and the musical guest The Drive-By Truckers. We were also on TV! You can look for us on the broadcast! After the show, we saw Radio City Music Hall and the Empire State Building. We decided to get a bite to eat and head back towards our bus terminal. We made it back to hotel without any problems. We relaxed at our hotel and rested our feet from all the walking. We decided on using the subway downtown for the next day. We watched Conan to see ourselves and then went to sleep.

Photos - Day Three

Monday, March 10, 2008

We arrived fairly early in Hershey and decided to park and get some rest before we went into the attraction. After a bit, we went into the Hershey Chocolate World and gift shop. Here we took the free tour and learned about Mr. Hershey, the town, the facilities, and the making of the chocolate. After the informative tour, we perused the goodies at the gift shop. After we had purchased a few souvenirs, we headed back to the van. Seth took over after a fill-up and he drove from Hershey to our hotel in Ridgefield, New Jersey. This was only a two hour drive. We were a little early for our check-in time, so we took advantage of the time by doing a little exploring in the New Jersey area. We ate lunch at Wendy's and drove down the main drag looking at what was around town. Due to the one way streets and weird lane changes, we ended up in a traffic jam. This delay took a fair amount of time to circumvent (leagally?) and get us back to the hotel. After checking in, we decided to situate ourselves and take a break. Most of us fell asleep from our long night. After everyone was awake, we decided to get some dinner. We ordered in and had some pizza. After watching a few hours of TV and chatting about tomorrow's events, we got some more rest for tomorrow. It will be an early morning for us. 6 AM! Yikes!

Photos - Day Two

Sunday, March 9, 2008

A little bit of information about us before I get to the trip:

Seth Leeper is from Avon, Indiana, and attends Purdue University. He majors in Electrical Engineering Technology.

Courtnie Armbruster is from Avon, Indiana and attends Ball State University. She majors in Speech Pathology and Audiology.

Cory Proctor is from Greencastle, Indiana and attends Purdue University. He majors in Mechanical Engineering Technology.

Kevin Mohr (me) is from Wellington, Ohio and attends Purdue University. I major in Computer Engineering. I also enjoy long walks on the beach ...

Today we left at 8:15 PM and headed east. We drove along I-70 for most of our trip. We drove through Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Cory drove for the first half of the trip. We made a single gas stop in Zanesville, OH. After that, I took over and drove through the wee hours until we got to Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Photos - Day One

Saturday, March 8, 2008

We did not leave today due to the snow storm across the northeast. Please see the post for tomorrow. Thanks.