New York 2004 Day 8

The clock went off this morning and mario said to turn it back off - so we both rolled over and slept til almost 11 ... i've had a sore throat and runny nose all day ... yuck ...

once we got up, we headed down to soho/chinatown so mario could do some shopping ... we bought a few fake purses and a few pirated dvds ... had lunch ... and headed back ... we decided to go by tkts and get tickets for one last show ... and i ran over to the visitors center to try to get us moved into the emergency row on the plane tomorrow ... and was successful ;-) WOOHOOO ... there just really was not any space between those seats for my knees and i was not sure i could face 4 more hours of that.

we bought tickets for Frank Wildehorne's Dracula - headed to the room to drop purchases - and then headed back out ... we had told carol we would meet her for dinner ... she had invited her friend lorraine ... we went to a really nice itailian place where the food was quite good and cheap ... after dinner we went back by the hairspray backstage and carol gave me some hot packs for my sore back, and some E'mergen'C - which is basically 1000 mg of c plus other vitamins that you add to water ... and it fizzes... wasn't bad going down ... time will tell if it will help or not ...

then we headed on to dracula ... i used a hot pack in the first act and another one in the second act ... the best thing i can say about dracula is "how can i get that 2-1/2 hours of my life back ..." as much as i LOVED jekyl and hyde - i HATED this show ... it was dreadful ... i jokingly referred to it as jekyl & hyde meets continental airlines ... but with a bad set of music to go with it ... i'm not sure in her career cathy rigby made as many flights as the vampires did in this show ... or as mario put it - it was just over the top ... WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY OVER THE
TOP. now granted we were sitting on the side of the orchestra, but i also have a personal beef with someone directing a show and not paying enough attention to where and what can be seen by someone sitting in the orchestra ... although it was more interesting watching actors get harnessed and unharnessed (and dracula put in and take out his teeth), than it was to continue to laugh at the antics ... and of course - there were even people who gave it a standing ovation at the end ... not many... but enough to make me worry about them ;-)

after the show we headed back to europa cafe to partake in one last hot chocolate and one more piece of cheese cake ... and then here to send off this last e-mail ... hopefully, the trip to houston will be uneventful ... and i intend to sleep most of it anyway ... monday morning i'll get mario on a place to mcallen so he can take this semesters finals ... and then finally on thursday i'll get home as well.

New York 2004 Day 7

just one more day :-( oh well ... my feet may be happy then anyway

today we slept in ... didn't get up until a little after 9 when the maid decided we had slept long enough ... we walked over to 5th avenue and ring shopped for a bit - although we did not find anything that BOTH of us are interested in ... then mario did a little more shopping before we needed to head back towards time square for theatre.

we had tickets already purchased for hairspray today ... good show - enjoyed it a lot ... just before we went into the show, carol - marjis sister came up and said - you're bruce and mario right? she didn't look ANYTHING like marji - so i'm glad we met her before the show was over. after the show, she took us backstage and gave us a quick back stage tour. we were wanting to get into the ticket lottery at wicked, so we walked over that way, got a cocktail, and then went on to the lottery. carol through her name in the pot also to give us 3 chances to win, and while we were waiting to find out that we didnt, we got to talk some more. seems like a really nice woman ;-) we had originally talked about doing dinner, but she understood that we wanted to catch another show and that required getting tickets ... so we agreed to try to do dinner tomorrow ... and headed back to tkts ... they had nothing we were interested in so we walked down to lion king to ask about standing only tickets - they do 20 per show - 1 per person - and start as soon as they open - which is 945 in the morning ... so we need to get up early ... we stopped by fiddler, but the only seats they had were 2 in the back row of the orchestra - about 30 rows back - at full price ... i decided i did not really want to see it that badly - especially after carol told us they had de-jewified it ... what's the point as she said - and i have to agree. (of course, she does have a son who is orthodox ... so it might be that slanting it for her...who knows)...we decided to walk one more block out of the way and stop by tkts one more time - this time they had tickets to whoopie ... which we bought.

we headed back to the hotel to drop the cast signed poster from hairspray (yes another broadway cares item - but not nearly as much as the one for wicked) ... and stopped by a hot dog vendor for 2 dogs and 2 shish kabobs to get us through the show to dinner later ... then back on the streets to see whoopi... whoppi was great ... had 4 people storm out of the show during her first political bit ... she laughed at them as they left ... most of us did as well ... all in all it was 2 hours of great fun with some seriousness thrown in for good measure ... all in all, i hope we get
the chance to see her again some day.

after the show, we walked uptown to hard rock cafe (next year they open in times square) and had drinks and dinner ... mario said the prices sounded in line with all the others ... i know the tab for dinner was LESS than it was in gatlinburg - so that works for me ... stopped by mcdonalds so mario could use their atm machine (they only charge 99 cents as opposed to the 2-250 the banks charge) ... and back to the motel to send this ...

i'm off to bed ... need to call continental and see if they can get us in the exit row for sundays flight ... just one more day :-(

New York 2004 Day 6

Clock went off at 7 am this morning ... ugh ... i am NOT a morning person(if i were, i would not need a clock) .... we left the hotel at 720 andwere close to being in place if not so by 730 ... (stopped at mcdonalds first) ...

i plopped my $12 chair down about 4 people deep from the street - not a bad spot at all ;-) and the parade got to us about 10 or a little after ... at that point, i stood up and before the day was over, 2 or 3 different kids had stood in it so they could see ... and one family from connecticut wound up taking it home with my blessing ... the parade was nice - and WHAT a beautiful morning for a parade - 65 - and cloudy to clear ... but santa brought the cold with him at the end - because when it finished drizzling - it was in the 30s with LOTS of wind ... and SUPER cold.

we picked up lunch from burger king and went to the room to eat it before heading out to radio city music hall to see the rockettes christmas show.. not at ALL what i expected - although there were about 3 of the 10 numbers that actually featured the girls doing the kinds of things i WAS expecting ... i was for SURE not expecting a live nativity and the bible story up through and including the crucifiction ... but overall it was an ok show ...

from there we walked back down to times square to see what we might do this evening ... i decided after spending 2+ hours on my feet this morning, that tomorrow would probably be a better day to shoot for standing room tickets for lion king. the only thing tkts had we were interested in was chicago - and they were pretty bad seats for pretty good money - so we stopped off at the la cage theatre and dropped a little more money for decent - albeit balcony - seats to see the "new and improved"
show ... back to the room for a power nap ... and back on to the streets.

la cage was great ... actually based on a book written by harvey fierstein based on the original play ... with niles from the nanny playing the club owner ... and the guy that played his other half zaza had a fantastic voice and brought the house down with his version of i am what i am at intermission ... they had a few costume glitches in the first act - but nothing serious - just irritating to zaza more than anything else i think... but i'm sure by the time the show actually opens on the 10th all of those should be taken care of ... leaving the theatre, we rode down in the elevator with bruce vilanch - who is playing edna turnblad in hairspray... we decided to be polite and "not notice him ..." but of course we did...

from there we went to maxies deli ... where we could have split either of our meals and had plenty ... as it was ... mario finished most of his and made noise about me wasting half of mine ... but corn beef for breakfast just didn't sound good - and we're having food with carol after the matinee of hair spray tomorrow ...

the week is almost done ... and we have so many things we still want to do. and my feet still hurt.

New York 2004 Day 5

... my feet did NOT hurt 2 days ago ... my fingers don't hurt ...

today, we got up "early" - on the street by 10 EST ... mario wanted tickets to Mama Mia - so we were at TKTS at 10 ... OK - he was - we walked outside and it was drizzling and I decided we needed TWO umbrellas - so i went back for mine ... After getting the tickets, we took the subway uptown to the Metropolitan Museum of Art ... High on Mario's list of things to do ... Ultimately, with what little time we had before Mama Mia would start, the decision was made to try to get back another day when there was time to see much of anything ... But we canvassed the gift store today, had lunch at Subway ... and back down to Times Square for the show.

Mama Mia is a story created around and set to the songs of Abba ... The music was great ... The actors and their voices were great ... Unfortunately, they didn't dish out whatever drugs the writers were one when they were writing the show ... I'm not saying it wasn't good ... but it lacked something ...

After the show, Carol called to let us know she was not able to get us tickets to Lion King - so probably tomorrow evening we will go down and see if we can get standing room only tickets to the show ...

But back to today ... After Mama we went back to TKTS to see what was available for this evening and decided on Rent ... Then back uptown to Central Park to see the balloons being blown up. Fantastic sight as always, although Mario was definitely upset that Snoopy has been retired.
I got to see my favorites - Kermit and Garfield - and of course - BIG BIRD... which they only had the head inflated when we headed back. Most of the smaller balloons were already inflated when we got uptown, but we got to spend a little time watching them inflate before we needed to head back down to Rent.

When we got to Time Square, I was starving so we went to Europa Cafe for hot chocolate and new york cheesecake. Definitley the best hot chocolate i've had in a while - and the cheesecake was great ... Second time we've done cheesecake there - the first time - i found it slightly dry - but still great - today it was simply perfect.

Rent is a depressing show - to me anyway. We got to the theatre, and the first thing I did was want to sit down - to discover I was at least 5" too tall (NOT WIDE dammit - TALL) to sit in their seats ... Ultimately, the manager had them seat us in the box seats ... First time in a box - was kind of kewl - but at the same time - a lousy viewing angle for the show ... The voices in the show were superb even if I didn't really like the story ...

After the show, we stopped at some noodle house and had chinese for dinner ... Decent meal - and not a lot of money for Times Square either ... Then we headed back to the hotel to send this e-mail and get to bed ... tomorrow is the parade ... we're not going to try to see it at macy's, so we probably don't need to be on the streets by 6 ... but we still need to get an early start - i'm thinking we should be in place by 730 ... so it's definitely a clock setting nite ... then after the parade tomorrow we see the rockettes - so another full day ahead ...

there's little of my body - besides my fingers that do not hurt at this point ... my knees do not have a lot of stairs left in them at all ... and just about EVERY subway station involves stairs.

New York 2004 Day 4

Today, we decided to go ahead and use our ferry tickets to the statue of liberty. the new reservation system may be great for those people that knew about it - but it didn't do anything for me ... but we enjoyed the boat ride to the island and spent some time eating lunch there and walking around the base of the island. as it turns out, you can only go to the base of the statue anymore anyway probably about 10 stories up - another liberty we've lost to the terrorists i suppose ... i remember always regretting that i could not go up in the torch when i was here before - now i should just be grateful i was able to get into her crown then ;-)

after that, we stopped at centry 21 to try to find a lawn chair - to no avail ... the only thing they head was a folding wooden chair for 16 ... we decided to try kmart ... they DID have lawn chairs ... but mario decided they were not strong enough to support my butt - but they did have some decent folding chairs for 12 ... so i got one of those for the parade ... he decided he didn't want one ... i'm sure i'll donate a nice folding chair to some homeless person after the parade ...

since we ate fairly late at the statue, we weren't hungry so we just headed over to see wicked. marji's sister carol had been able to get us house seats to that and also to hairspray (which we see friday matinee). we picked up the tickets - row L center orchestra ... GREAT seats ... and the show was FABULOUS ... it's going to be a really great long running show ... it's sold out through march ... (thanks marji and carol ;-) ) and in fact when i talked to carol tonite after the show to see if there was ANY chance to get 2 more tickets - she said her contact cannot even get them - and won't be able to until after the first of the year ... WOW ... we were SO enthused with the show that i paid for a signed show poster after the show - the money goes to aids charities ... and i won't even talk about what i paid for it ... we priced tickets through scalpers just for grins ... the cheapest we saw were about $200 a piece in the nose bleed section ... and we saw the same seats we had running for 600/seat ... if money was not something i had to count, i would have considered that price too ... we LOVED the show ...

we just ate supper at mcdonalds and came back for a quick check of emails and to write this one ... mario wants to be at tkts at 10 in the morning to try to get tickets to mama mia ... we've seen it available most every show so far, but yesterday ... so we'll see what we can come up with ... carol's going to try to see if she can round up something for lion king - but not hopeful about that either ... you can't move around the city without bumping into a kid in town for the parade(they all have jackets saying they are in it) and of course - all those kids come with people who see the shows ...

assuming that it is not raining tomorrow, we'll probably head up to central park after we check out tkts in the morning ... hoping that houston dries up some before we come home on sunday ...

New York 2004 Day 3

My feet hurt ;-)

Today, we got up and headed down to Greenwich Village. We walked down Christopher Street and stopped in at the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. It was nearly closed 2 years ago, when Larry Lingle of Houston, decided he could no longer afford to run it - but at the last minute, the store was bought out by Lambda Rising and continues to operate ... Woohoo ;-)

From there we went to Tiffany's and had lunch ... Now, my guess is this was not THE Tiffany's, but the food was good, and after eating for 2 days on 42nd street, was VERY reasonably priced. I had the Goulash which was quite good and very filling ... Mario had the chicken/blt wrap - but he said the bleu cheese was a little TOO bleu ... Se la vie.

Then we headed on to the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately, it was sold out ... We bought ferry tickets, but decided we would take the ferry another day. The line was SUPER long ... Ultimately, I called to make reservations for later in the week, but the only slot available at this point was Sunday morning - and with a 3pm flight, we decided that was too pushy - so we'll just take the ferry over - walk around and come back.

Anyway, from there, we took the subway back to ground zero and got a very SMALL feel of just how big the space is/was. The train to New Jersey is functional again from there, and the subways move under the space again - but the stop there is closed until they decide what they are doing with the space. Apparently, just today, the NYC commission voted to go ahead with their plans to build one even taller building on the space ... Time will tell exactly what that will be. In any case, it was very overwhelming ...

From there we went back to Broadway and bought tickets for Forbidden Broadway. Had hoped for tickets to Mama Mia - but today was not the day.
Then we went to the Empire State Building. Thought we left in time to see the sunset (not that there was much sun today), but got there in time to see lots of pretty New York lites ... and stand in longer lines than either of us really wanted to. But it's always nice to see the city from that vantage point. We stopped in at SBarro and had pizza for supper before heading on to the show. Great show for not much money - and we had 3rd row seats ... WOO ;-)

Now calling it an early evening before we decide what we're doing tomorrow - althought we already know we have house seats for Wicked tomorrow nite.
Really looking forward to that.

Did I say that my feet hurt? I'm off to soak them in a hot tub.

New York 2004 Day 1-2

Mario and I got up at 6 am yesterday, the 20th, and headed out the door at 630. We made the flight to houston with no difficulty, and although were booked standby on the 11 o'clock flight to new york, we didn't make that one - so caught the 1:15 flight (which left about 1:45) to Newark. The flight made up that 30 minutes in flight so we were on the ground at 5:45... but was almost 6 by the time we got to the gate. we then went downstairs in search of our luggage which came on the earlier flight, and finally figured out where to pick that up. then we caught air tran to the nj transit train station and caught the nj transit train into the city (penn station). very convienient and easy. we then caught a cab (because we had so much luggage) to the hotel ... was not a bad wait, but it was misting. temps in the 40s.

today, temps again in the 40s/50s and i spent the day with only a long sleeve shirt, jeans and socks and was quite comfortable. we ate lunch at mcdonalds. Then we went to tkts and picked up tickets for 42nd street at 2 this afternoon. It was great. When it was over, we headed back to tkts to see what we could see this evening. wound up with 2 opening nite tickets to see dame edna ... what a blast ... then ate supper at howard johnson ... NOT a cheap meal ... but warm and filling ... then we spent several hours just walking around the times square area and seeing the sites.

we're staying at the super8 on 46th street between 5th and 6th avenue, so we're bascially about 2 blocks from times square.