Give my regards to Broadway

 

My sister Katie came out to Pennsylvania for 2.5 action packed busy weeks. In the short amount of time she was here, we painted two rooms in my new house, packed up my old apartment, moved, and played, played, played!! The next couple of posts will outline the month of July (better late than never when it comes to blogging).


On Katie's second day here, we found ourselves in none other than New York City. When we got off the train, and stopped at a shop to pick up some lunch. We set off right away to act like real New Yorkers. We sat on some steps among a throng of people to eat our lunch. Within minutes, everyone was asked to get off the steps and eat elsewhere. Not even in the city for 20 minutes, and already security was after us.

After lunch, we headed down to the subway across town to the Stanton Island Ferry.  After hoping on the next ferry, we quickly saw the Statue of Liberty.  Eliza seemed to enjoy the ferry ride quite a lot.  I had to move away from the open window to the middle of the seats because I was afraid in all of her excitement, she would wiggle right out of my arms into the open sea.  Although we didn't want to pay to actually land on the island, we still got a pretty good view of the statue.

 



 

Eliza enjoyed petting the security dog on Stanton Island.

 

Who needs to pay to get close to the statue when you can actually touch one in front of a tourist shop?

 

 

Then we headed back to our hotel in New Jersey so we could get things ready for our girls night out!!  Bruce was a complete champ.  Not only did he not get dinner; (hotel was not within walking distance of any eating establishment and he couldn't find anyone who would deliver) he stayed at the hotel with Eliza, and put her to bed (without her nightly nursing - good thing I had a back up baby food jar in the diaper bag) so Katie and I could have a good time on Broadway.  And a fabulous time we had.  My first Broadway play was not at all disappointing.  In fact, there is nothing like Broadway - NOTHING!!

By the time we made it back to NY, we didn't have much time to make it to the theater.  Our tickets were waiting for us at will call, but we were supposed to be there in person 30 minutes ahead of time to pick them up.  When we got off the train at North Penn Station, we had no idea which direction to head for the theater.  After asking a police officer where to go, we decided to walk the 9 blocks to the theater.  Normally this wouldn't be a big deal.  However, we had less than 5 minutes to be at will call.  It isn't easy to weave your way through throngs of people, avoid getting hit by crazy taxi drivers, in the heat with a skirt and sandals for 9 blocks (even the short NYC blocks) in less than 5 minutes.  We decided that next time, we will pick up the tickets while we are out and about during the day to avoid this kind of stress.  Not to mention, it would have been nice to know where we were supposed to go since we are not familiar with the NYC layout.  Lucky for us, we made it there 20 minutes before showtime (completely out of breath, partially due to excitement), and were able to get our tickets.  We had time to snap some pictures at the theater entrance, but not to grab some dinner.   

My sister thought she bought tickets in the Mezzanine.  We wanted to be on the second floor slightly above the stage to be sure we could see every nook and cranny of the stage.  To  our great surprise, the Mezzanine is actually the ground floor, and we were on the second row.  We had no idea our discounted tickets would get us that close to the action.

Waiting for the show to start

 I don't think there are any bad seats in that theater, we had a great view of the entire stage up close, and the benefit of seeing the orchestra pit. 

 Mary Poppins was truly magical.  The special effects were absolutely incredible.  The play sported a slightly different plot line than the Disney movie.  For the most part, I really like the play.  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious was plain bizarre although the dancing and costumes were amazing and colorful.  After the song was over and my sister pointed out that the play does a good job of indicating that it is a made up word, I liked the presentation of it much better. 

The step in time number did not disappoint.  Burt even tap danced on the ceiling.  The best part was the end, when Mary Poppins last hurrah had her fly over the audience to the very top of the auditorium.  I repeat:  There is nothing like Broadway!!

Next summer, we decided that we're going to see this play...

 

Afterwards, we headed to Times Square to roam around.  NYC is seriously the city that never sleeps.  Even at midnight, the streets were alive with so many people, and lit up with so many lights, it seemed like it was noon. 



 

Noon!

 

 Midnight!!

 

Walking around Times Square

 

I felt a little vulnerable walking (in a skirt) around a strange place in the middle of the night with  no clear direction.  Fortunately, it was bright enough, and a million people were out and about that I wasn't afraid I was going to be mugged (not that I carried anything with me anyway).

 

We saw all kinds of rare talent and interesting people on Times Square.  NYC is the people watchers paradise - you would be surprised at some of the things you may see.  Street artists were creating these incredible paintings in 20 minutes completely out of spray paint.

 

We had to stop and get this hilarious picture of my sisters best silly face outside of the Ripley's believe it or not wax museum.  That guy looks so real, but he's made of wax. 

 

 

My sister got a caricature of herself done. 

I couldn't help but bust up laughing at what he drew, which made my sister nervous. You see, my sister had this silly vision of the true "NY experience:"  A super skinny, big chested woman with a designer purse and designer shoes and a smile that was sure to catch the attention of everyone around walking down the streets of NY.  She made jokes about this "typical New Yorkian" all day.  Funny girl even attempted to count the number of fat people she saw walking through the streets.  Sure enough, as my sister sat there posed for this cartoon, he drew her exactly as she pictured the "NY experience" to be - to the very last curve of her body.  I couldn't believe it; he didn't even know my silly sister. 

 

Around 1:00 am, we decided to head back to the hotel in Jersey.  My sister would have liked to stay longer, but I was worried about how Bruce and Eliza were holding up.  We found out that right below the Mary Poppins theater was a Subway stop - we could have avoided the 9 block sprint had we known where we were going.  It's probably a good thing we ended up walking it anyway, because we got on the Subway heading the wrong direction - we had no intention of heading to the Bronx at the time of the morning.  We eventually got back to where we were supposed to go, and made it back to the hotel moments after Eliza woke up crying.  I guess going to bed without her mommy in a strange place was too much for her. 

 

 

Thanks Bruce and Katie for a magical night on Broadway - it's something I hope I never forget.  Broadway.... until next summer!