New York in two days!
This is a very detailed chronicling of our trip that I believe could be compared to a novel. Read at your own risk :P
I’m a prompt person. I like to be on time or if possible early. Unfortunately that is not always the way it goes when you are traveling with two other people, both of whom do not know the itinerary you have planned.
It all started back in December. That week the pre-sale had started for Idina Menzel’s Brookville concert. I don’t know why I chose that one but I did. As I always do for concerts I want to see that are far away, I looked up the cost of airline tickets. The result? $800. I’m a student with a part time job and a large amount of debt to my parents so (as I knew I was going to do) I put it out of my thoughts.
It was a weekday morning and I had a final that evening at six but nothing to do during the day so I was getting ready for a wonderful fun filled day of studying. My mom, as she was flipping through the newspaper, saw an advertisement saying that Air Canada was having a 50% off seat sale. As a joke I sent a text message to Natalie, one of my more spontaneous friends, that said something like “Oh my goodness! Air Canada is having a seat sale! I can go see Idina in New York!” In sending that text I was doing two things. 1) I was joking in a way that I usually do but 2) I was secretly hoping she would ask to come. The reply I received? “Oh my gosh can I come?” After an “Are you serious?!” text back to her that was confirmed I hopped on the computer and about two hours later I had tickets to Idina’s concert and flights there and back. Oh and also another chunk of dept added to the pile but I did not care. That was an extremely happy day.
Fast forward about three months. March. Over the last three months I had spent significant amounts of time studying maps, public transit info, securing more tickets, and basically doing large amounts of planning. A week or so before the day we were set to fly my mom decided she would like to come along as I had been suggesting for a while. So we were set to meet my mom New York. She had even managed to get a ticket to Idina.
Finally that Friday came. At about 8:30 in the morning I was up and I knew there would be no more sleep happening. I packed my bag and then did some errands mostly just counting down the minutes until it would be time to go. Then finally it was. We were at the airport, then going through security, then on the plane, then in Chicago, then another plane and then we landed. In Newark, NJ. We got to our hotel room at about 1:0 am on Saturday, 28th. At 6:40 the alarm was going and off we were again. Natalie and I, making our way to the city. We got a shuttle from the hotel to a train station and then we took a train into Manhattan all the while checking off things in the imaginary list of what you 'need' to see and hear when in NYC.*
We arrived and stepped out into the street. Stopping for a minute we got our bearings and then we started walking towards what we thought was the Empire State Building (it was foggy and the top half of the building was completely hidden. Once there we spotted a Starbucks and went inside where my mom met us and we then exchanged spazzy snippets of conversation containing information about how our Fridays had been. Armed with our ‘bucks’ we headed on up to the top of the Empire State Building. Due to the fact that there was zero visibility we didn’t have to wait in line and it took all of about five minutes to get to the top where we snapped some photos of the lovely fog and then continued on our journey.
We walked around Manhattan taking pictures of everything like the crazy tourists we were. We stopped in at F.A.O. Schwartz because it is a necessary thing to do. How can you not go in and see the Piano Tom Hanks played with his feet? Afterwards we walked across the street to Central Park and opted for a horse drawn carriage ride as our way of viewing it. Upon completion of that we got our first NYC hot dogs (a very exciting thing!) and decided it was time for us to venture over to Times Square.
I’m not sure if there are words to describe Times Square. You can see pictures of it but they are nothing compared to the feeling of being there. The people, the nose, the smell, the heat and all the information that is being thrown at you all put together make an indescribable combination. The hustle and bustle, the people shoving flyers in your hands, the street vendors trying to get you to buy their things and all the tourists. I feel bad for the people who live in NYC and have to go through all that everyday. But for the visiting people it is very exciting.
We walked up and down Broadway so that we could see it all, bought NYC pizza (the kind that you have to fold to eat, and bought something from a newsstand and then we started going into stores. The Virgin Megastore was closing and everything was on sale and for sale. When I say everything, I mean everything. If you decided that you wanted them you could buy the tables and shelves, you just had to be able to get them out the door. We didn’t buy anything there and the store had been pretty much picked clean by that point. We went into m&m world and mostly gawked at all there was. I had no intention of buying anything until I saw a shirt that said “I only eat the green ones” (hello Idina fans?) It was extremely necessary that I purchase it. After a quick stop in the Hershey store we took to the street vendors so that we could buy some ‘sketch’ souveniers. Some ‘I ♥ NY’ shirts and Broadway pictures in our bags and we were set to head on to the next venture.
The next venture was actually seeing Wicked on Broadway. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen a musical it’s completely different to be able to say that you’ve seen it on Broadway. Natalie and I saw Wicked while my mom wandered around doing things that I don’t know what they were and therefore will not be telling you about them. Wicked was amazing and I enjoyed it a lot more the second time. I knew what was coming and I liked waiting for the rest of the audiences reactions. After Wicked let out began the crazy rushing that rattled Morgan’s nerves and made her quite grumpy.
Wicked let out at 4:45 and Idina’s concert started at 8:00. Where we were going was about 45 mins away. I had figured out our routes and the train that I wanted to take left the station at 5:16. The station was about a 20 minute walk from the Gershwin (were Wicked was) what all of this mean is there was no time to dally…or dilly. We decided to flag down a cab (how cool is that?) We got to the platform tickets in hand with minutes to spare. We rode the train to Long Island and then caught a cab from the station to out hotel. After checking in and freshening up we went off in search of food.
We had a pretty good dinner at a little restaurant but when we got to the restaurant it was 7:00. Me being crazy had wanted to be at the theater by 7:20, 7:30 at the latest. This caused me to be a less than exciting dinner companion. I was nervous for the concert for some reason but I was also extremely excited. I was stressed from being behind schedule and that made me irritable. Luckily the two people I was with know me and how I get when I am feeling like that so I didn’t offend them or anything. At 7:40 I informed them of the time and my mom jumped up and asked them to call us a cab. When she got back to the table and told us ten minutes I was not put in a much better mood considering that fact that we were about fifteen minutes away from the theater. We were waiting outside the restaurant which was fine because it was about 11 C with no wind which is downright balmy compared to home. When our cab finally pulled up we all piled in and off we went. This is how we met Sal, the cab driver.
Sal could be called your typical cab driver. He fits the standard set in my mind whereby all cab drivers are slightly insane. Sal had an extremely thick Long Island accent. Sal liked to sing and tap his fingers to the music he had playing quite loudly. Sal liked to talk. Sal gave us his cell number so that we could call him to pick us up when the show was done. Sal asked us what show we were going to see and then promptly forgot what we said. When we got to the venue he read the sign that said ‘Idina Menzel : sold out as Eye-dina Heinzel and then asked us if she was from Canada to which we replied that she was from Long Island and he proceeded to get quite excited.
So at last we were there, and it was only a little after eight. We rushed in and found our seats and actually sat for about five minutes before the opening act started. The opening act was pretty good. Natalie went out at the intermission and bought his CD and got his autograph and I sat in my seat staring at people I “knew” but was too freaked out to go talk to (that’s right Laura, I saw you in your seat a few rows in front of me) Natalie also took a nap while we waited for the intermission to end. Every time whatever song was playing would end there would be a few seconds of silence and I would get all excited thinking the show was about to start…it wasn’t.
Finally the lights went down and the band started playing and I grabbed Natalie’s leg, in a good mood at last. Idina came out and all of a sudden there was a giant grin on my face. I was so happy that I took the trip. It’s great to be able to watch someone who can sing as well if not better live than their CD and Idina definitely falls into that category. Idina told us that her graduation ceremony took place at the Tilles Center and she sported a lovely too orange tan. She pointed out the general vicinity of where she sat. When ‘Brave’ was starting Idina had to ask if it was in fact Brave because there was a little bit of new tunage going on at the keyboard J She went through what I am fairly certain is her usual routine of jokes that, how should I put it…perhaps parents of younger children would not appreciate, but I still enjoyed them :P When she was singing ‘Heartbreaker’ she got so into the song it was a really cool thing to see. Being that we were in Long Island a lot of her stories revolved around the time that she was growing up there. There was a good one about when she had to get a job at a deli or something. She was the till girl but she said it didn’t work out very well because she wasn’t very good at giving people back their change. She said there would always be that one person who would try to make it easier for you but they would actually just confuse you, which is very true. I can certainly relate. As Idina was getting ready to sing ‘No Day But Today’ someone told her that some high school was going to be doing Rent this year. Idina’s response was something along the lines of “really? Don’t talk to me when I’m about to sing” but she went on to talk about how the good thing about Rent closing is that schools can do it now and she thought it would be really good for some kids and their families. In the middle of ‘No Day But Today’ Idina asked the band to bring down the volume and she mentioned that Taye was there (at which point basically everyone that I could see immediately twisted around in their seats in what I assume was and attempt to find out if he was sitting around them…as if they wouldn’t have noticed him before…) Idina told Taye how much she loved him and then had us all continue the “no day but today” part repetitively. At one point she didn’t really cue us to continue so we all kind of stopped singing and she said something like “I didn’t’ tell you to stop…I can’t sing when I’m crying”
Idina sang two new songs that she had just written recently. ‘Spiraling and ‘Butterfly’. ‘Spiraling was very cool I really enjoyed it and what it was about and ‘Butterfly’ was kind of really inspirational and moving. Both of them were very well done. ‘Spiraling’ was so recent she had the lyrics on stage with her,
When Idina was singing ‘For Good’ and she took out her ear piece and lowered the microphone the effect was amazing. It was unbelievable how amazing she could sing. The whole theater could hear her and it was just touching. Idina also sang ‘Company’ by Ricky Lee Jones. She said it had been a favorite of her and Taye’s from one of Taye’s mixed tapes “back when there were such things as mixed tapes”J I think my favorite response she used to address some screaming fan girls who yelled out We love you Idina (shock -_-) was something like “I love you too! I don’t really know you. It’s a cosmic thing. If I knew you better I could love you more”. I’m pretty sure I’ve used that joke myself so therefore it is a good one…(yes that is how it works). Unfortunately it had to end and after a long ‘Defying Gravity’ (during which Idina chastised some fans saying “what you’ve been requesting it all night and now you don’t sing?”) it did L An unbelievably amazing show that I am so happy I went to see. I don’t care if I owe my parents boat loads of money, that was an amazing experience. It was completely worth it and I would do it all over again. In fact if the opportunity arises I will definitely do it again.
So we went out to the lobby. I wanted a tour shirt but they were sold out L (this is why you get there early!) We wandered around outside the building for a while and eventually I got up the courage to run up and creepily harass Laura( yeah that’s right all stalkerish like) Then we called Sal to come pick us up. We asked him if he could take us to a convenience store so we could get snacks and he got out and bought some too. Then we went back to the hotel room and pigged out and went to sleep.
The next morning we left our hotel room in Long Island and took a train back into NYC fully intent on seeing the statue of liberty. We had a totally awesome cab driver there who showed us awesome things like Wall street and the site of the twin towers on the way there. It was foggy again so we could barely see the statue but it was still cool. We moseyed around the ark for a little but and then we headed to the airport. An extremely long wait at the airport, two delayed planes, and some bad in flight food later and we were back home L I wish I was still there. It was so much fun.
*The list -->http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=64453232630
I’m a prompt person. I like to be on time or if possible early. Unfortunately that is not always the way it goes when you are traveling with two other people, both of whom do not know the itinerary you have planned.
It all started back in December. That week the pre-sale had started for Idina Menzel’s Brookville concert. I don’t know why I chose that one but I did. As I always do for concerts I want to see that are far away, I looked up the cost of airline tickets. The result? $800. I’m a student with a part time job and a large amount of debt to my parents so (as I knew I was going to do) I put it out of my thoughts.
It was a weekday morning and I had a final that evening at six but nothing to do during the day so I was getting ready for a wonderful fun filled day of studying. My mom, as she was flipping through the newspaper, saw an advertisement saying that Air Canada was having a 50% off seat sale. As a joke I sent a text message to Natalie, one of my more spontaneous friends, that said something like “Oh my goodness! Air Canada is having a seat sale! I can go see Idina in New York!” In sending that text I was doing two things. 1) I was joking in a way that I usually do but 2) I was secretly hoping she would ask to come. The reply I received? “Oh my gosh can I come?” After an “Are you serious?!” text back to her that was confirmed I hopped on the computer and about two hours later I had tickets to Idina’s concert and flights there and back. Oh and also another chunk of dept added to the pile but I did not care. That was an extremely happy day.
Fast forward about three months. March. Over the last three months I had spent significant amounts of time studying maps, public transit info, securing more tickets, and basically doing large amounts of planning. A week or so before the day we were set to fly my mom decided she would like to come along as I had been suggesting for a while. So we were set to meet my mom New York. She had even managed to get a ticket to Idina.
Finally that Friday came. At about 8:30 in the morning I was up and I knew there would be no more sleep happening. I packed my bag and then did some errands mostly just counting down the minutes until it would be time to go. Then finally it was. We were at the airport, then going through security, then on the plane, then in Chicago, then another plane and then we landed. In Newark, NJ. We got to our hotel room at about 1:0 am on Saturday, 28th. At 6:40 the alarm was going and off we were again. Natalie and I, making our way to the city. We got a shuttle from the hotel to a train station and then we took a train into Manhattan all the while checking off things in the imaginary list of what you 'need' to see and hear when in NYC.*
We arrived and stepped out into the street. Stopping for a minute we got our bearings and then we started walking towards what we thought was the Empire State Building (it was foggy and the top half of the building was completely hidden. Once there we spotted a Starbucks and went inside where my mom met us and we then exchanged spazzy snippets of conversation containing information about how our Fridays had been. Armed with our ‘bucks’ we headed on up to the top of the Empire State Building. Due to the fact that there was zero visibility we didn’t have to wait in line and it took all of about five minutes to get to the top where we snapped some photos of the lovely fog and then continued on our journey.
We walked around Manhattan taking pictures of everything like the crazy tourists we were. We stopped in at F.A.O. Schwartz because it is a necessary thing to do. How can you not go in and see the Piano Tom Hanks played with his feet? Afterwards we walked across the street to Central Park and opted for a horse drawn carriage ride as our way of viewing it. Upon completion of that we got our first NYC hot dogs (a very exciting thing!) and decided it was time for us to venture over to Times Square.
I’m not sure if there are words to describe Times Square. You can see pictures of it but they are nothing compared to the feeling of being there. The people, the nose, the smell, the heat and all the information that is being thrown at you all put together make an indescribable combination. The hustle and bustle, the people shoving flyers in your hands, the street vendors trying to get you to buy their things and all the tourists. I feel bad for the people who live in NYC and have to go through all that everyday. But for the visiting people it is very exciting.
We walked up and down Broadway so that we could see it all, bought NYC pizza (the kind that you have to fold to eat, and bought something from a newsstand and then we started going into stores. The Virgin Megastore was closing and everything was on sale and for sale. When I say everything, I mean everything. If you decided that you wanted them you could buy the tables and shelves, you just had to be able to get them out the door. We didn’t buy anything there and the store had been pretty much picked clean by that point. We went into m&m world and mostly gawked at all there was. I had no intention of buying anything until I saw a shirt that said “I only eat the green ones” (hello Idina fans?) It was extremely necessary that I purchase it. After a quick stop in the Hershey store we took to the street vendors so that we could buy some ‘sketch’ souveniers. Some ‘I ♥ NY’ shirts and Broadway pictures in our bags and we were set to head on to the next venture.
The next venture was actually seeing Wicked on Broadway. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen a musical it’s completely different to be able to say that you’ve seen it on Broadway. Natalie and I saw Wicked while my mom wandered around doing things that I don’t know what they were and therefore will not be telling you about them. Wicked was amazing and I enjoyed it a lot more the second time. I knew what was coming and I liked waiting for the rest of the audiences reactions. After Wicked let out began the crazy rushing that rattled Morgan’s nerves and made her quite grumpy.
Wicked let out at 4:45 and Idina’s concert started at 8:00. Where we were going was about 45 mins away. I had figured out our routes and the train that I wanted to take left the station at 5:16. The station was about a 20 minute walk from the Gershwin (were Wicked was) what all of this mean is there was no time to dally…or dilly. We decided to flag down a cab (how cool is that?) We got to the platform tickets in hand with minutes to spare. We rode the train to Long Island and then caught a cab from the station to out hotel. After checking in and freshening up we went off in search of food.
We had a pretty good dinner at a little restaurant but when we got to the restaurant it was 7:00. Me being crazy had wanted to be at the theater by 7:20, 7:30 at the latest. This caused me to be a less than exciting dinner companion. I was nervous for the concert for some reason but I was also extremely excited. I was stressed from being behind schedule and that made me irritable. Luckily the two people I was with know me and how I get when I am feeling like that so I didn’t offend them or anything. At 7:40 I informed them of the time and my mom jumped up and asked them to call us a cab. When she got back to the table and told us ten minutes I was not put in a much better mood considering that fact that we were about fifteen minutes away from the theater. We were waiting outside the restaurant which was fine because it was about 11 C with no wind which is downright balmy compared to home. When our cab finally pulled up we all piled in and off we went. This is how we met Sal, the cab driver.
Sal could be called your typical cab driver. He fits the standard set in my mind whereby all cab drivers are slightly insane. Sal had an extremely thick Long Island accent. Sal liked to sing and tap his fingers to the music he had playing quite loudly. Sal liked to talk. Sal gave us his cell number so that we could call him to pick us up when the show was done. Sal asked us what show we were going to see and then promptly forgot what we said. When we got to the venue he read the sign that said ‘Idina Menzel : sold out as Eye-dina Heinzel and then asked us if she was from Canada to which we replied that she was from Long Island and he proceeded to get quite excited.
So at last we were there, and it was only a little after eight. We rushed in and found our seats and actually sat for about five minutes before the opening act started. The opening act was pretty good. Natalie went out at the intermission and bought his CD and got his autograph and I sat in my seat staring at people I “knew” but was too freaked out to go talk to (that’s right Laura, I saw you in your seat a few rows in front of me) Natalie also took a nap while we waited for the intermission to end. Every time whatever song was playing would end there would be a few seconds of silence and I would get all excited thinking the show was about to start…it wasn’t.
Finally the lights went down and the band started playing and I grabbed Natalie’s leg, in a good mood at last. Idina came out and all of a sudden there was a giant grin on my face. I was so happy that I took the trip. It’s great to be able to watch someone who can sing as well if not better live than their CD and Idina definitely falls into that category. Idina told us that her graduation ceremony took place at the Tilles Center and she sported a lovely too orange tan. She pointed out the general vicinity of where she sat. When ‘Brave’ was starting Idina had to ask if it was in fact Brave because there was a little bit of new tunage going on at the keyboard J She went through what I am fairly certain is her usual routine of jokes that, how should I put it…perhaps parents of younger children would not appreciate, but I still enjoyed them :P When she was singing ‘Heartbreaker’ she got so into the song it was a really cool thing to see. Being that we were in Long Island a lot of her stories revolved around the time that she was growing up there. There was a good one about when she had to get a job at a deli or something. She was the till girl but she said it didn’t work out very well because she wasn’t very good at giving people back their change. She said there would always be that one person who would try to make it easier for you but they would actually just confuse you, which is very true. I can certainly relate. As Idina was getting ready to sing ‘No Day But Today’ someone told her that some high school was going to be doing Rent this year. Idina’s response was something along the lines of “really? Don’t talk to me when I’m about to sing” but she went on to talk about how the good thing about Rent closing is that schools can do it now and she thought it would be really good for some kids and their families. In the middle of ‘No Day But Today’ Idina asked the band to bring down the volume and she mentioned that Taye was there (at which point basically everyone that I could see immediately twisted around in their seats in what I assume was and attempt to find out if he was sitting around them…as if they wouldn’t have noticed him before…) Idina told Taye how much she loved him and then had us all continue the “no day but today” part repetitively. At one point she didn’t really cue us to continue so we all kind of stopped singing and she said something like “I didn’t’ tell you to stop…I can’t sing when I’m crying”
Idina sang two new songs that she had just written recently. ‘Spiraling and ‘Butterfly’. ‘Spiraling was very cool I really enjoyed it and what it was about and ‘Butterfly’ was kind of really inspirational and moving. Both of them were very well done. ‘Spiraling’ was so recent she had the lyrics on stage with her,
When Idina was singing ‘For Good’ and she took out her ear piece and lowered the microphone the effect was amazing. It was unbelievable how amazing she could sing. The whole theater could hear her and it was just touching. Idina also sang ‘Company’ by Ricky Lee Jones. She said it had been a favorite of her and Taye’s from one of Taye’s mixed tapes “back when there were such things as mixed tapes”J I think my favorite response she used to address some screaming fan girls who yelled out We love you Idina (shock -_-) was something like “I love you too! I don’t really know you. It’s a cosmic thing. If I knew you better I could love you more”. I’m pretty sure I’ve used that joke myself so therefore it is a good one…(yes that is how it works). Unfortunately it had to end and after a long ‘Defying Gravity’ (during which Idina chastised some fans saying “what you’ve been requesting it all night and now you don’t sing?”) it did L An unbelievably amazing show that I am so happy I went to see. I don’t care if I owe my parents boat loads of money, that was an amazing experience. It was completely worth it and I would do it all over again. In fact if the opportunity arises I will definitely do it again.
So we went out to the lobby. I wanted a tour shirt but they were sold out L (this is why you get there early!) We wandered around outside the building for a while and eventually I got up the courage to run up and creepily harass Laura( yeah that’s right all stalkerish like) Then we called Sal to come pick us up. We asked him if he could take us to a convenience store so we could get snacks and he got out and bought some too. Then we went back to the hotel room and pigged out and went to sleep.
The next morning we left our hotel room in Long Island and took a train back into NYC fully intent on seeing the statue of liberty. We had a totally awesome cab driver there who showed us awesome things like Wall street and the site of the twin towers on the way there. It was foggy again so we could barely see the statue but it was still cool. We moseyed around the ark for a little but and then we headed to the airport. An extremely long wait at the airport, two delayed planes, and some bad in flight food later and we were back home L I wish I was still there. It was so much fun.
*The list -->http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=64453232630