nyc part 2
Saturday Day
we were up so late friday night that we needed to sleep in a bit on saturday morning, all except for missi, who needed to be up early so she could go teach little kids christmas songs for the uparriving church pageant. our original plan was to be up superearly on saturday morning so we could get to the empire state building and not have to wait twelve years to go up; after that, we had planned to go right over to Times Square to get tickets to a broadway show, then head back to missi's to change clothes before a nice dinner and the show. but missi forgot to mention the pageant rehearsal till friday night, so we had to revise the plan (but we didn't revise it enough--more on that later). missi got up first, and when she was done in the shower, the rest of us alternated between taking showers and watching An Affair to Remember, to get us in the proper mood for visiting the empire state building. i had never seen the movie from the beginning before, so i was glad to watch it (and be the last one in the shower, oops). jorn also called me like six times that morning, but my phone was in my purse and i didn't hear it, and then i was in the shower not hearing it.
by the time all of us were ready to go and the movie was over and missi was back from the rehearsal, it was after 12:30. a bit late. we should have rethought our plans at that point but we still thought we'd have plenty of time. so we head down to the empire state bldg and jorn meets us there. i was all happy to see him, since i hadn't seen him since thursday morning. then we began the waiting-in-line portion of the day. jorn gives a great description of it here, so i don't need to go into detail. suffice to say, we waited in a LOT of lines. mostly they moved along pretty quickly, but there were a few that just stood and stood. ugh. oh, and when you first go down to wait in line, there are these ESB employees who tell you that you'll be waiting 45 minutes just to get to the second floor, unless you take their great deal and buy tickets for both the elevator to the top AND the skyride, in which case they'll get you to the front of the line for a ten minute wait. scam, anyone? we were a tad disgusted, and didn't care about the skyride anyway, so we just waited, and the "45 minute wait" they were talking about wasn't nearly that, although overall there was a lot of waiting. but finally we made it to the top (after being coerced, cajoled, and practically begged to purchase the audio tour, supposedly given by tony the new york taxi driver, which we refused on all occasions). and being up there was really awesome. we could see the chrysler building and the new yorker building and the statue of liberty way off in the distance, and we took a bunch of pictures, and it was a really nice day too--not very cold all the way up there at all. the only disappointment up there belonged to lauren, who felt sure that cary grant would be waiting for her, and who also was sad that she couldn't wait in another line to go up to the 102nd floor where cary grant actually was in the movie (they don't let people go up there anymore, unless they pay a lot of money to have a wedding in that room or something). after we had our fill, we got in another series of lines to exit the building. there were some girls in the elevator on the way down talking about how hungry they were and how they were going right to mcdonalds, and so of course when we exited we went straight to the mcd's across the street. the girls were also there. the mcdonalds was an eclectic mix of styles: the ceiling and walls were painted with sci fi scenes of aliens and space battles, while the light fixtures on the walls looked like they should've been in a gothic castle, and the "rubbish" bin on the wall was very british.
next comes the part of the day i feel really bad about. we are way behind our planned schedule by now, after all the waiting in lines and everything, and it's around 3:30. we had meant to be at times square waiting in line by 2:30. at this point, if it had been up to me, i would've said, let's forget the show and see one next time we're in town, as it would be really stressful to book it up to times square right now, and by the time we get the tickets we might not even have time to get changed at missi's and have dinner before the show starts. i would have suggested that perhaps we find a cool place to sit and get some late lunch/early dinner, have some coffee, maybe hit a bar later that night, and generally have a more laidback new york experience. but it was not up to me. laur and coll really wanted to see a broadway show while we were in new york, and missi and mike, with mike being a theater student and all, were also up for it. i didn't make any suggestions about altering our plan because such a suggestion likely would not have had a good reception.
so instead of sitting and eating at the mcdonalds, or sitting and eating anywhere for that matter, we got mcdonalds food and ate it while booking it to times square. laur & colleen were first in line and so were done their food by the time poor jorn got his chicken sandwich, so they were all, "let's go, LET'S GO", so we went. (jorn wasn't even going to the show with us--he was just along for the ride to spend time with me/us.) they and missi took the lead and were all walking fast, and jorn and i were walking fast too but because of all the foot traffic in the city we kept getting separated and having to run to catch up. several times i asked if they could slow down and they said they weren't running they were just walking. but they weren't even looking back to make sure we were with them. this got on my nerves. so we make it to the subway and poor jorn finally gets a chance to eat his now-ickily-lukewarm sandwich. we get off the subway at Times Square, and on our way through the station to get aboveground, we pass a steel drum drummer who is actually giving a little kid a lesson on his drums--showing him how to play a scale and singing Do Re Mi along with it. it was a really neat thing to see. after getting off the subway, we make our way through huge crowds of people toward the place where you wait in line for the half-price tickets. seeing a break in the traffic, laur and missi and coll sprint across the street and mike and jorn and i have no choice but to follow, even though mike was in the process of pointing out to me The Naked Cowboy. from the glimpse i got, i could tell he was wearing small white shorts, a ten-gallon hat, cowboy boots, and nothing else. he was either playing or holding a guitar, and people were getting their pictures taken with him. jorn didn't get to see the Naked Cowboy at all, and the girls missed out on him because they were rushing.
so we get in the long line. it moves slowly. it's after 4:00 by now. we try to decide what we want to see when we get up to the ticket booth, and we decide on Aida as our first choice, followed by Nine. we all are very tired from the rushing around and the previous lines we stood in, and now we're standing in yet another line. we were amused momentarily by the pigeon sitting on the statue's head (i took a picture of it) and by the steel drummer playing glenn miller's In the Mood, which was pretty cool. but then, back to more waiting. it was well after 5:00 by the time we got up to the counter, and they didn't have five seats for Aida all together, so we got tickets for Nine. they cost $54 each, which is a whole lot for me, but i did not complain overmuch. then, in order to get back to missi's in time to get changed, have a nice dinner, and make it to the show on time, we had to rush off again, this time without visiting the hershey chocolate place that both jorn and lauren had been eyeing. thinking about that chocolate store was the one thing getting jorn through being in that line on his feet for so long, and when he realized that we wouldn't be stopping there, his whole face just fell in this awful disappointment. he was crestfallen. i sincerely hope i never see that expression on his face again. i felt completely horrible. by now, of course, i have spent $54 on my ticket, so i'm committed to the rushing around if i don't want to waste my money. but that moment put a damper on the entire weekend for me, and i know when i think back on it i won't remember the fun things we did as much as i remember that sad awful thing.
well, that's a right cheery note to end on. tune in next time for saturday night: john stamos gets it on!