3rd January 2009

3.1.2009

 

Saturday morning in New York City. What does one who lives here do? We really were not sure but decided brunch would probably be an apt activity. Didn't need to start too early thanks to Hannah's having gone to "the party" last night, so it was very late brunch for sure by the time we rocked up to some very "Chelsea" Chelsea restaurant. Laughed at the waitstaff and how different they looked to those at home, dressed in whatever they liked, and in such a "Chelsea" fashion. Delicious breakfast, and a good start to Saturday. Restaurant was called "Elmos". lol. From there we braved the waterfront park - braved it because the closer we edged to water, so much colder the wind became. While walking down, an ambulance had a car crash into it, and the ambulance lost it's front. Was kind of funny. Went past the Chelsea Hotel -  (Dylan Thomas drank there). A man walking past noticed our cameras around our necks and wrists and offered to take our photo under the sign. Hannah hesitated, quite obvious a hesitation, but I said ok. I asked her about it once he'd gone - she thought it was odd a stranger would offer to take a photo and had thought he wanted to steal our cameras. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind. Oops. I'm so not a suspicious person in that sort of situation. Back from the waterfront park (which was not exceptionally exciting) we walked through the main streets that make up the gallery district. Into a few galleries. Some were quite marvellous. After we'd had our cultural fix in Chelsea, we hotfooted it back to Times Square to check out tickets for "All My Sons" the play John Lithgow, Diane Wiest, Katie Holmes were starring in. I knew I wanted to see it, but Hannah hadn't heard of it. Once she saw it and read a little, she was convinced. We were too early for 'student rush' so we killed a little bit of time until 5pm. Into a few shops, then in typical New York City fashion, time had passed superbly fast, so we were in the Student Rush queue. Made it to the front, got our tickets. $25 each. Absolute bargain. One seat in row B and another in row G. Had 2.5 hours to pass til we'd need to be thinking about sitting down so back to the hostel, made some dinner, got changed, returned. Oh my friggin god, that show was friggin fantastic. Full of drama, it had an ending that I surely didn't see coming. A gunshot was in there, which was not just a gun shot but a total shock. Absolutely amazing show. We did one act each in each seat, to be fair, and the seats were both different perspective but equally good. The row B seat gave us both a total star struck moment or two, which we were surprised to find we both had had, when we discussed it after. That we were only 2 metres from the stage, and these amazing and well known actors were so damned close to us, we were overcome with "wow". We both said we felt like our mums...! lol (sorry Mum, but it's true, you'd have been having kittens at being so close!) Could see the skinniness of Katie Holmes without magazine photoshopping. So bloody skinny. Finished up the evening with some cake from Junior's Bakery next door. They claim to be the best cheesecake makers in NYC, or more to the point, New York Times Magazine says they are - we don't doubt them there. Strawberry Pie Cake we both chose. It was simply divine.