Thursday morning we were up early to take the subway over to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Because our group was so huge, we had arranged a 1 and a half hour guided tour of the museum and then time by ourselves. Even though our groups were still over 30 people big, we got the best docent in the entire museum- James Spann. He was a former actor and literally kept our attention the entire tour (and we would have stayed with him longer).
After the tour we went up to look at the huge bamboo exhibit on the roof of the museum. It was pretty crazy that the entire structure (which could be walked on) was only held together by lashings.
We met up with everyone that wanted to go through Central Park (a lot of people opted to stay back at the museum or head over to Serendipity on the Upper East Side). We only lost one group of 4 boys who were walking over to Bethesda Fountain- but went on the wrong road (luckily Brent and Amanda went to get them) and we stopped by Strawberry Fields before heading for a eating tour of the Upper West Side. 1st stop was Gray's Papaya for hot dogs, Jacques Torres for chocolates and finally Levain Bakery for cookies.
While we were eating, my brother Nate was arriving in NYC from Virginia- along with my sister Arianne and her husband Ben. Ari and Ben were coming on a bus from Boston, but Nate decided to only spend $4 on transportation from JFK to his mid-town hotel- which also took about 3 hours (with luggage). He did say that New Yorkers are friendly and helpful (especially when lugging 2 suitcases around on the subway).
After our cookies at Levain, it was off for more NYC eating with Brent and Amanda Cox. We hit the Village for the Coxes first experience with Pomme Frites- a place that every other time we had tried to go to with them, it had been closed. Jackie and I first ate here in 2004- and though they only serve fries, they are the best fries in the land. Between all of us, we had about 8 sauces to dip our frites in- and they were amazing.
After frites, we hit the dessert restaurant Chickalicious where I had a special version of cheesecake- basically it was a cheesecake foam that dissolved on your tounge and left the most delicious taste- I don't know how to describe it- only to say it was the "essence of cheesecake". We also had a lemon basil sorbet that was so refreshing, I secretly licked my plate when no one was watching.
That night, the show we saw (along with a talkback afterwards) was Memphis- which later won for Best Musical at the Tony Awards. I went into the show knowing the music, but not being blown away by it- but I was blown away by the show that night. The actors were having so much fun up on stage that it was infectious. The 2 leading performers were great and the dancing was fantastic! (Especially when we learned at the talk-back that they had been dancing all morning in rehearsals for the Tony Awards). What was even better was at the talkback, almost every lead came out to talk to our group and they were really down-to-earth and fun with the students. We loved the show! Even my brother Nate (who doesn't know much about theatre) really liked the show- which is high praise indeed.
2 comments:
Memphis was a great show. In fact, I even downloaded the soundtrack!
Going to see Lion King in Norfolk in December.
I remember that day quite well. After checking out the museum, Mitch Wardle and I went through Central Park and got very lost. We must not have looked lost since some people stopped us and asked us for directions.
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