How hard it has been to sit down and write the on goings of our visit to my favorite city. The last two days have just flown by and I honestly would like a few more.
We left Connecticut early Sunday morning and drove to the city. It is so exciting to come across the bridge into the busy energy here. It brings back all the memories of coming here through the years. I felt what my girls were feeling when they saw the skyline, just like I had when I was 6 years old and visiting NYC with my family. I remembered the cab ride to the house I would be living at when I moved here at 19 years old. I was so excited and terrified! So, the ride in was just as exciting as it always has been. It was surprisingly easy to navigate the city in our car. It was a bit of a ghost town (by NYC standard, anyway) due to the holiday. We got to our hotel easily and at 11am our room was ready (so nice). We got all our stuff in, parked our car for the duration and set out to see what matinee broadway production we could land ourselves in. The plan was to try to get lottery Matilda tickets. Matilda has been sold out since it won all the Tony's a few weeks back, so lottery is the only chance. WE took a cab over to the Shubbert Theatre (very fun ride for the girls, zipping in and out and honking the entire way) just as they were handing out slips. The energy was great there, everyone hoping for some luck and standing around with excitement. WE took 5 slips, one for each of us and filled them out . If our slip is called you can win a max of two tickets, so we would have needed 3 of ours called to have us all go. Everyone decided that if we got two I would take the girls and the boys would find a more grown up show, just one and I would take Kaiya and the boys would take Mila to something that they could all enjoy. We stood there for 30 minutes and they started calling. They called name after name (really only 10 names, since they were only selling 20 tickets). Our luck just wasnt there. The girls sat there for a second and then burst into tears. I could understand because the excitement was high and then the letdown was huge, they recovered quickly as we headed to the TKTS booth in times square to find out what show we could see. Just the bustle of Times Square changed the energy for the girls and they were fascinated by all there was to see. TKTS had a lot of choices, but the girls convinced us all the Annie was the one. They were most excited because Jane Lynch (Sue Sylvester from Glee) was in the role of Miss Hannigan. I was actually pretty pumped to see her in that role also. She would make an incredible Miss Hannigan. We were able to get tickets to the show and then had almost 2 hours to spare. We were all hungry and HOT so we headed over to the Blue Fin restaurant on Times Square to cool down and eat sushi! Yum! That restaurant is really beautiful, the girls felt very fancy there. We sat upstairs and had the best waiter! He was wonderful. We ate a lot of food and had free bloody mary's in honor of my mom...still wishing she were here with us...the girls made jewelry out of bendy string and the waiter suggested they open a business. Kaiya like the idea and wanted to know more. It was a great experience. We got out just in time to rush across the street to take our seats for the show. Crossing the road, Jeremy and Kaiya spotted break dancers in the street and they made a detour to watch. We gave them their tickets and we went on. We made it in and pops was able to get his hearing device. Jeremy and Kaiya came rushing in after us all excited about the street performance. Kaiya said one of the guys jumped over two audience people. She was so excited. Then she said the performers said "this is the only time you will see a black man running without the police chasing him" she didn't understand why he would say that or why people would think that and gets very upset by these types of jokes and has also experienced being treated differently based on the color of her skin and at 9 years old that is a lot to take in. Sorry for the tangent, I get fired about about that... Annie was incredible! Jane Lynch was great, but so was everyone else. The role of Annie was played by the understudy at our show and she was phenomonal. The stage sets were so intricate and complicated. It was such a great experience. The story is just a great one to see while you are in NYC since it is based here and tells history. The songs are the greatest and we were all thrilled with our choice. When the show was over it took a long time to get downstairs since my dad needs the elevator. The theatre was empty and the curtains were open so the girls took a close look at the big stage and they fell in love (uh oh). They each bought a little memorabilia with their own money (they both had money they earned to buy things on the trip) and everyone was super happy. We were set to head to Long Island City to see my good friend Lauren sing at a bar there after the show. Jeremy decided to just walk around the city to explore, so the girls, my dad and I all hoped in a cab to Queens. This area has changed so much, it was really nothing when I lived there, but Vernon Blvd has cute things on it including the LIC-Bar where we landed. I walked in the door and saw my sweet friend Lauren! We went to high school together and it is always the best to see old friends. Lauren helped us get a spot to sit in the courtyard so we could watch her sing her song. It was a great place with great energy. Lauren sang a Crosby Stills and Nash song so beautifully! I wish we could have heard more. All the other performers were great too! This was my kind of local hang out with great talent. The girls and papa were hot and hungry so we had to venture off to find some food. We found a little Italian place "Juniors" down the road and Lauren came down to meet us after awhile. It was a lovely evening, although Mila was so hyped up to see Lauren that she was crawling all over her, but Lauren handled it all with a graceful smile! It was time to head back to our hotel. My dad insisted that we call a cab, which actually means call a car in NYC because as Lauren informed us, you can't call a yellow cab (this I had not remembered). We said our goodbyes to Lauren, hoping that we would get to see her again while in New York and went back to the hotel. The car was much more expensive than the cab ride, so we learned our lesson there and papa promised to be more patient next time we needed a cab. We got everyone ready for bed and tucked in and then Jeremy and I headed out on the town for a night walk. We just wandered around midtown Manhattan people watching.There are always so many people on the street in New York, I miss that energy. We got a tea at the Empire State building and then headed back to E. 40th Street. I knew I needed to get to bed because I promised the girls we could go to the Today show in the morning which meant an early morning for me. Long and lovely day!
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