It didn't take long for us to notice that Pharrell Williams's song "Happy"* was playing everywhere. We ended up making it the anthem for the trip.We slept in on our second day. It seemed the right thing to do, considering we hadn't slept much the night before. We planned to take it easy in the morning, and then head to Patsy's pizza for brunch, because who doesn't love delicious white pizza at 11 a.m.? (Well, Kristen and Theresa didn't know yet that they would. They trusted me a lot!)
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| But first we had to take a photo in the ultra-comfortable chairs in the hotel lounge |
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| Note that I folded my pizza in half lengthwise before eating, like New Yorkers do ;) |
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| At one point, we were looking at a display and I said, "I think they're fake." Theresa's response was, "What? Cake?" |
Did I mention that Theresa has a cake-making and decorating business? One of her designs -- a specially requested pooping pony cake -- was even featured on Cake Wrecks. She's kind of a big deal.
As we were leaving, the cashier said "Have a sweet day!"
Theresa: "Do they make you say that?"
Cashier: "No." We all laughed.
Bloomingdales was just around the corner. We intended to just poke our heads in, and instead were seduced by all of the pretty clothes, hats, and jewelry (but not the make-up or fragrance sections, where we dodged all the salespeople). We ended up looking around at every floor. We each found at least one formal gown that gave us pause. This was mine:
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| So pretty!! |
Kristen: "How come there are not girl mannekins? Or girlequins?"
I think we were on level 6 when Kristen finally said, "There's another level? What else is there to sell?" I replied, "Groceries."
Turns out, it was the baby and kids clothes section.
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| It's a miracle I didn't buy anything. Just took a photo of this bag. |
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| We're trying not to worry that there's a Grade Pending sign on the window. |
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| I got the famous banana pudding for everyone to try. It's really good, but there was too much cake and not enough pudding in it for me. Theresa bought the cupcake of the day: pistachio with pistachio frosting. Kristen had the key lime cheesecake. They were all delicious. |
About this time, the cloudy sky opened up and the rains descended. We'd all planned for this and brought umbrellas, so our walk back to the hotel to drop off our booty wasn't too bad, and neither was the walk to the Frick mansion (in spite of the wind blowing my umbrella inside out twice -- whoops again!).
I hadn't heard of the Frick Collection before this trip, but Kristen found it on a website for Top 10 Places to See in NYC, so we gave it a shot. We thought it would be a big, nicely furnished house. It was, but it turns out businessman Henry Clay Frick was an avid art collector. He built several rooms for the express purpose of displaying his art, and had a lot of beautiful pieces, including paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, Claude Monet, Francois Boucher, and James MacNeill Whistler, Hans Holbein's Sir Thomas More portrait, Gilbert Stuart's George Washington portrait, and the sculpture Hercules and the Hydra. They also provided walkie-talkies for a free walking tour, so we knew what we were looking at in each room. I'm not always a fan of museums, but this one was pretty cool, and small enough we could see everything in two or three hours. |
| We were only allowed to take photographs in the Garden Courtyard. Such a pretty house!! |
We'd hoped that the rain would let up by the time we finished looking around the museum. Alas, it did not. So, our jaunt through Central Park was kind of short. We did manage to find the
Bethesda fountain and courtyard. The last time I came to NYC it was on a bright, sunny day. It was kind of fun to see it in another light this time!
In spite of the wet and the mud (and my soaked-through Toms), I climbed one of the rock formations. Felt good to make it to the top!
It was a relief to make it to the Subway station and head back to Times Square.
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| I've said it before and I'll say it again: Kristen was the Subway guru. I don't know how we would have survived without her! |
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| Brief stop in the Cake Boss cafe (we returned on the last day to purchase sweets) |
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| It was a soup and bread kind of day. Hooray for Dean & Deluca! |
I know what you're thinking: Another Disney musical? Well, yes. I was curious to see how they adapted the animated movie for the stage, and I'd heard a lot of good things about James Monroe Iglehart, the actor who played the Genie. Plus, Jonathan Freeman, the actor who played Jafar, also voiced the character in the movie!For the most part, I was happy with the changes. They decided to only let the Genie do magic, so Jafar ended up as a regular evil politician. The animal sidekicks (Abu the monkey, Iago the parrot, and Rajah the tiger) were all replaced with human characters. In the case of Abu, Aladdin had three distinctive friends to hang out with. It wasn't an entirely successful idea, but I loved their boy-bandish introduction song, and another song where the three friends set out to rescue Aladdin while dancing in slow motion (while the rest of the cast remained in regular speed).
I happened to be there on a night when Aladdin's understudy, Joshua Dela Cruz, performed the role. He looked younger than Courtney Reed's Jasmine, but otherwise I didn't mind -- he was great, and she was as beautiful and wilfull as I'd hoped. The costumes were fantastic, and I was kind of amazed at how much they were able to do with as few actors as they had in the cast. I read somewhere that the ensemble had 40 costume changes during "Prince Ali." Crazy. Other than that, that particular number was a little underwhelming. I loved Jasmine's pink wedding ensemble in the end.
"A Friend Like Me" was the opposite of underwhelming. James Monroe Iglehart KILLED that number! He had a blast, so it was easy for me to have fun, too. The stage lit up whenever he appeared. A lot of people whine that he can't possibly be as good as Robin Williams, but Iglehart made the role his own and I have no complaints. I was thrilled when he won the Tony for Featured Actor in a Musical, because he deserved it -- he didn't hold anything back in his performance. The show was much better than it might have been without him.
It was a miracle that I managed to find Theresa and Kristen after our shows ended. We had a vague plan of meeting at one of the stores on Times Square, but when I finished my show I saw a text from them saying their show had ended early (no intermission) and they were waiting for Dulé Hill so Kristen could get a poster signed for her daughter. The clouds had opened up again and it was raining worse than it had the entire rest of the day. I was walking in what I thought was the right direction, when I heard Theresa's and Kristen's voices! I turned in time to see them disappear into the crowd going to opposite direction. I yelled, "I know those voices!" and chased them down. We were all thrilled we'd managed to find each other! The weather wasn't conducive to hanging out outside, so we decided to get some cheesecake and call it a night. I couldn't remember where Larissa had recommended we go for cheesecake, so I asked a random guy on the street who was trying to sell tickets to a comedy club. He said Juniors is the best place in NYC, and it was right around the corner (as luck would have it, I found out later that was Larissa's recommendation, too)! We bought an entire raspberry swirl cheesecake and schlepped it back to our room to eat while we watched The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon -- it was the episode I'd hoped and failed to get tickets to, but I got to watch it anyway :) Stay tuned for a report on day 3 and day 4.
For a recap of my first day in NYC, see this post.
*For your listening pleasure:
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