“You’ve gotta leave wanting more” – That’s what my mom says about traveling and what I keep I telling myself because each time I visit New York I want to do everything! I was busy during my last few days in NYC ‘cause I tried to pack a lot in! I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge one sunny morning and spent a large chunk of the day wandering through Brooklyn. The bridge itself is so intricately designed that it’s fascinating and the views looking back at Manhattan are breathtaking. I was stopped on the bridge by a group of third graders who were doing a school project about the bridge and asked me what I liked about the bridge, why I was crossing the bridge, where I was from (when I said Chicago the little girl circled ‘Other country’ on her paper) and if they could take a picture of me. So cute! I love love love Brooklyn Heights and decided that if I ever lived in New York I would find a way (probably by winning the lottery) to live in Brooklyn Heights. Also in Brooklyn I thwarted my first pickpocket attempt (as the pickpocketee not the pickpocketer)! I was in a crowded elevator in the subway station and I felt something going on in my pocket so I reached down and grabbed a woman’s wrist while her hand was still in my pocket! I looked back at her ‘cause I wanted to see what kind of idiot would try that and be so bad at it that the potential victim clearly felt it AND had time to grab her wrist, and she was just staring straight ahead like nothing was going on. I have never wanted to hit someone more in my life than I did at that moment. Who does she think she is?!?!
I got my dose of history by going to the Museum of the City of New York and the American Museum of Natural History and taking a Greenwich Village walking tour. All of these were packed with interesting facts about New York City and the origins of many customs and sayings throughout the country. If you’d like, I’d be more than happy to share these with you, but I figured those can be requested on an individual basis rather than subjecting everyone to all of them.
I took myself out on my 29th birthday to dinner in Little Italy then to a comedy show. The restaurant I picked did not sound very authentically Italian, Rocky’s Italian Ristorante, but it was very good. I am often wary when it comes to comedians, as I’ve found in my experience that many comedians resort to being raunchy and rude in an effort to appeal to the public, which I find very off-putting. I found the National Comedy Theatre online that boasted that the shows are “clean and appropriate for all ages”. I didn’t read though that it would be an improve comedy show that pitted two teams against each other, which other than Whose Line Is It Anyway? I’ve found to be rather low quality. But I was wrong! I was practically rolling in the aisles laughing!!
I attended an incredible show on Broadway on my last day in town. It wasn’t great because of the quality of the story, or even the acting ability of the cast, it was great because of the nostalgia surrounding it. The audience was filled with people my age and people my parent’s age with a few others sprinkled in. The roar of the crowd when the star shuffled out on stage was deafening! When the lights went down and the set was revealed there was thunderous applause and screaming. Three members from the original cast (when it first debuted 29 years ago) were in this production. Have I built up enough curiosity yet? It was The Pee Wee Herman Show! Paul Rubens is 58 years old and still plays Pee Wee perfectly! “I know you are, but what am I?”, “Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you”, “Ahhhh!”, “That’s my name, don’t wear it out”, “Mekka lekka hi mekka hinny ho”, “So funny I forgot to laugh”, “Then why don’t you marry it?”. We screamed whenever anyone said the Word of the Day, which was “fun” and cheered as each familiar character made their appearance on stage (Conky, Jambi, Cowboy Curtis, Mailman Mike, Miss Yvonne, Globey, Chairry, and the King of Cartoons). Ah, I loved it! The other Broadway show I saw was The Scottsboro Boys which was very good, but much more serious than any of the other shows I had seen. The theater it played in was so old that the balcony had sunk a bit and the aisles were literally angled down from the center. I was sitting on a slant and I spent the first half of the show worrying that I was going to plummet through the floor to the mezzanine seats below! I also took a tour on Broadway given by a self-proclaimed “starving actor”. He was overly dramatic and loud and awesome. I learned about the haunted theaters on Broadway, the various superstitions of theater people and how common show-mances (romances between the leading lady and leading man) are.
Until next time New York!
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!
Live the life you've imagined!"
- Henry David Thoreau
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