New York, New York

So we decided on pizza for dinner - finding pizza that has somewhere you can sit down is more of a challenge than one would expect lol.  We were successful- more from luck than anything ;). The place we had happened to have 3 picnic tables outside and we got one.  Unrelated - Mexican Fanta is *way* better than Canadian.  For the win.  Both Mexican and Canadian pop are better than US for love of real sugar.  But I was quite pleased to accidentally end up w Mexican Fanta w dinner.

Bonus points for picnic-table ambiance

Standing in line for NY NY now.  Random stranger took a pic of C and I for us.  I’m actually amazed at how often that seems to happen where it’s not a trade.   It’s all fair if they also want a pic but often just “hey would you like?!?!”  And quite honestly, our phones are so old they’re not worth stealing so we can take advantage of the generosity of strangers.

Advantage of ancient technology:
can get lots of low-risk memories for posterity ;)

So our tickets are paper?!?  We bought them from the day-of retailer (legit, not street based) but it’s amazing how quaint and also inconvenient paper tickets are lol. Esp as they still have QR codes on them for scanning.  But yeah - carrying around more paper is both stressful, cause if I lose one, we’re F’d, and it’s environmentally unfriendly.   Amazing how fast times change.  Once upon a time those things were keepsakes!   I know - I still have some ;).  Now, I have blog posts ;)

Tonight's Entertainment

In the theatre now - our seats are amazing.  We’re in the balcony this time but a newer theatre (or feels so anyways) so stadium seating means less challenge of heads in the way.  Orchestra is in the more traditional location for this one lol which means prob no highly entertaining conductor.   We have seats 1 and 3 - which are together?  Lol not sure where the even numbers went but all good.

View from our seats before the show started

Also - the washrooms here are more suitable for the size of crowd.  Lol I haven’t been this aware of toilet facilities since Kerri and I were in Cuba together a lifetime ago.  😂 I think pre-blog days even!   But we had a scale something about 5* has TP, a seat, flushable toilets, and a door that locks.  😂 NYC isn’t quite that bad but looking for available, clean, TP.  Also a surprising number of the auto taps have only hot OR cold water?  At home they’re kinda a net neutral.  Cold I get but the hot ones tend to be too hot for me to wash my hands properly.  So odd.

People watching fun again - the lovely woman behind us who speaks very little English who was posing for almost the same pic C took of me who was *so* excited when I asked her photographer if he’d like one of both of them.  I’m not sure *he* was as thrilled but he played along and made her day.  I couldn’t figure out the non apple phone fast enough so C took pics for them.   Less delightful is the loud, very heavyset, woman sitting on the aisle behind us who complains anytime someone needs to get in our out.  Like I understand it’s a pain but they literally have no choice….  And unless, like us, you took the tickets leftover at the last minute, maybe don’t choose an aisle?  Then there are the older ladies in the side balcony who are waving very excitedly at some random person somewhere else and posing for more pics selfies than I try to convince C to be in 😂.  Absolutely love seeing people really enjoying life.  This one overall has a much younger audience than last night.  Not sure why but all good :).  Harry Potter or Wicked I would’ve understood.  This one?  Not as much.

Balcony this time, but still good seats!

So the show was very well done but a little too real for what I look for in theatre (or movies for that matter).   Excellent sets and some fabulous costumes.  Those who know me will understand my new appreciation of twirly skirts 😂 

The story according to my phone

Our excellent seats were slightly less excellent due to the incredibly loud gentleman behind us.  When the lights came on at intermission we realized he was likely well into the autism scale, and I struggle between feeling empathy for the challenges he and his caregivers face and relief that C had managed to find us other seats farther away from the overly enthusiastic person that were also better?!?!   Lol front row of the balcony and had the opportunity to chat w my new neighbour for a bit.  A local who goes to a lot of Broadway so that was a fun conversation.  He moved here from LA and loves it so was a great chance for me to learn more about what draws people.

Afterwards we weren't quite as wired as after Chicago but the night was so perfect we couldn't just go home in the city that never sleeps.  Instead, we found a night tour - for the next blog post :)