We're back!
Dec. 11th, 2005 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancerjodiWhat a great weekend! Extra special thanks to B for lending us a wonderful place to stay :)
We arrived on Thursday, dropped off our things and did some walking around the Times Square, Herald Square areas (I did pick up some lingerie after all - it was calling to me with its embroidered ballet slippers, despite the pinkness of it). After dinner at St. Andrews, NYC's reportedly only Scottish Pub (very good) we saw Spamalot. If you are a fan of Monty Python or parody musicals, GO SEE THIS! Alas, you'll miss Tim Curry since he's done next weekend. My God, was it funny! I keep getting songs stuck in my head. :) We got out of the subway 3 blocks from our street to see the masses of news trucks and people near Strawberry Fields across the street - it was the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's shooting. What a coincidence that we were there and staying around the corner at the same time! People lined up to get down to strawberry fields, people put out flowers and candles near his old apartment, and people stood around singing old Lennon songs. Very unexpected.
On Friday we wandered the Greenwich/West Village area and had a great lunch at http://www.twoboots.com/frames/TwoBootsMain.html before heading over to the Lower East Side to check out the http://www.tenement.org/ . We had a private tour coincidentally, and checked out 2 apartments in the old late 1800s era tenement building with our guide. The theme of the tour was "getting by", and was focused on the two US depressions impacting immigrants in the Lower East Side. The first was a Russian Jewish family getting by with a single mom as a stitcher providing for her kids (while hubby took off after losing his job). The second was an Italian family set in the Great Depression era. It was neat seeing things that belonged to the family themselves, hearing a recording of the daughter recounting living in the apartment, and seeing how despite poor economic times they were able to pull together, get by, eventually become successful and build a strong, loving family despite all of that. The guide tried to connect the past to present events, emphasizing that new immigrants have much the same issues that our ancestors did. He said it was good to meet two people that hadn't forgotten that. If you are interested in immigration, urbanization, periods of poor economic history or just funky old buildings, you have to check this place out!
From there we checked out the Radio City Stage Door Tour http://www.radiocity.com/themusichall_tours.html , learning about the building, rennovation and workings of this amazing theater. We got to learn a bit about the Rockettes and meet one of them (got my pic with her). The Parade of the Wooden Soldier choreography (the same that I did with the Reagle Players in 2001) is the same that they've done each year in the Christmas show since 1932! It was neat seeing some of their costumes, hearing about past designers, and learning of how the stage elevator system works. If you are a theater dork, see this tour - definitely worth it! Post the tour we walked a bit and grabbed food before seeing the show (Brian loved it, I'm very glad, given how hoakey it can be). More walking would commence but no crazy late night, so that we'd be ready for museum day.
We were up at around 9:30 and after breakfast headed up to the Cloisters. Now, we enjoyed it, and I'm glad we went (because seeing the Unicorn Tapestries up close and personal was really lovely). I think though, our spring trip to the UK killed a bit of the excitement that we would have felt had we done this in our last NYC trip for leisure in 2002. Its all pretty, but seeing old burial tombs, religious statuary and stained glass in a small reconstructed series of cloisters and comparing that to old castles, cathedrals and abbeys in the UK, it just wasn't as sexy. Still, I'm glad we went.
After a train back, some walking after a failed attempt at lunch at the Tavern on the Green (they were closed for a private function) we had lunch at the very flavorful and well decorated http://www.menupages.com/restaurantdetails.asp?neighborhoodid=0&restaurantid=37 and headed across the park with a stop at http://www.centralparknyc.org/virtualpark/thegreatlawn/belvederecastle before stopping at the http://www.metmuseum.org/ . I really enjoyed the Perfect Medium exhibit. Its funny looking now at the things that people took as paranormal activity which was really just for the most part photographic tricks. I wonder what years from now people will think *we* were nuts for believing. We spent time in the Medieval and Egyptian areas (I really loved their tree http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Christmas2005/christmas_more.asp ). There is just so much to take in at this museum and by this point we were both pretty sore from walking all weekend and tired from the running around.
We went back to the apartment to rest for a bit before grabbing dinner at http://www.menupages.com/restaurantdetails.asp?neighborhoodid=0&restaurantid=612 (loved their salsa and the service was great). After heading to Chelsea and picking up tickets for RHPS we had a lot of time to kill, thus more walking ensued, some killing time in Macy's (open till 11) and some time in a coffee shop was good until we headed into the theater.
What can I say, the http://www.nycrhps.org/site/ did disappoint me. For years I thought of NYC as *the* cast to go see. The RHPS fan club was based in NYC, and the cast did quite well in competitions (coincidentally neck and neck with the Full Body Cast, hence a great rivalry). There were probably only about 20 people in the audience, and the theater was quite small. They don't seem to have a costume/backstage area, so everything was just spread out on seats in the front row. There wasn't much of a preshow, the average patron was a 16 year old RHPS virgin. There were a few actors/actresses in the cast that were REALLY good (their Magenta's costumes were spot on - more detailed than I've even seen FBC folks have). It just was an eh show overall. I wanted to really love it, but most of the time Brian and I were just feeling bad about it (and thinking wow, FBS hasn't really gone that downhill comparatively, though keep in mind I was going during Gene's cast aka the glory days). At one point though we almost peed ourselves laughing so hard! You know that guy from the Triumph skit, the nerd made out of parts of lesser nerds that "doesn't deal with lesser life forms"? He was there! He was waving around a blue toy lightsaber during "there's a light", and screaming out AP lines louder than anyone else. Its good to see he's got a place to call home of sorts, still, it was odd recognizing him. We left feeling kind of bad, wondering where RHPS will go in the future if anywhere other than downhill (the 20th anniversary was a good resurgence, it came out on DVD for the 25th, not too much of a peep for the 30th. Lucas has the perk at least that more products (movies, cartoons and merchandise) keep an active recruitment/reminding going, where RHPS is all a word of mouth thing. Ah well - we did it, we saw the show in NYC. I wish I could have seen in its larger heyday, but what can you do?
Today we packed up, cleaned up, and wandered the upper west side shopping on Columbus street. There was a bloch http://www.blochworld.com/home.cfm?CFID=630980&CFTOKEN=67794537 store! I picked up some goodies. We also found a neat toy store, a large indoor/outdoor flea market, and some other cute but overpriced (duh) shops. I finally checked out http://www.boydsnyc.com/ which had some cute but overpriced things. You can take the kid out of Waltham, but you can't take the Waltham out of the kid apparently - the only thing you'll see me spending a lot of money on (and that's with some arm twisting) frivilously will be lingerie! :)
After a smooth ride home were in, settled and back to normal. Our small handful of pics can be found here: http://www.diabolis.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=277
We arrived on Thursday, dropped off our things and did some walking around the Times Square, Herald Square areas (I did pick up some lingerie after all - it was calling to me with its embroidered ballet slippers, despite the pinkness of it). After dinner at St. Andrews, NYC's reportedly only Scottish Pub (very good) we saw Spamalot. If you are a fan of Monty Python or parody musicals, GO SEE THIS! Alas, you'll miss Tim Curry since he's done next weekend. My God, was it funny! I keep getting songs stuck in my head. :) We got out of the subway 3 blocks from our street to see the masses of news trucks and people near Strawberry Fields across the street - it was the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's shooting. What a coincidence that we were there and staying around the corner at the same time! People lined up to get down to strawberry fields, people put out flowers and candles near his old apartment, and people stood around singing old Lennon songs. Very unexpected.
On Friday we wandered the Greenwich/West Village area and had a great lunch at http://www.twoboots.com/frames/TwoBootsMain.html before heading over to the Lower East Side to check out the http://www.tenement.org/ . We had a private tour coincidentally, and checked out 2 apartments in the old late 1800s era tenement building with our guide. The theme of the tour was "getting by", and was focused on the two US depressions impacting immigrants in the Lower East Side. The first was a Russian Jewish family getting by with a single mom as a stitcher providing for her kids (while hubby took off after losing his job). The second was an Italian family set in the Great Depression era. It was neat seeing things that belonged to the family themselves, hearing a recording of the daughter recounting living in the apartment, and seeing how despite poor economic times they were able to pull together, get by, eventually become successful and build a strong, loving family despite all of that. The guide tried to connect the past to present events, emphasizing that new immigrants have much the same issues that our ancestors did. He said it was good to meet two people that hadn't forgotten that. If you are interested in immigration, urbanization, periods of poor economic history or just funky old buildings, you have to check this place out!
From there we checked out the Radio City Stage Door Tour http://www.radiocity.com/themusichall_tours.html , learning about the building, rennovation and workings of this amazing theater. We got to learn a bit about the Rockettes and meet one of them (got my pic with her). The Parade of the Wooden Soldier choreography (the same that I did with the Reagle Players in 2001) is the same that they've done each year in the Christmas show since 1932! It was neat seeing some of their costumes, hearing about past designers, and learning of how the stage elevator system works. If you are a theater dork, see this tour - definitely worth it! Post the tour we walked a bit and grabbed food before seeing the show (Brian loved it, I'm very glad, given how hoakey it can be). More walking would commence but no crazy late night, so that we'd be ready for museum day.
We were up at around 9:30 and after breakfast headed up to the Cloisters. Now, we enjoyed it, and I'm glad we went (because seeing the Unicorn Tapestries up close and personal was really lovely). I think though, our spring trip to the UK killed a bit of the excitement that we would have felt had we done this in our last NYC trip for leisure in 2002. Its all pretty, but seeing old burial tombs, religious statuary and stained glass in a small reconstructed series of cloisters and comparing that to old castles, cathedrals and abbeys in the UK, it just wasn't as sexy. Still, I'm glad we went.
After a train back, some walking after a failed attempt at lunch at the Tavern on the Green (they were closed for a private function) we had lunch at the very flavorful and well decorated http://www.menupages.com/restaurantdetails.asp?neighborhoodid=0&restaurantid=37 and headed across the park with a stop at http://www.centralparknyc.org/virtualpark/thegreatlawn/belvederecastle before stopping at the http://www.metmuseum.org/ . I really enjoyed the Perfect Medium exhibit. Its funny looking now at the things that people took as paranormal activity which was really just for the most part photographic tricks. I wonder what years from now people will think *we* were nuts for believing. We spent time in the Medieval and Egyptian areas (I really loved their tree http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Christmas2005/christmas_more.asp ). There is just so much to take in at this museum and by this point we were both pretty sore from walking all weekend and tired from the running around.
We went back to the apartment to rest for a bit before grabbing dinner at http://www.menupages.com/restaurantdetails.asp?neighborhoodid=0&restaurantid=612 (loved their salsa and the service was great). After heading to Chelsea and picking up tickets for RHPS we had a lot of time to kill, thus more walking ensued, some killing time in Macy's (open till 11) and some time in a coffee shop was good until we headed into the theater.
What can I say, the http://www.nycrhps.org/site/ did disappoint me. For years I thought of NYC as *the* cast to go see. The RHPS fan club was based in NYC, and the cast did quite well in competitions (coincidentally neck and neck with the Full Body Cast, hence a great rivalry). There were probably only about 20 people in the audience, and the theater was quite small. They don't seem to have a costume/backstage area, so everything was just spread out on seats in the front row. There wasn't much of a preshow, the average patron was a 16 year old RHPS virgin. There were a few actors/actresses in the cast that were REALLY good (their Magenta's costumes were spot on - more detailed than I've even seen FBC folks have). It just was an eh show overall. I wanted to really love it, but most of the time Brian and I were just feeling bad about it (and thinking wow, FBS hasn't really gone that downhill comparatively, though keep in mind I was going during Gene's cast aka the glory days). At one point though we almost peed ourselves laughing so hard! You know that guy from the Triumph skit, the nerd made out of parts of lesser nerds that "doesn't deal with lesser life forms"? He was there! He was waving around a blue toy lightsaber during "there's a light", and screaming out AP lines louder than anyone else. Its good to see he's got a place to call home of sorts, still, it was odd recognizing him. We left feeling kind of bad, wondering where RHPS will go in the future if anywhere other than downhill (the 20th anniversary was a good resurgence, it came out on DVD for the 25th, not too much of a peep for the 30th. Lucas has the perk at least that more products (movies, cartoons and merchandise) keep an active recruitment/reminding going, where RHPS is all a word of mouth thing. Ah well - we did it, we saw the show in NYC. I wish I could have seen in its larger heyday, but what can you do?
Today we packed up, cleaned up, and wandered the upper west side shopping on Columbus street. There was a bloch http://www.blochworld.com/home.cfm?CFID=630980&CFTOKEN=67794537 store! I picked up some goodies. We also found a neat toy store, a large indoor/outdoor flea market, and some other cute but overpriced (duh) shops. I finally checked out http://www.boydsnyc.com/ which had some cute but overpriced things. You can take the kid out of Waltham, but you can't take the Waltham out of the kid apparently - the only thing you'll see me spending a lot of money on (and that's with some arm twisting) frivilously will be lingerie! :)
After a smooth ride home were in, settled and back to normal. Our small handful of pics can be found here: http://www.diabolis.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=277
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Date: 2005-12-12 07:43 am (UTC)