Oh what a night! (New York)

Wow!  We are both still buzzing after seeing Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.  It was just awesome.  Standing ovation stuff - well worth the exorbitant price we paid for tickets.  But, I am ahead of myself.

Sunday

Yes it's Sunday here, the middle day of the long weekend for Columbus Day, which is tomorrow.  It wasn't a particularly fast-paced morning because Saturday night usually brings waves of disrupted sleep as the party-people head home.  I would personally like to thank the drunk Australians who were attempting to sing New York New York, but they only knew the one line.  No really, I'd like to meet them, or at least find out where they are staying so I can surprise them at 4:20am one morning when they are fast asleep.  (Warning: Dad joke ahead) I don't know if they managed to get into their apartment because they couldn't find a key when singing.

The walk to the 10 am mass at St Bridgid's and St Emeric's was even shorter than our walk at home. It is a large church and an interesting design; the altar is a flat stage-like area rather than a typical portico. The traditional choir loft upstairs spreads down both sides of the church.  I've seen this in churches in Spain which is not surprising here given the ethnic influence in the neighbourhood. Beautiful stained glass windows upstairs, grand pillars and lots of marble and gold (paint).

The priest came over before mass to say hello and gave us a shout out in his intro to the mass. Nice. There are always local differences and the sign of peace here was the stand-out - it went forever, the priest came half-way down the centre aisle and shook hands with a lot of people.  I thought our community at home was welcoming but this was something else.

Flinder's Lane

Given we didn't have a great deal planned today we walked home via Flinder's Lane.  No, it's a restaurant in Ave B, obviously owned by Australians.  They do real Aussie breakfasts with eggs and bacon and sourdough and orange juice and real coffee and sausage rolls.  OK the sausage rolls aren't breakfast food in Australia, but in New York on weekends there is a definite blurring of the lines between breakfast and lunch - it really is brunch because it starts late and stretches into lunch time. Most civilised.

Their coffee was the best we've had since we left home.  We will be back to check out the sausage rolls.

Random fact:

Williamsburg

We frequently come up against a dislike of Paris (from philistines) who often make comments around how "dirty" it is.  In our three trips there we have never found it to be that way.  When we have talked to people about New York, the same sort of comment has never been made, yet, it is filthy in parts.  Areas we walked around yesterday in Williamsburg were dilapidated, dirty, overgrown with weeds and strewn with garbage.  East Village is much better, but, the way they collect garbage over here doesn't help and piles of garbage bags on the street are a common sight.

Garbage day

Scenes like this became the feature of a stimulus piece in the first Higher School Certificate English examination this year.

I've heard of public toilets, but this is ridiculous

Then there is animal waste that isn't always cleaned up by the pet's owner and the smell of urine in the streets.  I'll concede that can be an issue in Paris, but they seem to deal with it better, even if that means cleaning the pavement or doorstep every morning with disinfectant as one business did next to our apartment last time we were there.  In New York, most just wait for rain.  Although this is an effective way to remove the smell, you can be waiting for a while.

After breakfast we walked back home and began researching places for dinner - unsuccessfully. Eventually, we went to the subway and made our way to Times Square.  It is an amazing place and one that is probably best avoided, but the theatre was in the next block and we had to pick up our tickets.  That proved to be far less of an issue than we thought and we only had 5 hours to kill before the show commenced.  So, what to do ... shopping, what else.

We'd seen some tourist T-shirts in a store near the Empire State Building and started battling the crowds in that direction.  They had some hilarious T-shirts that I would have loved to have purchased, but I guess my occupation precludes me being able to wear them where and when I'd like. My favourite was a simple black T with the slogan: New York F***in City.  And it so is, it has to be the most common word I hear.

Times Square

Jayne's dessert - nothing exceeds like excess

Back to the Times Square area for dinner and we selected HB Burger, a subsidary of the Heartland Brewery restaurant next door.  We were feeling brave and contrary, so we ordered burgers with wine - no beer for us.  And settled in for the duration; well we were trying to make it to 6:30pm when we could get into the theatre.

We went close - 5:30pm and then it was, deep breath, out into a packed Times Square.  You have to experience the place - it is a loud, colourful, moving, pulsating mass of people.  Waves of them going in all directions.  Then there are the locals, people dressed in costumes.  There is a big comic book thing happening here at the moment so Avengers were everywhere.  The prize of the night, for mine, went to a group of women who were dressed in little more than a few sparkles, some body paint, nipple covers and g-strings.  Interesting outfits as night descended and the temperature dropped. We have no idea who they were representing or attempting to be, but they kept walking past suggesting people take photos and then asking for money. There was a lot of old man action in the photos - yuck, or as Jayne would say, icky, icky, icky.  A couple of them were counting money as we decided the stores nearby would afford us more protection and it looked like a profitable night.  Not sure where they intended to stash their takings - the skimpy costumes certainly did not offer any obvious places to deposit the cash.

Interesting as well that the young ladies should be prancing around like this inviting physical contact for money since a big story here this week has been a Times Square billboard that invites couples in the crowd to express their love while screened on the billboard for all to see.  While all attention is on the screen, males have been roaming around among the crowd and groping young ladies - a number of arrests have resulted and lots of demands for the company to alter the billboard in some way to discourage the trend.

Times Square

We found another store that stocked NFL gear - maybe, just maybe this would end our search for Clay Matthews' jumper for Alycia.  The first jersey we saw as we walked through the door was, yep, a Packers jumper and it was a no. 52 Matthews.  If only Alycia was a large or extra large. No, they didn't have other sizes.  That's it. I officially give up the search.  A Clay Matthews jumper is like the Beaumont children - never to be found.

Beautiful

Aside from costing a fortune (two tickets cost the equivalent of the GDP of Tasmania) we were in row H in the middle with a brilliant view of the stage.  It was just a stand-out production from start to finish.  The best show I've ever seen and that includes all the musicals down through the years and the last 10 years as a subscriber at Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney.

The Sondheim Theatre is only small, but it suited the story and the production, it would have been lost in a larger space.  They used the stage brilliantly, the costume changes were slick and deftly handled and the songs ... the songs, classics every one and the singing ... Carole King has been to see the show and she loved it.  Chilina Kennedy, the lead, was just magic.  Oh what a night! Yes I know it was by the Four Seasons and it didn't feature in the show, but it just sums it up.  I would go back, although it will take me a while to save up.  Maybe we'll see it London next week.  We have tickets to see The Book of Mormon in the West End.

Until tomorrow ... or maybe the next day, depending on what happens.