New York City!

This weekend I drove to NYC. The plan was to arrive Friday afternoon, stay at my friend Sarah's parents' house in Long Island, and meet my friend Nathan in the city. It takes just short of 4 hours, but with traffic and stops (I needed food and I was worried about running out of toll money) it took me closer to 4.5. He was attending a law conference this weekend and had gotten us tickets to see West Side Story. Woo! I was super excited. And the weekend was super awesome.

Me on the LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) train to Penn Station.

We met up and saw the play. It was great! I love West Side Story. In this revival, they changed some of the dialogue and lyrics between the Puerto Ricans to Spanish, but after a somewhat negative reception, they changed much of it back to English this summer. "I Feel Pretty" was still almost entirely in Spanish, but most of the other PR songs were English. All the Spanish didn't really bug me as much as I thought it might.

Oh, and I got this great purple dress for the occasion (for like 85% off at Kohls!) and had fun wearing it!

Nathan left to return to Albany the next day, but we met up for lunch first. We ate at a place called Virgil's, a bbq place on 44th Street between 7th and 6th Ave. Turns out good bbq can be found in NYC. I got the Carolina pulled pork, but tasted some of his Texas brisket. I purposely didn't get brisket because (a) it might be disappointing (it wasn't) or (b) it might make me miss Texas too much (it did).

After seeing him off at the bus station, I headed over to a street fair we passed. It was on 6th Ave, and stretched almost 15 blocks (between about 42nd and 56th). There were booths selling random goods, scarves, food, and -- my weakness -- cheap jewelry. I tried to exercise some self control, but still came away with several pairs of earrings, a few necklaces, and two cashmere scarves. And I ate a caramel apple and a cupcake.

Here's a shot of the stretch of tents.

After figuring I'd done enough damage there, I wandered back over to the TKTS booth at Times Square to see if I could get discount tickets to a show that night. Nothing listed really caught my attention, though I'd never heard of many of the shows listed. After making a tentative decision, I got in line. While in line, someone was explaining the play "Perfect Crime" to the woman in front of me, so I asked for more information about it. Somehow I'd never heard of it, despite the fact that it's the longest running nonmusical on Broadway. Anyway, he said it's an Agatha Christy/Hitchcock whodunit type murder mystery. I love that kind of classic suspense/thriller type thing, so I bought tickets for it.

Before the show I went to this Irish Pub near the theatre at 50th and Broadway. I ate this amazing chocolate mousse cake.

Words cannot describe the awesomeness of it. It practically melted in my mouth. I was in food heaven. And I ate it all.

I went to the theater and saw Perfect Crime. I really, really liked it. I was totally confused as to what was going on by intermission (I didn't even know if who was supposed to have been murdered was actually dead), but the second act cleared it up as a very thick plot unraveled. So good!

Interesting fact: The show has had over 9100 performances, Catherine Russell, the female lead, originated the role and has only missed FOUR performances. That's amazing! She was recently inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records for it.

The next day I went to church at Sarah's parents' branch. My original plan had been to drive back to Baltimore Saturday afternoon, but I stayed because they told me Julie B. Beck, the General Relief Society president was going to be there. YAY! No way would I pass up that chance. Her brother is in the mission presidency on Long Island, so they were out here visiting with two of their granddaughters. Anyway, she taught Relief Society and spoke in Sacrament Meeting. I got to meet her after RS, and she was so nice. She seemed genuinely interested in talking to me and in hearing about me. So awesome!!! And she let me take a picture with her.

I left straight from church for home. The drive was fine, despite a bit of traffic and the battery dying twice in my ipod (I neglected to charge it the night before). (Someday I may finish the audio book of Harry Potter 7. But what great driving material.) I had a great weekend!