Sunday, June 17, 2007

Second Day, Second Row!! - Posted by Lisa

Yesterday (Saturday) was spent partly waiting for, and on, one of those "hop on/hop off" double-decker tour buses. The wait to get on the bus in the first place seemed to take forever, but actually took about 30 minutes. So once we got on...we didn't get off until close to the end of the circuit. Hey, we didn't want to lose our seats on the top off the bus! :)

The tour yesterday took us uptown, which included the neighborhoods on the upper west side, Harlem, the museum district, and generally around Central Park. It was a pleasant ride on which we got plenty of sunshine, and got to see a slightly less congested part of the city. It the was the type of area that we could see ourselves living there if we had met sometime in our twenties and had time to see the world before having kids. Very cool.

We decided to get off the bus at Central Park (after having gone entirely around it on the bus). We got some lunch from a street vendor (though he didn't sell hot dogs). Chris had a burger, and I had a Mexican dish of some sort...can't remember what it was called right now! Sort of like a meat pastie, but spicier and with chicken. We then took a carriage ride through the park (or through one corner of it anyway), and walked on our own. While there, we caught an inning or so of a league softball game and almost got beaned with a popped up foul ball! :)

After that, we walked the 15-20 blocks back to our hotel to get ready for dinner and the show (Les Miserables). The restaurant we went to was a bit more expensive than we expected, but we considered it our splurge on ourselves (as if the trip wasn't enough). Chris had steak, and I had North Atlantic Lobster. Delicious meal! We then headed over to the theater for a Broadway production of Les Miz! I was so excited for this, as I have seen it several times at the Fisher Theater in Detroit, and it has ALWAYS brought me to tears. This time was no different.

There was a little snafu with our tickets, which Chris had ordered through an online service that I will not yet name (we'll see first if they refund our money). There were NO tickets held in our name! The man at the ticket booth said that he could sell us two more tickets (which I originally did not want to do), but we bought them anyway. SECOND ROW CENTER!! Let's just say that we were nearly spit on many times by Jean Valjean. Hehe. Unbelievable. Amazing. I felt many times that the actors were looking and singing right to me, and Chris says he felt the same. I have never cried sooner in this show than I did last night.

I will say though, that while it was the most amazing overall experience I have had while seeing that show, the touring companies that come to Detroit put on a show of equivalent quality, emotion, and even set design as on Broadway. I was very pleasantly surprised to find this out. Mom, Dad, and Karen...I'm sure you'll be happy to know this too. :)

After the show, I had a monster headache, so we came back to the room, took Tylenol, and crashed. We are now about to go out for our second day of tours...this time downtown, to the Statue of Liberty (or rather, near it...you can't go up right now), the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center site, among others. Looking forward to all of it!

"Talk" to you all again soon! Home tomorrow! We miss everyone, but especially our boys. Big hugs. By the way, more pics lumped in with the ones from yesterday's post.

2 comments:

MrsDayna8992 said...

Hi Lease-
I feel like I am watching an episode of Sex in the City with all of your great pictures. Lots of good landmarks and scenery! What a great vacation! Thanks for the updates while you are on vacation.

Anonymous said...

Wow! It looks like you're having a great time. THat lobster is huge! lol It's great seeing the pictures...it's almost like I'm there too.