It's Lights Will Inspire You

Five days of not blogging, and it feels good to be back. Sorry about the temporary hiatus, because I'm sure you missed my mediocre writing. Let me tell you what I've been up to!

On a beautiful Friday evening, as the sun was setting, I left rehearsal, crossed the street, and took a cab to South Station. We arrived in New York City slightly after 11:30pm, but being young and being night owls, we didn't mind at all. After quickly regrouping in the hotel room located in the heart of Times Square (thanks to AAA), we set out looking for food and beverages...and got a little desperate. Even though Times Square at midnight looks like the middle of the day with all the lights, a surprising amount of restaurants were closing down...I say surprising because it was deceivingly lively outside. We eventually gave up and settled on trying to find some hot dogs on the street, followed by a drink in our hotel bar...until we walked into Bubba Gump Shrimp. No, we didn't eat there, but the nice host at the door told us to try O'Lunney's, an Irish Pub, directly in Times Square, with a kitchen open until 3am. That's a bingo! 

We ordered a round of Smithwicks Irish ale and some bangers and mash (and that's all I'm going to say about the brews and food because somewhere in Ireland a very good friend of mine is probably having far better)...but for almost 2am it did the trick. We same-sided it at a booth and toasted to our one year anniversary. It was perfect.

After we crazy kids were out until 3am...

View from brunch

We woke up on a beautiful and relatively warm Saturday morning. We checked out of the hotel and walked over to see Adam's best friend and his wife. They took us to the top of a building in Columbus Circle for brunch at Robert which had a great view of the city below, as well as the edge of the park. I had pretty much the best steak and eggs ever (since the hollandaise sauce in the lobster benedict contained dairy). After brunch, we went our separate ways, and Adam and I dashed over to the Majestic Theatre to see...you guessed it! Phantom of the Opera!

It was so amazing to finally come to New York to see a broadway show. I always get so caught up in seeing operas and symphonies and ballets (I know, it's such a hard life) that I forget about musical theatre and broadway shows! I think it really surprised Adam too, because it was more than incredible to be able to take him to see his favorite show, and one that sentimentally means so much to him.

We saw Phantom!

After we left, we took a leisurely stroll back to where we were staying that night, (with Adam's best friend) and we got to hang out and chat a little bit before deciding on Italian for dinner.  We went to a little Italian place about two blocks away. We had bruschetta (which was on the house), some awesome hummus (yes, not a traditional Italian plate), antipasto, and for our meals we had assorted pasta dishes and filets. With our bellies almost full to the brim, we decided it was time for dessert. To walk off some of the calories we ingested, we went to  Juniors in Times Square. Since my tummy can't handle that spicy cheesecake, I had a healthy slice of chocolate cake, which I'm sure contained enough lactose to give me an issue, but sometimes you just have to pick your battles.

We finished the day with a viewing of Prometheus, while finally drifting off to sleep on new sheets in a cozy New York apartment.

The closest I'll ever be to Christopher Columbus

We didn't bother setting an alarm, so after a slow moving morning which included a yummy egg sandwich, we set out first to get coffee at Bouchon's (home of the BEST peanut butter cookie in the world, in my personal opinion), and then to try to score tickets for the "Discovering Columbus" exhibit in Columbus Circle.  The Japanese artist, Tatzu Nishi, built a fully furnished living room around the Columbus monument. If you have time after reading this gargantuan post, you should take 30 seconds to read this article on the artist. A lot of New Yorkers don't like it, because it looks like the monument is under construction, a little tiny box up on top of scaffolding from the street. However, once you're up there, you have a bird's eye view of the surrounding circle, and nobody will ever be this close to the statue itself ever again. I say that's pretty damn cool...but I think they should have surrounded Columbus in a more manly color...like navy blue or something. So, as you can see, I was pretty touristy this weekend. Yes, we saw a show and we saw a tourist attraction, but the best thing about this weekend was just being in New York and taking in the city every minute we could with the best company I could imagine. We couldn't have asked for better autumn weather...on Sunday we didn't even need our jackets and scarves! We had a lovely time walking around, and it was the perfect way to spend our anniversary/birthday, week, month!

Cheers :)

View from the Christopher Columbus statue

Columbus circle