Day 5 - Friday, July 31, 2009
Today the real fun began! We were up, showered, and at the Poughkeepsie train station by 8am. The weather was less than perfect with fog and rain, but it wasn't sweltering heat, so complaints were minimal. Al's first train ride lasted a whopping 90 minutes. We went straight into Grand Central, and he was amazed!
Our time in Grand Central was short, however, since we had to rush to the Lunt-Fontanna Theater in Times Square. You see, for those who hold a student ID, there are certain perks on Broadway. It's a little something called STUDENT RUSH. You simply go the box office of a theater (like the Lunt-Fontanne) when it opens (in our case, 10AM). You walk up to the window and say, "May I please have 2 student rush tickets?" Then, they ask you for $60, and hand over tickets. This is the exciting part ... you check out the tickets and see where your seats are. For us?? FRONT AND CENTER! That's right. Al's first Broadway show and it was front row. (Please note that student rush varies from theater to theater). Alas, we were excited and could hardly wait for the 8pm curtain to see The Little Mermaid - which closes on August 30. However, we were forced to find some way to spend the hours in between.
First, Al had some Jamba Juice. It was a first for both of us, but our smoothie was delicious.
After we finished our drink, we walked throughout Times Square. We made stops at the Hershey Store,
M&M World,
And a local Borders where Al thought of Kristin.
The very cool panoramic shot you see below is a series of posters from Broadway shows.
The Marquee was very kind to us this day; we went in there before dinner to rest and decide where to eat. We rode escalators to the 8th floor lobby and sat to people watch. We ate at Ellen's Stardust Diner, where the waitstaff sings while you eat. Unfortunately I took no photos. However, we did hear "Mamma I'm a Big Girl Now" from Hairspray and "Popular" from Wicked. It was very awesome. After dinner, we had about an hour to kill before the show, and since it started pouring so we went back to the Marquee. At 7:15, we braved the weather and went to the theater. Al had such an amazing time.
When Sebastian came out, he popped up from the orchestra pit RIGHT IN FRONT OF US! We were so close that we could see the actors sweating (gross, but so cool). We even noticed a few wardrobe malfunctions. After the show, we got to meet some of the actors for autographs. I could post all of the pictures, but I'm just going to choose my favorties (Ariel (Chelsea Dean Morgan), Flounder (whose name escapes me), and Prince Eric (Drew Seely)).
Our day ended with another train ride, back to Poughkeespsie, but Al and I didn't care. We didn't even care that sleep did not find us until 1am. We had had WAY to much fun to care.Day 6 - Saturday, August 1, 2009
Another early day - on the train by 8. Al and I napped while we rode to NYC. We listened to the soundtrack from The Little Mermaid all the way, too.
When we got to Grand Central, we hopped on the subway and went straight to Times Square again. Afterall, most of the theaters are right there. It was slightly more difficult today, though, because we were lugging a suitcase a piece. We went to the theater for Shrek the Musical. When we were handed the paper tickets, we were slightly disappointed (how do you compare to front row?). However, we would see it at 2pm. This meant that we could get tickets to another show for 8. There was no question: Mary Poppins, here we come! These would be first row balcony (which turned out to be fabulous).
Having procurred tickets to two shows, we decided to venture uptown to check in at our hotel. The weather was perfect, but the mile walk from the subway station to our hotel made us quite hot and hungry. Lucky for us the room was ready early and we had lunch in our bags. We ate our PBJs, and by then it was time to go to Shrek. Another mile, another train ride, and a few blocks later we were sitting in an icy theater ready for the show.
The best part of Shrek was the dragon. It was a HUGE head, and was puppeted by one of the actors. It's eyes were so expressive ... just awesome! After the show, we enjoyed dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe ... Al was pleased that there was, again, no pork involved in the meal.
Having an hour or so to kill before Mary Poppins, we decided to stroll around. We found a FABULOUS little book shop. Well, I thought it was fabulous.
Mary Poppins was fantastic. Bert walked up and around the stage (I mean on the ceiling). At the very end Mary Poppins flew up into the audience, and was RIGHT in front of us. Al almost died. Almost. A 45 minute ride/walk later and we were in bed for the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment