visitors

Mmm... So nice to finally have a few minutes to sit down and write and get caught up with my blog. I've had so much work to do for school in the last two weeks, and, additionally, I've had VISITORS! Brian was here April 17 through April 20, and Heidi, her mom, and Katie came April 19 through April 23. Yes, their visits overlapped, and I was one busy tour guide!

Brian stayed with our friends Jerad and Liza in Queens, and we met up during the days to (a) print my group's 400-page curriculum project and get it bound (b) eat Chinese food and get a free cone at Ben & Jerry's (c) explore Greenwich village and (d) check out the i-pods at the Apple store. Also, I skipped my science class on Wednesday night so I could join Brian, Jerad, and Liza for some of Jerad's home cooking and some catching up in their kitchen. Brian and I picked up fresh cheese, bread, and a pie at the farmer's market in Union Square.

On Thursday night, Heidi, Katie, and Heidi's mom arrived, and I met them and Brian in Times Square for drinks. My original plan was to take them to my favorite lounge - Flatiron Lounge, but the Wisconsin visitors were reluctant to get on the subway that night. The next place I suggested was way too loud, so we ended up at a lame pub where there was a real live dog sitting on the bar and guys walking around with their beer bellys hanging out. It felt more like northern Wisconsin than New York. I even had a beer. Oh well. I ended up staying that night and the next at the hotel with the girls because:

Two nights eariler a Columbia University grad student had been followed home from the subway to her apartment in my neighborhood, and the man broke into her apartment and raped and tortured her for nineteen hours. He was later (on Wednesday night - the night I came back from dinner in Queens) seen at the grocery store across from my dorm (just fifteen minutes after I got back to my dorm, at night by myself). Needless to say, I was a bit freaked out. He has been caught now, though. Thank heavens!

And so. I spent Friday playing tour guide to the Wisconsin girls. We actually made it on the NBC Today Show; their families at home saw us! Then we went to South Street Seaport for Broadway tickets and lunch outside. It's finally spring here, and we definitely enjoyed the weather. After lunch, we did Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, and Ground Zero. Then I sent the girls to Central Park to relax, and I met Brian at the Metropolitan Opera, where Jerad is doing an internship. Jerad gave us a full backstage, underground, around-the-block tour of the Met. Absolutely awesome! I'm so glad we had the opportunity to see what most people never do; it gives me a whole new appreciation for what happens at the opera every day. From there, I came back to school to get changed, and then I met the WI girls for dinner at an Italian restaurant and to see Curtains! on Broadway. After the show, I took Heidi and her mom to the Flatiron Lounge. Apple martinis to die for.

Saturday we explored Soho, Noho, the East Village, and the West village, we had lunch in Little Italy, and we shopped in Chinatown. We managed not to buy too much, but it was wonderful to walk around and see all the beautiful signs of spring. We went back to the hotel to freshen up, and then we had dinner at Cafeteria. We all four ordered the heavenly baked mac and cheese - "It's like angels peeing on your tongue!" as they say in Greece. After dinner, the girls went back to the hotel and I went to a birthday party at Latitude for Jawahir and Christian. Wine, anyone?
Sunday was spent working on my Master's Thesis, which is now officially done and turned in, as of 10:25 am today. Pray for it! That it will be approved so I really can graduate! In the evening, I went to church and then met the WI girls for "dinner" at Max Brenner. I finally tried the chocolate pizza. Oooh. Delish!

Today finally felt like a normal day. I got to go to the gym, run errands, do school work... all that daily life stuff that doesn't happen when company comes. And guess what. More company comes in two days. Really, I'm looking forward to it!

all that jazz

Last night - yes, on a school night - Jenn, Alison, and I went to see CHICAGO on Broadway. Alison went down in the morning and nabbed student rush tickets for us, while I worked away on a group project for school. Student rush tickets. That means we payed $26, and we sat in the third row!! Close enough that we could smell them. And see the sweat dripping down their cheeks. That wasn't so pleasant, but there were definite benefits of sitting close. Like we had a darn good view of those ripped guys' muscles. Woo! And we were able to see every detail of the (scant) costumes. And we were able to see the actors interacting with one another - little things on stage, and a little bit just off stage in the sight lines. And we could hear their individual voices as they sang all those wonderful songs... "And all that jazz!" Another bonus of seeing CHICAGO now is that Roxy, the lead, is being played by Bebe Neuwirth. Previously, Bebe played Fraiser's wife on the sitcom, and she won a Tony award playing Velma Kelly in CHICAGO in 1996 (Velma is the other female lead). The show was fantastic, and we sang all the way home.

orchid show

Today Amanda and Lauren (two girls in my math and science classes) went with me to the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden. I had seen an advertisement for the show while riding the subway back from the Elephant Parade, and I looked up the garden online, where I discovered the Orchid Show is an annual occurrence. We arrived shortly after the garden opened, toured the conservatory housing the orchids, visited the Children's Garden, and stopped in the Garden Shop. According to the website, we visited an exotic world where we delighted in the mesmerizing and seductive wonder of the nation’s premier orchid exhibition, overflowing with the dazzling shapes and breathtaking colors of the world’s most coveted plant. We were surrounded by thousands of orchids of every description—delicate, elegant, intriguing, bizarre—from all over the world. It was magnificent! After touring, we took the D train to Columbus Circle, where we had lunch at a bakery. We all ordered sandwiches served open faced on small stone cutting boards.

After lunch, I came home to do schoolwork (though I haven't actually accomplished much), and at 10:00 tonight Seana, Alison, Jen, and I are going to see Gutenberg! The Musical! In this two-man musical, a pair of aspiring playwrights perform an audition for their new project - a big musical about printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg. They hope one of the producers in the audience will give them a Broadway contract. The pair of actors will sing all the songs and play all the parts, using only baseball caps to differentiate between the show's 30 characters. Gutenberg! The Musical! was the winner of the 2006 New York Musical Theatre Festival Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre Writing. It's billed as "hilarious," and I'm looking forward to it!

UPDATE: It really was hilarious! When we left my cheeks hurt from laughing so much!

apple tree

In addition to being fairly productive with school work, I've had a bit 'o fun this weekend, too. For lunch on Saturday, I went with Alison and her family to a narrow, barely there restaurant in Chinatown for authentic dumplings at dirt-cheap prices (at least by US standards - 5 for $1). After ordering an assortment of boiled and fried pork dumplings, bready pancakes with chives, and warm soy milk, we wedged ourselves into a corner at the back on and amongst the six bar stools, the locals, and the production line. So yummy; I can hardly wait to go back. From there we visited a Chinese bakery for traditional egg custards. Alsion and I split a strawberry one, and her mom tried a melon one. Aside from being unnaturally lime green and hot pink in color, they were pretty good. Together we wandered through Chinatown, and then I trekked on to Soho for some shopping. After browsing through some little boutiques, I ended up in H&M where I bought a shirt dress and soft pink sweater that was on clearance for $9.90. A stop at K-Mart (for tissues to combat runny noses because of the cold) and another at Dunkin' Donuts (for hot chocolate also to combat the cold), I made my way back home to do reading, work on papers, and attempt an early bedtime.

Saturday morning I met Alison and Jenn at 7:30. That's right - 7:30 AM. Hence the early bedtime the night before. We headed down to Studio 54 in hopes of getting $26 Rush tickets to The Apple Tree, starring Kristin Chenoweth. Luckily, we not only beat the rush, we were the only ones there. We got to stand, shivering, in line with ourselves for the next two hours! We did make a quick run to Bagel and Bean around the corner to grab breakfast, and after about an hour and forty-five minutes the security guard let us in to stand in the lobby.

The saga continued later that night when we met at 7:15 for the 8:00 show, only to discover that the subway had inexplicably stopped working. We run-walk-run-walked all the way to 94th from 120th before we managed to get away from the crowd and catch a cab. (So much for looking good.) We only missed the first number. And from then on, the night was great. What a wonderful, hilarious, creative show! Check it out here - http://www.roundabouttheatre.org/ Afterwards, we decided we deserved a margarita for our harriedness, so we went to Chevy's just down the street. Mmm-mmm good. (And by the way, Jenn and I didn't plan to match!)

And today has been a day of aerobics, errands, cleaning, e-mailing, reading, and doing more school work. That's it in a nutshell!

snow, cheesecake, and the grinch

It snowed on Monday morning!


Just a tiny little bit around 10:30 this morning, but the 3rd graders freaked out! And I'll admit I was excited, too!

On Friday night, I went with Cody and one of her college friends to Junior's, a restaurant which supposedly has the best cheesecake in New York. The original restaurant is in Brooklyn, but we went to the one in Times Square. We had to wait about 45 minutes for a table, but even the dinner was worth it. I had meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Cody ate part of her sandwich, and then she helped me with the meatloaf. After dinner, we ordered two slices of cheesecake to share, and we couldn't even eat half of them! They turned out not to be very much like cheesecake, but were good nonetheless. The strawberry shortcake cheesecake had a layer of white cake, a layer of strawberry sauce, a layer of strawberry cheesecake, another layer of sauce, another layer of cake, and a layer of frosting. The devil's food cake cheese cake was like a layer of chocolate fudge, a layer of cheesecake, and another layer of fudge, all topped with frosting and shavings of chocolate. Really, two bites of that was enough. Good, but rich. We decided they should have let us seen pictures before we ordered. Then we would have only gotten one piece.

After dinner, I met Seana, Alison, Agnes, and Drew at a theater on 42nd to see The Grinch on Broadway. What fun! The costumes and sets were adorable, and the songs were upbeat. There were lots of kids in the audience, and it was fun to hear their reactions to that nasty grinch! We were all surprised when it started "snowing" in the theater and again when red and white confetti shot out of the walls over our heads at the end of the show! It wasn't the most spectacular Broadway singing and dancing of seen, but it was definitely a fun Christmasey experience, and one I could see myself repeating as an annual Christmas tradition!

L to R: Seana, Drew, Me, Agnes, Alison