New York, USA

May 3-12

After a horribly long plane journey, I finally arrived in NYC late Sunday night. Monday I spent just roaming around the city, walking through Times Square to sus out what shows to see and relaxing in Central Park.

 

In the afternoon I got a bus to Albany, to visit Karsten - a friend from my UMass exchange a couple of years ago. We managed to also meet up with Dirk, another UMass friend. The three of us went out for a 'greasy American dinner' complete with that disgusting fake cheese Americans put on everything! Mmm...Tasty! We ventured to a couple of pubs after & played some darts (yes, Dirk and I won!)

On Tuesday Karsten and I drove to Buffalo, to visit Shinasa - a friend from high school who's over here on exchange. I thought it would be like a 2 or 3 hour drive.... Turns out it was almost 5 hours! And not much to see on the way. Shin showed us around her 'hood and we ate the world's most delicious pasta. We soon realised it was Cinco de Mayo! This of course meant that we needed to purchase some booze. The afternoon and evening consisted of typical American drinking games such as flip cup and beer pong. I also lost many games of Mario Kart (/beerio-kart!)

  

Wednesday morning Karsten and I headed for Niagara Falls, which is only a short drive from Buffalo. I can't even begin to explain how spectacular it is, and pictures really don't do it justice. But here are some happy snaps anyway:

After my little upstate-NY adventure I had five days left in New York City. Naturally I tried to cram as many musicals into this time as possible.

#1 ALADDIN.

Oh. My. God. Amaaaaazing. Aladdin was one of my childhood favourite movies, so I was desperate to see this! It went above and beyond my expectations. Abu and Jasmine's tiger were missing from the show, replaced by a couple of friends for each of the leads. Otherwise it follows the movie fairly closely. All the songs from the movie were incredible, plus they've added new songs which are equally incredible. The best number by far was 'Friend Like Me'... There was magic, there was tap dancing and there seemed to be an endless number of chorus members in a wild array of incredible costumes. The genie (James Monroe Inglehart) was brilliant and Jafar was played by the same man who voiced him for the film (Jonathan Freeman) which is pretty cool! The magic carpet only appeared twice but they did it SO well. If there were strings attached to that thing, I certainly couldn't see them. Must've been magic!!

#2 FINDING NEVERLAND. 

This is based on the movie (of the same name) about J.M. Barrie and how he was inspired by the imagination of four young boys to write Peter Pan. It is a really beautiful story and even almost brought a tear to my eye! The music is outstanding and they put it together amazingly. Once again, I was baffled by the magic of theatre: the show opened with a tiny light (Tinkerbell) fluttering above the audience, gradually making its way to the stage where it bounced between the actors. I have no idea how they did it! Matthew Morrison (the teacher from Glee) was the lead and Kelsey Grammer (from Cheers) also had a starring role. Both were fantastic! 

#3 HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH. 

Well. What to say... This has to rank as one of the weirdest shows I have ever seen. Darren Criss (from Glee & A Very Potter Musical) stars as a German drag queen in this rock musical. There are only two cast members, plus four band members - so you can count out any dancing or big chorus numbers. It's almost like a 100-minute monologue from Darren Criss. At one point he actually made out with a guy in the front row...strange. There are some decent songs and the story he tells is actually quite interesting...but this just wasn't "my cup of tea" sadly. I feel like it has a bit of a Rocky Horror-type cult following... I could see numerous people in the audience who had clearly already seen in a million times. 

#4 SOMETHING ROTTEN. 

 Possibly my favourite out of them all... This is a musical for musical lovers. It is set in the renaissance and based around 2 brothers, rivals of Shakespeare, who are trying write a play and decide to make it a musical (the first musical) It is BRILLIANT and HILARIOUS. There are sooo many references to other musicals, so perhaps not as hysterically funny if you don't know all the other shows. That said, I dragged Karsten along to this one and he enjoyed it too! The song 'A Musical' is maybe the most amazing musical number ever. 

#5 DISENCHANTED. 

An off-Broadway show about Disney princesses, full of sas and sarcasm! This was a bit of fun! It didn't really have any storyline...just a showcase of D
isney princesses sharing their not-so-happily-ever-afters. A few good laughs!!

As well as making the most of Broadway, I did also do some sightseeing.

I took a boat tour up to the Statue of Liberty, which also went along the southern-most part of Manhattan and under Brooklyn Bridge. Fun fact: when Brooklyn Bridge was first built people didn't believe that it was strong enough, so they sent 21 elephants across to prove its strength!

I also went on a free walking tour of Lower Manhattan, where the guide works purely off tips. He was very enthusiastic! One area I liked was Stone St which was created mostly out of Brownstone after the Great Fire of New York in 1776. It's a really beautiful area with lots of cool bars and restaurants.

I spent a bit of time at the New York Public Library. There was an exhibition on about photography and the way we share our photos (approximately 250 million photos are shared on facebook every day!) There were a few things about surveillance cameras and what they capture- which is pretty much everything. There was also some incredibly old photos from all around the world. Another cool thing at the library was the original toys, belonging to A.A. Milne's son, that inspired the Winnie the Pooh characters.

I can't believe it has taken me until my fifth trip to New York...but I finally saw the Friends building!

Karsten came down to NYC for 2 nights. While he was here we did a pub crawl, which was a LOT of fun.

 We also walked across Brooklyn Bridge one evening and it was beautiful! 

 

On my very last day in NYC I went down to Coney Island, which takes about an hour on the subway. When I got there it was incredibly foggy. Hot, but foggy. You couldn't even see the ocean from the start of the beach... But it soon cleared to relatively blue skies..and then started raining. (Am I back in Melbourne?!) Anyways, I wondered along the boardwalk and the beach. It's a cool area! 

Off to Guatemala I go...