Lisa & Ro's Bogus Journey Revisited
12:30 a.m. - March 29, 2006
Here's our second installment...ENJOY: Lisa & Ro's Bogus Journey
Okay we did write a spectacular email on St. Patty's Day, but "YAHELL" ate it, so we will attempt to reconstruct our masterpiece.
Here are a few helpful tips to remember when in NYC.
1. When landing at JFK remember to "Keep your seat-belts fastened until the airport has stopped moving." (We swear, the pilot told us.)
2. Housekeeping can be trusted not to leave enough towels, to never answer their phone or to answer it and then hang up, and to leave a mop behind for no apparent reason.
3. The only setting on your phone that will work will be the speaker setting. This of course will annoy the hotel operator, who will accuse you of screaming at her, when you are calling her for the fifth time to request more towels.
4. Speaking of towels, after 11 pm there is only one person in the whole hotel who can possibly deliver them (she must be related to Larry at the Hilton) and she will have so many towel requests at that hour that it will take her almost 2 hours to get the towels to you.
5. Never stay at the Park Central Hotel, Days Inn would have been better. Okay, enough helpful hints on to the rest of Friday.
Obviously we discovered the CyberCafe, since you all received our previous email. Following our Cyber experience we headed to Carmine's for dinner. This place puts Palazzio's to shame. We split the largest Chicken Parmigiana we've ever seen plus a huge bowl of broccoli. Our leftovers could have fed a family of four. Thanks for the tip on this place Judy!!
Then it was back to the hotel to get ready for Rent. while we were there the verdict came in for Puff Daddy, we'd forgotten that it was taking place right where we were. The courthouse is on W. 43rd and we were headed to W. 41 st. Can you say unbelievable crowds. It was packed we felt like fish trying to swim upstream! But we made it to the Theater with 10 minutes to spare until curtain.
Now if The Music Man was absolutely incredible, then Rent was absolutely awesome! Unfortunately for us the group of 12 next to us had obviously never heard of manners. They arrived slightly before curtain, luckily they crawled over the people at the other end other aisle and not us. However, one we shall call "Michelin Girl" because of her jacket, spent the entire first act fighting with Lisa for control of the armrest. She also kept throwing her jacket sleeve on Lisa's arm as if it belonged to Lisa's jacket. You'd think she'd know her own jakcet sleeve now wouldn't you!? Anyway, at intermission the entire group left crawling over us this time. We assumed they were gone for the evening since they took everything with them. The house lights flickered three different times during intermission signaling that the second act was about to begin. We decided that after the first song we'd move over into the now empty seats. As the house lights dimmed, we setteled in to enjoy "Seasons of Love", this is the song most people recognize. About a quarter of the way into the song, 10 of the 12 people appear at our end of the row, we of course now have to get up and let them in. From the sighs and moans from the rows behind and in front of us we weren't the only ones annoyed by the tardy group. We had just settled back into our seats and were attempting to enjoy the rest of the song, when the last 2 members of the party of 12 appeared. We again moved from our seats to let them in, more groans of protest from those around us. At this point we'd had it and Ro informed "Lime Green Tube Top Girl" in a very loud whisper "You know they flicker the lights to tell you when intermission is over, so you don't disrupt others by coming in late!" We heard quite a few mummers of approval from those around us. Now those of you who know the play, know that it's the only time in the entire play that the entire cast is on stage and not in motion. They stand in a single line at the very edge of the stage looking directly at the audience. There was no way they couldn't have seen the group of 12 coming in late, we're sure they weren't amused either.
Anyway, Rent is an AWESOME play and a must see. But it's not one for the kiddies, the Music Man would be a much better choice.
Okay we really have been trying to send this out for the last week, YAHELL keeps eating the last half! We'll give it one more try, if it doesn't work you know why this email is unfinished.
Still seething from our Rent experience, we decided to get dessert at the Stage Deli. They were not thrilled to see the post theater crowd show up for dessert. Apparently dessert orders are way to hard for the waiters to grasp. Ours had to ask Lisa what she had ordered 3 times, who knew a brownie and a diet coke would be so difficult. The waiter apparently didn't even see Ro, he heard her order, he was walking around trying to pawn her chocolate layer cake off to other tables. When Lisa pointed out that Ro had ordered the cake, the waiter informed her that she had only ordered a brownie. Oh, you gotta love NYC! We obviously appeared confused because when we got up to leave the waiter had to point out the cashier to us, like the 2' by 4' sign wouldn't have caught our attention.
After a so so night's sleep, we were off to conquer the Big Apple on St. Patty's Day. Our first order of business...find a Starbucks!!! Thank God for caffeine. With our caffeine levels at the max we set off for a day of sightseeing. We decided to think "Disneyland"... when everyone goes to the parade, you go to the best ride and get on. Since everyone seemed to be going to the St.Patty's Day parade, we hopped on the subway and went to the Statue of Liberty. Having purchased our tickets we proceeded to board the ferry. Our captain was very informative.
1. "There are life jacket located above you on the lower levels and in storage boxes on the top level. We have plenty, but we don't anticipate needing them." This would have been so much more effective had the ferry not rammed into the dock at this point. We heard murmurs from fellow passengers about how the Titanic's captian had said the same thing just before leaving port.
2. "There is no smoking, picnicing or barbequing allowed on Ellis Island." Damn and we hauled this habachi all the way from California!
3. "The boat may continue to move once we have returned to the main dock. Please be careful." Okay we can deal with slight rolling and moving, but did we really have to ram into the dock 3 more times! People were starting to reach for those life jackets.
Anyway, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island were incredible...especially since we're both granddaughters of immigrants who might have gone through Ellis Island (we're looking into it). Very, very humbling experience. A must see.
Once back on solid ground we set of for the East Village, yes the one in RENT, for lunch at the 2nd Avenue Deli. Ro swears it's the best Kosher food she's ever had. It's a little tough to get to, but really worth the effort. With our tummies filled we turned our attention to shopping. We headed off to Times Square. We did a far amount of damage at One Shubert Alley, one of Lisa's favorite stores. Guess what it specializes in...that's right Broadway & theater memorbilia.
We headed back to the hotel with bags in hand to recoup for the evening. Upon arriving at our door we discovered that our keys no longer opened it! We were so done with the hotel at that point. We went down to the front desk. Lisa handled it, since Ro was ready to kill someone. The guy at the front desk asked Lisa if she was sure they were suppose to have the room for the night. Lisa informed him that she had the confirmation letter in the hotel room, if he'd just open the door for her she'd gladly show it to him. He left for a few minutes and came back with the keys. He assured her they'd work just fine.
We relaxed for awhile and then decided on the Roxy Deli in the heart of Times Square for dinner. Apparently we were quite amusing since the waiters kept looking at us and laughing. We checked everything was where it was suppose to be! We have no clue what they were so amused by, but the service was pretty good. We decided to get dessert to go. When Lisa asked for a chocolate cigar, it's a pastry, the guy behind the counter asked if she was woman enough to handle it. Convincing him she was, he handed it over. Ro then asked for a M & M brownie, this lead to a discussion about the flavor of brownie she wanted which somehow lead to him saying something about wanting to "eat her" ( Ro fill in if you can!) Needless to say we paid and left highly amused. Back at the hotel we settled in to watch SNL and munch on our desserts.
Sunday morning we decided to end our stay in the Big Apple where it had begun...the Carnegie Deli. We then hopped on the airport shuttle and made the long trip back to California. We hope you've enjoyed our ramblings. We're keeping the email address so feel free to write to us.
Ro, if I left anything out please feel free to send out an adendum!!!!
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