Saturday!

Dean – Saturday – We started our first morning in New York by eating at the McDonalds on Times Square, which we felt bad for at first, but we needed a quick breakfast before we went to our first show. After breakfast we headed to the Gershwin Theater for “Wicked: Behind the Emerald Curtain.” I had never seen a Broadway show live before so I had only an inkling of an idea of what to expect, and the behind the scenes look at Wicked and Broadway plays in general gave me a good heads up before seeing my first one. A couple of the cast members gave us the story on how the permanent sets and travelling sets were constructed and integrated into the stage, how crazy things usually are until right up to performance time, and an idea of how much work it took to get a show on stage. When we finished at the theater we headed down the street looking for a good lunch and we happened upon Famiglia Pizzaria, “New York’s Favorite Pizza.” Katy and I had a calzone that was delicious and fairly cheap, and then we headed back to Gershwin Theater for the actual performance of Wicked, which completely blew me away. The show was incredibly well put together and the storyline was amazing! After the show we me up with a couple of old friends who know their way around the city somewhat, and they led us on a tour of sorts that took first too us to Chinatown, where we ate authentic Chinese food at the Nice Green Bo, not to be confused with the New Green Bo, the restaurants old name under old ownership. With our bellies full of noodles, chicken, and shrimp we headed on down to the Financial District, passing many famous buildings that we either knew by sight or gathered the importance from the signs around them. Battery Park was our last destination before dark, where we looked out over the harbor and saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time, which was really, really cool. Lastly, we took the subway on over to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked across, which was very fun, but did get us quite chilly. Katy was a little scared of the old-looking construction and of the height we were at, but all in all it was a cool way to see the harbor and the city. After all that we were very tired, even though it was only 9:00 pm and so we hiked/took the subway on back to the hotel for a shower and comfy beds.