It's almost 10:00, and that means that in just about an hour, the girls and I will be boarding a bus and heading into the city. The city! The. City. That would be New York City, and we are going to the theatre district. We are going to the THEATRE! I'm so excited, I could just plotz. I haven't been to the theatre in a good ten years, I think; the Sibs and I took our girls to see Beauty and the Beast via an arranged trip through the local community school. No driving, no public transportation, just a chartered bus. I'm sure I haven't been to the theatre more than a half dozen times in the last 25 years, which is not such a great record when the theatre district is maybe 15 miles from where you live. (It's not an easy-to-traverse 15 miles, what with it all requiring public transportation, but even so, I should be ashamed and I am.More later. (And a meme I've been tagged for, but I think that will have to be tomorrow.)
It's 6:15, we're back, and was a great day (except for a few minor moments). First, a brief review of the show. We saw Spamalot, so as you can imagine, I don't have anything bad to say. Although I have to admit that even though I anticipated a good show, I didn't anticipate this good. There was a lot of Monty Python, of course, from the original show and movie -- MP and the Holy Grail -- but there were contemporary references and several good old-fashioned traditional production numbers, but with that viewed-from-the-inside-out MP twist. It was very, very funny and very, very good. It's an ensemble piece, with most of the major actors playing several parts (as the original MPs did), but Tim Curry carries the show as King Arthur and is excellent.
Getting there and back was very easy, too, and I know I can absolutely do this again, even by myself, if I so choose. I'm psyched.
But here's the other totally cool thing that we did. We got to 44th Street, where the Shubert Theatre is, around 11:45, and started to look around for a place for lunch. And then we saw, right across the street from the theatre, Sardi's. The legendary Sardi's, which I've heard about all my life and my kids know from, of all things, The Muppets Take Manhattan. I'd passed it many times -- my parents took us to the theatre at least once a year when I was a kid -- but I'd never been in before. We looked at the menu outside, and I thought, well, it's a once in lifetime experience, and I said to the girls, "Let's go." So we ate lunch at Sardi's.
I can't even tell you how cool this was. We were only wearing jeans, and when I walked in hesitantly, the maitre'd was just so nice and said "Come on in!" The waiter was very friendly, and only a few tables were full. But within 15 minutes, every table was full. We had gotten there at just the right time.
Was it expensive? Of course it was. I don't expect I'll ever eat there again. But it was wonderful, a very relaxed yet high-class sort of atmosphere, and the food was not overpriced. It was unusual in what they offered and extremely good. I had a shrimp burger: not a hamburger with shrimp on it, but a burger made out of shrimp. And potato chips that were clearly just made in their kitchen, very light and very crisp.
The minor moments all involved R and a bit of surliness, which she should have outgrown by now, but I'm thinking that she shares some of my pre-event angst and was pressured by being the only one who knew how to get where we were going. Either that or she's starting to treat me like a senile old bag, which, if it continues, will have to be nipped in the bud. She's got twenty years to wait before she can start that on me.
I hadn't walked around Times Square in ages, of course, and had not seen 42nd Street since its famed renewal at the hands of the Disney people. Not that it's Main Street, by any means, but there is absolutely nothing in the way of strippers, nudie shows, or anything like that, which used to be its dominant theme. The streets of New York are damn crowded, and walking there can be overwhelming, especially the noise, but otherwise, it's fine. Oh, I did see a few armed military people standing outside the bus station, and a lot of police officers, but nary a terrorist.
A good day was had by all.
