US/Canada/French Canada Tour 09

We decided to take a subway down to Downtown to the TIXS office (instead of going to the Times Square TIXS office) in an attempt to beat the enormous queues at the Times Square office. However - upon arrival at the Downtown TIXS - there wasn't anything we really wanted to see and there was a bit of queue for tickets. Last time in NY - we had great success in buying cheap tickets from it (we saw a preview of "The Boy From Oz" with Huge Jackman in it (the irony of seeing this in NY), and "Take Me Out" (some gay play about baseball complete with full frontal shower nudity). But we were finding it hard to find really cheap tickets this time around.

After having a sugary muffin for breakfast at a Deli (which are a cross between a 7-11 and a Brazilian buffet/weight restaurant), we decided to hop on a subway train and visit Harlem. This time in NY - we both wanted to visit places we hadn't necessarily been before and I wanted to see if weave shops existed... which they did and I took a picture of one.

Harlem was a bit different from what you would expect it to be... Gone are most of the old buildings that you would expect to find - everything feels shiny and newish... Although Harlem is very afro-centric - it is undergoing heaps of change and it was a bit unfortunate that most of Martin Luther King Ave was full of strip-mall esque shops and stuff. The Apollo Theatre was still there and we took some pictures - but nothing else was very recognisable. Although it was a bit of a treat overhearing old grannies shouting "that N####r owes me 10 bucks!". Hey hey hey...

We headed off the main drag of Harlem and noticed that there seemed to be a lot of rich rich people around driving Jags and stuff... The housing was all old-style but probably renovated to an inch of its life from the inside. Maybe all of the working class have moved out of Harlem and perhaps off the Island altogether?!

We visited some exhibit (which you could see from the street) which documented notable african american politicians up until the very minute with Barrack Obama. There was this weird Western European tourgroup which looked so out of place here (as did we). We decided to avoid them and head on the subway to the Central Park North station which is on the South side of Harlem (for those geographically-challenged).

We made our first mistake of the holiday - ordering a half cooked Hot Dog. We had reasonable experiences ordering street food in our last visit to the States (I remember ordering Hot Dogs at Wall Street) - but my stomach felt really queasy about 10 minutes after eating this one... And to top it off - it didn't taste all that great either.

On the topic of visiting places that we hadn't really done before - although I've been to Central Park a couple of times - I sort of wanted to walk the whole thing - which is what we did. The northern side of the park is a lot more deserted than the Southern side (which is in Midtown). The Northern bit had lots of "deep dark old rape bridges" which reminded me of the Ashford & Simpson "Solid" video (favourite Singstar song ever) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWKKJgJfwKY

We traversed around a big lake (which you had to do in a anti-clockwise fashion otherwise the police might arrest you) and reached the Jackie O Reservoir (not to be confused with the Kyle and Jackie O show).

The MET (which is the only building in the Park) was nearby so we made a byline for the MET gift shop (which we didn't have any time to visit the previous day). I bought a large coffee mug with an Egyptian Hippo done in a Andy Warhol pop style, and Ant bought a pencil holder MET bag (as you do) and a book on Impressionists. Apparently the MET shopping bags are "icons" or something and Ant could overhear people attempting to get them for free.

We headed back to the Park and continued our trek to the South side. We bypassed Strawberry Fields (the Beatles ruined rock music) and made a b-line for the Home Alone 2 bridge and hotel (Ant's favourite movie of all time behind Dave and Mrs Doubtfire).

We made our way out of the park and walked to the Midtown area where we decided to climb the Rockefeller Center. I've been on the Empire State a couple of times (and the now-defunct World Trade Center) so I though it might be a bit different to do the Rockefeller instead for a different perspective on the city. We bought a $30USD double pass which gave us entry to the Tower and the sister museum - MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) which was established by Mrs Rockefeller back in the day.

Of course any visit to a stewpidly tall building wouldn't be complete without the obligatory green screen photo. For the Rock - you had to sit on a steel beam (a la those iconic photos of builders sitting on the beam). I did my patented next top model fierce posing and got the photo guy all excited - who started laughing and screaming out "Yo Yo Yo! Pop it!".

The elevator up to the top of the Rock was kinda trippy and cheasy - it had a clear plastic roof so you could see out of the lift. Everything had trippy lights and there was an overhead projector beaming out images. It was like your own little rave party minus the drugs and half naked people.

On the top was very prewidy - you not only get to see great views of Downtown (including the Empire State) but also of Uptown and Central Park. It wasn't overly crowded and was is recommended as an alternative to going up the Empire State. We checked out the gift shop which had a book about the Art of the Rockefeller Center. You might know about the infamous mural Diego Rivera was commissioned by Rockefeller to paint. Being the communist Rivera was - he painted a very communist mural including pics of Lenin. And Rockefeller being the staunch capitalist he was - he got Lenin removed out of it - but you still get the sense that everything looks communist.

After the Rock - we headed to the theatre playing "Wicked" the musical (which was a few blocks away from Broadway). Thinking we could easily get tickets - we were confronted by a loud usher guy screaming "tonight's performance is sold out. If you want tickets you need to line up in the "Cancellation" line"... Cancellation what?? Anyway - we did what we were told and we got to the front of the queue after waiting about 10 minutes and unfortunately - they shut the "Cancellation" window. We were told to wait because they weren't sure if they still had tickets. We ended up waiting for about an hour for them to reopen the tickets. The first half hour of this wait was completely boring but the second half was rather interesting in that we were watching the masses of human traffic coming into the theatre and attempting to get tickets. One lady (in a wheelchair) was informed that she couldn't go see the play because there was no wheelchair access to the theatre - this pissed her off something big time because she said she was told that it would be OK when she bought the tickets....

Anyhows - after waiting for about 1 hour - the Cancellation line reopened - and we managed to get two full priced tickets (@ $110USD). Cause we had just been in daggy clothes all day - we felt a little underdressed for a night at the theatre. But we didn't have any time to go back to the hotel and change because we had about five minutes till the play started.

Our seats were fantastic - row G (6 from the front) and very close to the centre. We seemed like we were sitting in the "Cancellation seat" block - because to our left and right were other couples who were in the cancellation queue as well.

Wicked was great - Ant had seen it before in Melbourne (the week after Rob Guest had died) - but he said the broadway version was better in terms of the music and staging. The Melbourne theatre only seated about 500 people - but our theatre seated about 2500 - so the stage was huge and the staging was better than the Aus version. The plot is very clever (not to give it all away - but I guess you think the Wicked Witch of the West is evil but after watching this - she is just misunderstood) and is quite adult-oriented (not really aimed at kids). It was definitely worth the $110USD for the seats and would recommend it to those visiting NY.

We headed back to our hotel and got changed and headed straight back out to Chelsea - another gay ghetto in NY. We attempted to follow LP's advice and go to a diner called "Empire" - but it all looked shut when we got there (apparently - it was supposed to be 24 hours) - so we headed up the street and found another 24hour diner. I had ordered a pasta dish (which was absolutely huge) and Ant thought he was ordering the light option when he ordered a pastrami on rye - but it was very greasy and also huge. What is it with America and ridiculous sized portions?? Quantity definitely rules over quality in the States.

We headed to a bar called "G" (not to be confused with my alter ego "The G.B.H"). All bars in the states seem to have "Go Go Boys". Ant made an accurate observation that Australian bars don't normally have these - and they seem to be a very much Amercian thing. Is it because Australian guys are better looking than Amercians and we don't have to resort to watching go go dancers?! I also noticed that the music in NY bars aren't very hand-baggy (a la Cube. God I hate that place!). XOXO