RAVE: NYC with My Favorite Mom

Goodness! I meant to blog about this ages ago. For my birthday this year, my mom and I decided to spend a weekend in NYC. Mom had a conference during the week, and I left work early on Thursday and took the train up to meet her to start our whirl-wind weekend of fun!

I normally would have taken the bus, but since I was going to be heading up there in rush hour, I wanted to take the more reliable train to make sure that I got there in time to catch our show - Jersey Boys!



[insert nerdy theater commentary] Jersey Boys was a good show. Not sure I would have voted for it to win a Tony for the Best Musical of the Year...but good none-the-less. The songs by the Four Seasons were cleverly strung together to tell the story of Frankie Valli, but I'm limited in my appreciation of a show with no original music. Thus the same reason I have for failing to love Mamma Mia. I'd say I knew about half of the songs and mom knew every one. She loved it.

We grabbed a late night dessert at a diner next to our hotel and then crashed because we had an early morning tour to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I wish I had a picture of our tour guide...or better yet a video! He was quite funny (not convinced he was trying to be) and started every sentence with "oh look" and then proceeded to tell us what place we had "stumbled upon" on our tour.

We couldn't go up to the statue's crown. Those tickets were sold out until the end of August. Let that be a lesson to anyone ever thinking of visiting New York in the summer, be sure to book your tickets for the Statue of Liberty a good 6 months in advance. We didn't feel like we missed out on much though.


view from the ferry

at the statue

Then it was off to Ellis Island to look up our relatives. Not sure any of them actually came through Ellis Island, but it was fun to search for them anyway. If they did come through, we were definitely lacking in info to find them...

After a long morning of being quality tourists, we found a cute cafe and had a delicious, and overpriced salad (have I mentioned EVERYTHING in NYC is overpriced? It is.), then crashed in our hotel room before heading out to the theater...again!

This time to see Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes in the revival of Promises, Promises!

[insert 2nd nerdy theater commentary] So the only reason this show had a prayer of being revived was because of the Mad Men craze. And I can't imagine it will last long after Kristin and Sean leave. Sean Hayes was amazing. I think he deserved his Tony nom. Kristin Chenoweth was good, but honestly, I was surprised she took this role. It really wasn't that challenging or interesting. The best part of the show was the first 2 scenes of the 2nd Act. A-MA-ZING. Katie Finneran stole the show and the tickets were well worth the cost of her two scenes alone. (Not that I paid for the tickets - thanks again Mom!)

My main goal after the show was to get pics with Sean & Kristin. Unfortunately, we waited at the stage door for an hour only to learn they don't DO pictures. Lame. And while I'm not a fan of getting things autographed, I thought I should have something to show for my long wait. Both Sean & Kristin were great to the fans. Kristin is unbelievably tiny. Seriously, she's SO tiny. And her one diva thing is that you can't use a flash on your cameras as she signs playbills. Her bodyguard will actually take your camera. Not cool. So, since I couldn't use a flash, this was the best shot my little point-and-shoot could muster:


We decided to conquer Central Park on our last day in NYC. We met a lovely pedi-cab driver from Istanbul named Charlie (I sensed he got tired of telling Americans how to pronounce his actual name and finally decided to just go with Charlie when asked). He was the best tour guide ever - so sweet and very thorough. As far as tourist-traps go in NYC, I definitely recommend the pedi-cab tour over the horse & carriage ride...much better value.


We had a blast together and are now brainstorming where we can go for our 30th & 60th birthdays...any recommendations!?

4 comments:

  1. I've been wanting to see Jersey Boys, but I think I'd only enjoy it with my mom and dad - something about seeing them enjoy "their" music is fun! Interesting request from Kristin...no flash? That's a curious rule.
    Glad you got to spend some quality time with your mom! As for future trips, my parents really enjoyed the River Walks and all the sites in San Antonio! Supposed to be a very pretty city.

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  2. Kelly, yes! Definitely go with your parents...but either way, it's an enjoyable musical, just not one that goes on the see-every-time-it-comes-to-town-list :)

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  3. You guys should definitely come to Melbourne for the big 3-0 and 6-0! It's a celebration worthy of such a long flight. :o)

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  4. Emily! I'm so jealous! John and I just went to Wicked again this year (last week). Never get's old. Wish you were here so we could chat it up about it.

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