The Empire State Building Strikes Back

This has been quite the busy weekend!  One of the exciting things to happen is that Monica really wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building and we ended up going with her.  I hadn't been up there since my first trip to New York in 2002 so it was exciting to go again.  It was lit up in rainbows for Pride as well!

It was just as pretty from the top as it was from the bottom!

Waiting in line!

This gives you an idea of what the elevator ride is like

The building's most famous resident

You can see the Chrysler building in the middle

I'm up high!

You can kind of see the lights reflected off the side of the building

Times Square is the super bright spot

Hard to tell from here, but my office is in this picture!

Macy's was all lit up in rainbows as well

The very top of the building

Selfie time!

Tick Tick Boom

Last night I went with the roommates to see a production of Tick Tick Boom.  Tick Tick Boom is a musical that was written by Jonathan Larson (the creator/writer of Rent).

The show was a limited run event put on by the New York City Center Encores and starred Lin Manual Miranda (star and creator of In the Heights) as well as two other actors who I didn't know as well but who were extremely talented.  It also was a lot of fun!  It's a fairly upbeat musical, which of course are my favorites.  It is about a guy about to turn 30 who wants to write musicals and is just dealing with life and what to do with his life when he turns 30.  I enjoyed it a lot!

Here's some video from their dress rehearsal:

Pizza Tour and Casa Valentina

Let's go back to last Christmas.  I was wracking my brain for a good present for Seth and got the idea that it would be fun to give him something we could do together like some kind of cooking class.  However, it turns out that classes in NY are really expensive.  Hmm, something in NY is expensive?  Who would have thought.  So I kept googling and the internet eventually led me to something called Scott's Pizza Tours.  It's a 2 1/2 hour walking tour where you learn about the history of pizza in NYC as well as get to eat 3 slices of pizza.  I thought "Seth likes walking and pizza, this is perfect!"  The only thing I didn't consider is that nobody wants to go on an outdoor walking tour in the middle of winter.

Fast Forward to yesterday and Seth and I finally got to go on the tour!  I think it was a lot of fun, I learned a few things, got to walk around the city on a nice day, and got to eat pizza!  All good things in my book!

On the subway - heading to the tour!

Totally unrelated, but I thought this graffiti was cool

We started off in front of the original location of Lombardi's Pizza, which was the first every pizza place in NYC.  The problem came when Lombardi's oven broke, so he moved his shop down the street, which is where we ate our first slice of pizza.  When we got in we could sit down, we were given a tour of the kitchen so we could see the old coal burning oven, and were given our "pizza packs", which included a pizza tasting booklet and pencil so we could compare and contrast our pizzas, and lemon candies to cleanse our pallets between slices and a tiny gummy pizza.  It was very cute.

Pocket Pizza Journal

The inside of the pizza journal

The coal burning oven in the kitchen

The pole at the top is what they use to take the pizzas in and out.
The length is the depth of the oven!

Pizza #1

Lombardi's pizza uses a coal burning oven, which you can tell by the charring on the crust.  They also use a fresh mozzarella which you can tell because there isn't a lot of grease.

The next stop was not a tasting but a PPOI (Pizza Point of Interest).  Our guide took us into a restaurant supply store that actually makes gas powered pizza ovens.

Fun statue outside

Cedric, our tour guide, tells us about the pizza oven

I got a little distracted outside. This building has a
sailboat attached to it!

The clouds also looked fun that day

After the restaurant supply store we went to our second pizza tasting location, Fiore's.

Fiore's is right in the heart of NYU and so offer this deal. $10 for 2
slices and a 40oz beer!

Pizza #2

Fiore's uses a gas powered oven, so there isn't a lot of charring on the crust.  They also use a low moisture mozzarella so this one is a little greasier and more like what one normally thinks of NY style pizza.

Finally, we went to John's Pizzeria.  This place was packed so we ate our pizza on the street and I forgot to take a picture of it, but it was more similar to the second pizza and to what a normal slice of pizza might look like.  However, what they do at this place is use the cheese first, and then put the sauce on top of that.

After the tour, I met up with Kari and we thought we'd try the lottery for Hedwig on Broadway.  There were two shows Saturday night, we didn't win either.  So today we thought we'd try again!  After not winning the first lottery, we were able to get last minute rush tickets to Casa Valentina.  We also tried the lottery again after the play was over, but again, no luck.  You can't say we haven't tried though!

Casa Valentina is a play by Harvey Fierstein about a resort in the Catskills where men would go so they could dress like women.  It was a really interesting show, especially because it was about a subject that I knew nothing about and was based on true events.  It was a show full of humor but it was also very touching.

And here's a clip!

Violet

Tuesday night Kari and went to see a production of the musical Violet.  The reason we chose a Tuesday night and something I hadn't realized before we bought the tickets is that at every Roundabout Theatre production (of which Violet is one), they have a talk before the show on Tuesday nights.  One of the producers from Roundabout talked for about 20 minutes about the history of the show and basically how it came to be playing on Broadway.  I think it actually really helped my enjoyment of the show.

The musical is based on a short story called "The Ugliest Pilgrim" by Doris Betts.  The writers of the show had seen a short film version of the story and thought it would make an interesting musical so wanted to do an adaptation.  What I hadn't realized is that one of the writers also worked on both Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek the Musical.  That was how she already knew Sutton Foster, who plays the lead role.  This also brings me to my next point.  I really wanted to see this show because Sutton Foster was in it.  I've seen her perform live before and she's always amazing in what she does.  She is definitely one of those classic Broadway triple threats. (Though she didn't do a lot of dancing in this show).

They explain the show a little bit in the Tony clip, but basically it's about a woman with a facial disfiguration who travels from North Carolina to Memphis because she believes an evangelical faith healer will be able to heal her.  On the greyhound bus she meets two soldiers who she becomes friends with.

Overall, I enjoyed the show but I do think there were parts where I just didn't quite understand what was happening.  The musical stylings made it difficult to understand the words all of the time and the plot is a little weird, but it was enjoyable to watch.

Les Miserables

I will always have a special place in my heart for the show Les Miserables. I was involved with a production in 2003 with the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center's Youth Repertory Theatre and loved every minute of it.

It has recently returned to Broadway and I've been really wanting to see it.  So today Monica and I got up extremely early to try for rush tickets.  We were in line by 7:15am, but this time decided to bring folding chairs with us for the wait.  That really makes a huge difference when you can sit while you wait instead of standing or awkwardly hovering on the ground.

Waiting in line

The show was so good.  Of course I'm very familiar with the entire soundtrack, but I enjoyed hearing it again and seeing how they staged the show.  The songs give me chills every time.

Our seats ended up being in the house left box, which ended up being fun because the box was decorated to look like it was part of the set.  So I felt very much like we were in the show!  I was also practicing my royal wave to those below.  We also decided to get dressed up which was also a lot of fun and ended up being fun since so many people could see us.

All dressed up, and in blue!

Here's the really amazing clip that the cast recently performed on the Tonys a couple weeks ago!

Oregon Adventures

Seth came with me to Oregon and we had some fun adventures!  We walked around Salem, went up to Portland, and took a drive out to the coast.

First, was the sights and sounds of Salem.  We walked all around Willamette, saw the inside of the Elsinore, walked through downtown and over to the Saturday market, walked down to the river front and saw the carousel, and finally walked the walking bridge.

Ducks on the Willamette campus

Someone boating down the river

View from the walking bridge

Portland could have been a less fun adventure, but luckily Jessie came in and saved the day!  I knew that I wanted to show off the Saturday Market, Voodoo Donuts, and Powells Bookstore.  But other than that, I wasn't really sure what to do.  Jessie met up with us, though, and suggested we take the aerial tram.  It's something I've never done before, and the views and weather were fantastic!  Not only could we see Mt Hood, we could see all the way to Mt St Helens!

Voodoo

Yay Jessie!

Great view of Mt Hood

If you look just to the left of the tree in the middle of the picture
you can just make out Mt St Helens

And finally, we made the drive over to Lincoln City.  It's always such a nice drive.  The weather at the beach was just a little windy and chilly so we didn't stay long, but I was able to stock up on some fresh salt water taffy.

My adventures after Seth left weren't quite as exciting, or at least were less photogenic.  But I've been having a very relaxing vacation!  One fun thing my mom and I did, though, was to see a filmed version of the stage play Driving Miss Daisy starring James Earl Jones and Angela Lansbury. It was great, and I was so happy to have been able to see the show.  Just for fun, here is some footage of when it was in London!