Travel

Travel
Travel

San Francisco

San Francisco
San Francisco

Laugh With Me

Laugh With Me
Laugh With Me

We're Just Two Friends (Two Good Friends) (Two Best Friends) Sharing One Wonderful, One Short Play // #CCTakesNYC, Part II

Fair warning: this post right here is so picture heavy, it's bordering on actual obesity. Proceed at your own risk, my friends!

So, where were we? Friday. Friday was a good one, y'all. A very good one.

The night prior, I sternly told Cassandra that we had to be out of the door "by ten a.m." We were out the door at a little past eleven. But no matter, we strolled over to Clinton Street Baking Company and asked for a stack of blueberry pancakes to go, with a drizzle of warm maple butter on top, please.
Then, with our little bag of pancakes in hand, we meandered two streets over to Russ & Daughters Appetizers, which is famous for their lox and cream cheese bagels. 

So, of course, we had to order our own Nova Scotia lox and scallion cream cheese bagels with capers and onions. Outside, there was conveniently a colorful bench for us to perch on. Down we sat, and into our hands and mouths went half of a bagel each.

Umphgfhhhh. Amazing. Truly. Everything you could dream to have when you come to New York craving a good old New York bagel. Except the price, but let's just chalk it up to the New York experience, shall we?
Our salty tooth satisfied, now our sweet tooth craved some attention.

And attention it got:
If heaven existed in the form of pancakes... this would be it. 

Feeling a little guilty about our indulgences, Cassandra and I thought a nice little walk through SoHo should compensate for the 230948 calories we inhaled so easily.

And so we window-shopped and picked out what we wanted if "we were to one day make six figures." She wants a Burberry necktie. I want a collection of Vince sweaters.
Now, this is where the story starts getting really good.

One of the items on our "MUST DO" list (as opposed to our MUST DO list or MUST DO list) was to see a Broadway play together. We really wanted to see Wicked, but knew it to be a little out of our price range. So we paid a visit to the TKTS booth, hoping to find If/Then or Once tickets at a decent price. We got to the Times Square line at about 1:30pm and needed to wait until 3:00 for booth to open.

The two of us stood in line, then we sat in line, then we stood again. We pored over the little booklet of possible options. And then we started discussing (this is what happens when we have too much time spent in line. we start thinking up 'grand' plans). 

Would we rather spent $30 on a show that we might end up liking a lot, or like $100 on a show that we both know we love, and that we would love to watch together for the first time?

Yeah well, the logic made sense at the time.

We decided to try our hand at the Wicked lottery. You go to the theater two and a half hours before the show begins, put your name in, and 13 names get drawn to sit front row for $30. Who would be stupid enough to do this all day long? Like 30 people? ---we reasoned.

So we left the TKTS line. The line in which we were in the first portion. The first portion of a line that looped twice around half of Times Square. After waiting for an hour. We even had to jump over a couple of low barriers to leave the line because no one's ever stupid enough to do that. And if we ended up not somehow winning the lottery, we were fully prepared to spend $90 tickets on crappy last-row, next-day Wicked seats, even though it would have been Cassandra's sixth time seeing it and my second. I never said we make sense as people, you know.
As we waited for the lottery to begin, we made a detour to the McGee's Pub, which inspired the bar in How I Met Your Mother:
It's actually a very fun place. Nice and quiet. And they make a hell of a pina colada + strawberry daiquiri at a price that's actually fair! That's always a newsflash to me now. They also had fun drinks named after the characters, but we were boring. What else is new.

With some more time on our hands, I decided this was the best time to take Cassandra over to Levain Bakery for a double chocolate chocolate chip cookie:
Needless to say, I think she approved.

A peek at the Lincoln Center on the way back to the theater:
Aaaaand, now at the Gershwin! 

We feeling lucky?
It turns out there weren't 30 people in line.

There were maybe, like, 200. We thought for sure we wouldn't be seeing a show tonight, especially after they called out name after name after name and none of them even began with a "C." Heartbreaking.

Until....
Cassandra's name was called second to last!!!

That girl is so strangely lucky when luck is truly needed. Why else do you think I've stayed friends with her all this time?

In a state of a little bit of shock and a lot of giddiness, we took advantage of the two hours we had left before the show started to go get some Shake Shack. Only to bring back our trophies to the garage outside of the Gershwin, because classy is as classy does.
Amazing show. Phenomenal talent, hilarious as per usual.

The leads were all phenomenal. And get this - do you remember Justin Guarini from American Idol and From Justin to Kelly fame? I do, because I remember my sister losing faith in my cinematic tastes after I claimed FJ2K to be my "favorite movie of all time."

Well. Justin was Fiyero. A Fiyero who was "really smooth and knows how to move. Just look at him jumping up those statues and shimmying," according to my roommate. Be still my ten-year-old heart.

After the show, we totally geeked out over meeting the girls who played Glinda and Elphaba who were both so sweet. Heartthrob Justin didn't make an appearance though, sadly.
But what made the night truly spectacular?

Artichoke Basille's crab pizza after a midnight subway squeeze. Crab, you ask, with furrowed eyebrows? Don't knock it till you try it, because it is worthy of everything good and holy in this world.

Just ask Cassandra, who kept on trying to lure me back for a slice for the next two days.

*The post title is in reference to the song "One Short Day" in Wicked, when Glinda and Elphaba go to the Emerald City together and are razzled and dazzled by everything in sight. Fitting, no?

9 comments

  1. First of all that bagel looks amazing, even if it was pricey! You packed a lot into your NYC visit, enjoyed all the photos :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. that's it. i'm coming to visit you. you are the best hostest is the world!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Okay, when I book my trip to NYC, you will be the first person I call for our site seeing list!! You are a rock star and have seen so much....love the photo obesity!! ha!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I actually just got back from NYC this past Friday! Looks like you and your friend had a blast! Personally, I will a little overwhelmed by everything, with it being my first time in the city. But I saw The Lion King on Broadway and was blown away, I definitely want to see more (:

    -Rae
    raesayshey.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh my goodness, those pancakes look too good to be true!! And congrats on winning those tickets for Wicked! It's one of my favorite Broadway shows as well :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. A play and NYC pizza are definitely high up on the list if I ever get myself to New York!! And all of that food. It's just not fair that that is all in one city. YUM!!!!!!
    xo TJ

    http://www.hislittlelady.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. Holy crap. This is like the best story ever. How on EARTH did you manage to win?! That's insane!!!!! And man oh man all that food looks delicious.

    xo Denise
    lovelybohemian.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ok, STOP!!!!! How lucky are you two?? My sister and I did the same thing years ago...no luck. But in defense of your earlier thinking...I totally pay a ton for theatre tickets...it's worth it!

    And so awesome about getting to see them at the stage door....I always do that and become the biggest fan girl.

    That bagellllll.....yummm!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I am drooling over all that food especially the bagel! Mmmmm!

    ReplyDelete

your comments truly make my day! :)
thank you!

xx Caroline