New York Honors trip, Spring 2009
I went to New York City this Saturday as part of the honors program to go see 'The Phantom of the Opera' on Broadway! I loved it!! The technical part of the show was so well done that I was left stunned! The only thing I did not like was the girl playing Christine. Her voice wasn't that great. But the guy playing the Phantom was excellent! I so want to see another show on Broadway now!! We even got great seats near the stage(Orchestra seats).
Since it was a long drive off, I had to be up at 4am to get to the bus ahead of others so that I could get a nice seat with Caitlin W. Unfortunately, everyone else got there even earlier than us so we got separate seats next to people we didn't know. That was a very uncomfortable ride. Once we got there, we just wandered around till 1.30pm( when we had to be at the theater as the show started at 2pm) which felt nice after being cooped on the bus for 5 hours straight. Caitlin, Victoria( a freshman who just joined my choir...she's awesome:) ) and I had decided beforehand to visit "The Strand Bookstore" which boasts 18 miles of used, new and rare books. We were joined my Matt and Amanda from my honors class and Jen from Victoria's class on this adventure. I say adventure because we really didn't know what we were doing. Kathleen had given me her detailed map of New York and the surrounding boroughs which includes a subway map. Since it was too long to walk to the bookstore ( and we only had 3 hours to get there, eat lunch and get back for the show), we decided to take the subway there.
Whoever thinks that all Americans are well cultured people are in for a shock. Out of our group, only Victoria and I have kind of lived in a city. Caitlin has traveled to cities before but not alone. The rest of them were basically country folk to put it nicely. So with Victoria's experience in taking the subway in Washington D.C and mine in Singapore, we figured we should be fine. First we searched for a station( they're harder to find then we thought...we walked by one without even knowing!). Then as we walked down the stairs with Matt moaning about how we were going to be killed in the bowels of New York, we got to the hard part....which train to take. I honestly have never seen a more complicated map!! The writing being minuscule didn't help either. After asking the lady at the counter, who said we needed train 1, we tried to buy tickets at the ticket machine( or what we figured was the ticket machine since nothing was labeled). I got stuck there for a good five minutes trying to stuff my 1 dollar notes in it since it kept rejecting my Visa Card with the lady behind be looking more and more exasperated by the minute and Matt and Caitlin laughing at my incompetency at feeding the machine notes.
So once all that was dealt with, we walked into the station and then proceeded to find train 1. Five minutes and a couple of staircases later, we came to a platform which didn't look like it had our train. So we approached an elderly couple( who blabbered to in Slovakian or something) and then a young lady who told us what sign to follow, and we finally made it to the correct platform. The whole time, Matt was basically muttering about how we should stayed in the surface so as not to get killed( I smacked and laughed at him for that!). It was funny to see his first reaction on getting on the train....he almost fell on his face because he didn't know he had to hold on to the rails as the train moved. But one train ride later, he was acting as though taking a subway was a piece of cake:P
The bookstore was overwhelming and the narrow aisles made getting around very difficult but I still liked it. We stopped at a Pizza place for lunch, where Matt in stupidity pointed at a pizza and asked for 2 slices of that thinking it was sausage pizza...It ended up being some sort of mushy vegetable pizza which frankly looked disgusting. After the show, we decide for the best of our well-being, we would stick to the area near by for exploring. So we walked around Times Square, ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant, visited the huge M&Ms store and waited in the cold for 45 minutes for Victoria when she disappeared to go find a particular store( all the time listening to Matt invent ways to torture and kill Victoria since he was the only one of us without a warm coat on ). Even with mine on I was freezing so I can only imagine how cold he must have been. We had no idea which direction she went and she wasn't answering her phone so we were keeping a look out for her. Caitlin and I offered to wait outside for Victoria while he stayed inside a store but he said that would damage his male pride:P Haha.... I'm glad he tagged along with my group...he made the trip so much more entertaining...
We got back at 1.15am and because I slept on the bus( however unrestfully), I was tired but not really sleepy. But I went to bed around 2am so that I could get up the next day for brunch. All in all, this was a fun trip minus the long traveling time.
Nikita at 7:09 PM
