It's turkey lurkey time...

It’s about midday on Saturday; I’m sitting on the bed in our room with Josh and Justin.  There is music playing and Josh is expressing his desire for coffee…  Now Justin is packing away his couch-bed and dancing.  This room is never dull.  I will write a post all about the apartment later.  For now? Thursday…

The boys got home in the wee hours of Thursday morning, so as you can imagine, the day began quite slowly.  I managed, finally, to sort out my phone, a process that required me to update software on both my phone and laptop and some tricky and possibly less-than-legal unlocking of iPhone things. Anyway. It’s done now.  At last my right arm is complete again.

So, in the light drizzly rain, we all sorted ourselves out and went to James and Jake’s apartment in the East Village.  The five of us wandered down to have lunch at the famous Katz’s Deli, the most intense food-related experience of my life.  Seriously.  You walk in and are given a small card to hand over when you order. Imagine a counter stretching as far as you can see, crowds at least three people deep all the way along, and confident regulars yelling their orders. There are sections of counter for ordering different things including one section

specifically for egg creams.  The floor was covered in sawdust, although I’m not sure if it was there when we arrived, I think it may have happened while we were there.  This is the deli in When Harry Met Sally, if you know the one I’m talking about.  After eating, you take your card to the counter (now conveniently showing how much you owe) and pay for what you ate.  I guess it’s quite a good system.  It’s overwhelming and crazy, but an experience worth having.

We left and dropped in at Sugar where I purchased a brownie that was pretty much just cookie dough, excellent.  James and Justin stocked up on coffee and we went back to the apartment so Josh and Justin could do their tax while I caught James up on a few months of Brisbane news.

Tax complete and estimates received, our group of five decided to see if there were tickets available for Promises, Promises.  Five student tickets later, (the most amazing thing here, it varies, but you can get multiple student-priced tickets on one student card), we found ourselves at an Argentinean restaurant, Chimichurri Grill, on 43^rd and 9^th.  Clams in white wine and garlic sauce and polenta chips with blue cheese sauce… The food was good, but overpriced and the service was… Average, but not so terrible as to ruin your evening.  From here we went to a bar attached to a Japanese restaurant called Bann, threw back a drink (in my case, a brain-freeze-inducing strawberry daiquiri) and made our way to the theatre.

I have to admit, I was worried.  I had not heard one good thing about this show, my first ever Broadway show.  We were seated in the very back row of the massive theatre, but my view was still clear, even if the actors were teensy-tiny (especially Kristen Chenoweth, who is teensy-tiny in any case).  Still, it was a good production of an average show.  The choreography was super-kitsch (my favourite), although not always faultlessly executed, and the music is, well, I’m sorry Burt Bacharach, but it’s flawed.  I did, however, enjoy myself.  It was fun.  And now I’ve seen Sean Hayes, Kristen Chenoweth, and the show-stealing Katie Finneran live… Not a bad thing to take away from an evening of theatre! And if the sign of a good musical is walking away humming showtunes (although, this is entirely debatable), then our excessive renditions of Turkey Lurkey would have you believe it was truly fabulous.  Or would they?

While the night looked set to continue, a combination of fatigue and dirty feet saw us going our separate ways and heading home for the evening.

I have to admit, I sometimes get a little homesick as I’m going to sleep… New York doesn’t make me homesick, but not yet having a return ticket from London sometimes plays on my mind.  Missing everyone heaps!

Love in bucket-loads… JC xx