We woke up this morning in our amazing little Upper West Side apartment to the faint sounds of the city waking up below us. I don’t think we could have asked for a better location to spend the weekend either – it’s on the 9th floor so it is high enough up to be mostly above the street noise, and it is perfectly centrally located in the Upper West Side. A subway stop is half a block away, Central Park is just past the subway, and we haven’t touched 10% of the eateries within a 4 block radius, but all of them so far have been great. We had always said that if we were to move up to NYC for any reason, we’d want to be on the Upper West Side, but never had a chance to stay here. Well this weekend has confirmed that suspicion in spades.
But enough about where we are, what about what we have been up to? Well as most of you know, the driver for the trip was to see Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden, and he did not disappoint. We saw him in February of 2015 when he was in Atlanta, but there is something about seeing him in New York that just made it that much more special. He’s such a special entertainer, and our seats were fantastic. Not only that, but Jimmy Fallon came out and sang a number of songs with Billy, and I’ve never given Jimmy Fallon enough credit for how much talent he has as a singer. We left the performance incredibly happy and even floating the idea of trying to catch one of the remaining three (as of right now) shows he has left. So if you want to go and want some company…. you might have a couple willing travel buddies.
Other than Billy – the other main attraction of the weekend was seeing the Broadway musical Kinky Boots, staring Wayne Brady, on Friday night. Neither of us had any clue was to expect, we didn’t know the story or the music at all, but thought that if Wayne Brady wants to do it, it had to be worthwhile, and it certainly was. The show is about a struggling men’s shoe manufacturer that in an attempt to save the factory starts making boots for men dressed in drag. The subject matter is definitely a little out there for the more conservative people in the world, but it was so amazingly well done. We both couldn’t stop laughing through the first act, and as the second act got a little more serious, it definitely knew how to pull on the heart strings. We can definitely see why it won 6 Tony’s, including Best Musical, and was our favorite Broadway show to date.
As for the rest of the weekend, today we are going to try and play around with the cameras some, but it’s a pretty dreary day (cold and cloudy) so I’m not expecting too much from that. I’m much more excited about the fact that we’ve decided to go to the American Museum of Natural History. The previous times we’ve been here I’ve never been too interested in going to a museum, but given the weather, and the subject matter, I am very excited to see what’s in store. I’m especially interested in the Hayden Planetarium, and the Rose Center for Earth and Space in general. What can I say, I’m still a giant nerd at heart. We fly home Sunday and finally get a chance to be home again for a while, but this trip has already been well worth one last weekend of travel.