Dominica May

Wednesday 28th November

I forgot to mention in the past two days that we encountered two film crews. on Monday, it was at a restaurant on 59th Street, across from Central Park, and yesterday it was in Central Park, on our way to the Alice in Wonderland statue. We have no idea what they were filming, unlike when encountered the Harry Potter stuff, but it was still neat to stumble upon it.

So Doyle did a little better last night, only waking once during the night, then early-ish for breakfast. At least he didn’t roll off the bed in his sleep.

We headed out around 9am to Rockefeller Centre where we got to see the ice skating rink and went to the Nintendo Store, also stopping by another video game place so I could get a Sonic game for our PS3, since Jeremy promised before we left Australia that I could. It was only $30, anyway! We encountered another obnoxious woman in the area, who said something along the lines of “I don’t normally speak up but that child needs a hat,” as if his parents couldn’t make that decision and didn’t know how to look after their own kid. For one, hardly anyone in the area was wearing a hat, plus Doyle didn’t seem bothered by it, and thirdly we had already almost lost his hat in Boston that it seemed likely it could happen again, so what would have been the point in trying then? It’s not like the rest of him wasn’t rugged up in layers and layers of clothes! I hate it when people like that don’t just mind their own business.

Then we headed to MoMA, also known as the Museum of Modern Art. They had a few famous paintings by Van Gogh and Picasso, Monet, and so on. Unfortunately the piece I really wanted to see at the museum was out on the road at other museums. What was it? The famous melting clock painting by Salvador Dali. In case you don’t already know, Dali is my all time favourite artist. So that’s why I was disappointed about that.

Even though the opening hours of this museum was the shortest of all we had been to, we didn’t need the full day to see everything, which meant there wasn’t any rushing by the end.

I don’t know if it’s a common occurrence in everyone, but I find when I visit a lot of museums like we’ve done in New York, it always puts me in a kind of inspired but somewhat subdued, wishful and disappointed mood. Like, there’s so many interesting careers I think would have been interesting to pursue – archeologist, paleontologist, ancient historian, artist, architect (this also comes from just visiting cities that have awesome buildings I like to take photos of) and so forth – but then remind myself why I haven’t pursued those paths, like I’m not talented enough, or patient enough, maybe that it didn’t seem like a realistic career path, or something like that. I think it would be great to discover or create things that people remember – even if they don’t remember your name. It mainly serves as a reminder for why I choose to pursue my own interests, like filmmaking, for myself rather than the general public. It’s too hard to stand out because everyone wants to do it. Mind you, I think it might be nice to try painting something again. I haven’t painted anything in so long. I might have to buy some paints and canvas if I’m still keen on the idea when I get home, in the new year.

So when we were done looking at everything at the museum, we headed out to Bloomingdale’s to see what they sold, only to turn back not long after to the Rockefeller Centre. We wanted to try and find a good place for the live telecast of the Christmas tree lighting. We ended up deciding it was too crowded at around 6:10pm and it hadn’t even started yet, so we spent the next half an hour or so trying to get past all the crowds and police barricades to find a subway we could actually use, before managing to get back to our hostel at 7:20pm, where we decided to watch the whole thing on TV instead. This proved a far better idea, because we could see everything much better that way. And in any case, the only singer I would’ve been interested in seeing (Celene Dion) was performing in the Rainbow Room, and not out in the open where we were anyway. Missed out on seeing Jason Lee, but given they reported 100,000 people being there (Jeremy doesn’t believe the figure, and I’m not sure I do either), I doubt I’d have managed to run into him anyway.

Doyle ended up going to sleep in his tent again. Hopefully he’ll be a good boy for his mummy’s birthday and not wake up during the night tonight. A sleep in might be nice, too. If it’s not too much to ask! Hmm, I spoke too soon. After he woke up three times before we even went to bed, I ended up relocating him to the other double bed.

Thursday 29th November

So Doyle didn’t sleep well at all last night, and ended up separating me and Jeremy again, so Doyle could sleep with me. I did eventually get a sleep in, but it was after a lot of tossing about and feeding that it wasn’t really a sleep in. Oh well.

When I got up, Jeremy was already awake, and he gave me Doyle’s present to open, even though Doyle was still asleep. It was Disney’s The Jungle Book on DVD, which I’d been expecting because I begged Jeremy to get it from JB Hi Fi before we left Australia. As you might have been able to gather, I’m not particularly good with surprises. I’m also not particularly keen on getting presents I don’t like – I’d rather get nothing at all. So my over-the-top hinting at what to get is my way of combating that.

Then I opened a card from my parents-in-law, and there was nothing inside. Jeremy told me what their present was to me, and presented me with tickets to Monty Python’s Spamalot on Broadway. I think I could name a fair few people who would be jealous of me for that! But then Jeremy told me it was probably cancelled because of the strike. So we tried to do some early online research to find out if we would have to get a refund and see something else, or what. In my research, I discovered that some of the shows I had been keen to see did end up cancelled over the last few days anyway. But it turns out there is a tentative resolution and Broadway shows should be back on tonight – lucky for us. Despite this, though, the early looking at the web sites weren’t specific about whether all shows would be back on tonight, so we still had to wait and find out. But after looking at the cast for Spamalot, I decided we should’ve seen it in London – Peter Davison was in it there! Upon checking the Spamalot web site at 9:30am, we discovered that it is indeed playing tonight. So, in combination with the Broadway tickets (did I mention Jeremy’s coming too?), I also get a babysitter for Doyle, and dinner at a nice restaurant.

We didn’t head out until maybe 10am? There wasn’t anything specific planned for the day today, so we just set out toward the Sony Interactive Museum. On the way we stopped at the Apple store because Jeremy forgot to buy something he needed. When we got to Sony, we weren’t going to be allowed in until 1:30pm, so Jeremy suggested we go to Coney Island, Brooklyn. Only it took a lot longer to get there than Jeremy thought, and we only had an hour 45 minutes before our ticket said we could go. But by the time we realised, we were already halfway to Coney Island so, since the Sony ticket was free anyway, we just kept going.

We had lunch in Coney Island at a “world famous” hot dog store, although we’d never heard of it. There wasn’t much open – I think it’s a bit of a ghost town during winter, but it’s probably pretty roaring during summer time. They had a few rides along the beach, but it’s set for redevelopment in (I think) 2009. At least sometime after the 2008 season, since AstroWorld (or whatever it was called) said it would be open for the entire 2008 season. For lunch I had a corn dog, which I loved, and bacon and cheese fries, which were perhaps a bit too fatty and I probably could’ve made a better choice. We walked up the boardwalk along the beach a little way and saw the “world famous” Cyclone roller coaster ride (I’d only heard of it because it was mentioned on the placemat at the restaurant we went to as having been on Seinfeld), then headed back to Manhattan on the subway and the Sony museum. They let us in straight away this time, though, which was good because it was closing in less than an hour by then. We left right upon closing, and I got a certificate to prove I’d been. Jeremy didn’t care for one himself, though.

Then it was time to head back to our hostel and wait for our babysitter. By the time she was 20 minutes late, I was getting really anxious. But she arrived shortly after that, and everything was fine. Until we left. We heard Doyle screaming as soon as we shut the door, but we didn’t turn back and just hoped for the best.

We didn’t really have dinner by the time we got to Times Square and we weren’t really that hungry after lunch anyway, so we just stopped at Ben & Jerry’s and shared a Strawberry Cheesecake milkshake before heading onto the theatre to see Spamalot.

Now, while I’ll admit that I’ve mentioned here there were a few other shows I thought I’d rather see and I’m not as much of a Monty Python fan as what a lot of people are, I do have to say I adored this show. It was brilliantly spectacular, and I loved that they upgraded our seats from the balcony to the mezzanine. They probably hadn’t sold so many tickets (the theatre certainly wasn’t packed) because of the strike. Maybe some people didn’t realise Broadway was back yet. There were a heap of people waiting in line at other shows when we walked past them, though. Anyway, as I was saying – I loved it. I think my favourite characters were Sir Robin and Sir Lancealot, as they had the best songs. There’s wasn’t too much substance to the story, but it was a comedy and a musical, so who cares, right? There was even a special appearance by John Cleese’s voice as God. So, if you couldn’t already tell, I loved, loved, loved the show, and special thanks goes to Ian and Kaye for giving Jeremy the money so he could choose the show we saw for my birthday. And also for Jeremy for trusting his instinct and buying tickets to a show we’d both enjoy. It made me want to spend more time in New York just watching lots and lots of Broadway shows, even if Jeremy wouldn’t have let me spend more money on that. Oh well, maybe if we end up moving to London we can watch some musicals there. The show itself looked like a very expensive production – I don’t know how any small theatre companies that might want to put the show on would be able to afford it, that’s for sure.

After the show, as we hadn’t had dinner yet, we headed to a Mexican Restaurant, which looked nice and not too expensive. We stuffed our faces until I thought I was either going to explode or vomit. I did neither, thankfully, but obviously ate a lot. I found it very hard to walk back to the subway to make it back to our hostel. We got back around midnight, which the babysitter said would be fine before we left. Doyle was sleeping in her arms, but woke up when she tried to put him down to bed in his tent. As you might have guessed, he ended up separating me and Jeremy in our beds again.

We’re heading to Laramie tomorrow (actually today as I write this, but never mind about that) and we probably won’t be doing much beyond meeting my family, so it might be a while before I post another entry.