I'm going to really do my best to keep the length of this post under control. Let's see how I do.
So this weekend was a good one. Friday night I left work and headed into the village to meet Dan, Kristen and Rachael at the Life Café for dinner. I was excited, with the Life Café featuring prominently in Rent and all. We sat next to the Jonathan Larson wall and everything. I resisted and did not sing any of La Vie Boheme because I'm sure people do it all the time and it probably gets annoying.
After dinner, we all grabbed some hot chocolate in a cool little coffee shop on Avenue A. On the way back to the subway, Dan and I stopped to watch some filming going on. The woman who plays the police officer Ramirez in the Dark Knight walked by Dan and I, and I definitely made eye contact with her. Apparently they were filming a scene from an upcoming abc show, the Unusuals, and I think the woman in the car we saw was Amber Tamblyn. She's cool.
Saturday morning, Emily, Dan and I got up early and went into Times Square to try and score some student tickets for Spring Awakening since it closes next weekend. We got in line a little after 10 probably, but they ran out of tickets after a while. It was okay for me, because I've already seen it, but I did want Dan and Emily to get to check it out. We decided to head over to the tkts booth to see if we could score any sweet deals.
Emily and I ended up getting 50% off seats to the matinee of Phantom of the Opera, which Emily has seen many times but neither of us had seen along the great white way. I was pretty excited. The ticket agent told us the seats were in the back and off to the side, which we were fine with. When Emily and I went into the Majestic, we found that our seats actually were the very last two seats on the side of the very last row at the top of the balcony. It was a bit of a bummer, but it was also pretty funny, and the seats weren't terrible.
Luckily, the Phantom seems to be holding up great. It's been on Broadway since I was a year old, but you wouldn't know from seeing it, and you certainly wouldn't know from the performances. Every actor, especially our Phantom, performed like it was opening night. I was very impressed. And the sets and effects. Wow. I don't want to give anything away for anyone who hasn't seen it, but I was pretty blown away by the scope and complexity of the whole thing. It was awesome, and now I have experienced the longest running show in Broadway's history.
Needless to say, leaving the theater I couldn't get the song Masquerade out of my head, and had fun belting the line "You will curse the day you did not do...all that the Phantom asked of you!" loud enough to get funny looks from people around us.
When we walked back out onto 44th street, we found the city covered in snow. It had been snowing a bit walking around midtown around lunchtime and when we went into the show, but afterward everything was covered. It was exactly what I hoped winter in New York would be like and I was indeed glad to be wearing my new wool coat in it.
Saturday night, Emily, Dan and I headed down to Court Street on the other side of Brooklyn and grabbed some Burritos before meeting Gabe and seeing Doubt at a really cool little Esquire-like movie theater, Cobble Hill Cinemas. I liked the movie a lot, probably partially because I like everything, but everybody in the movie was amazing. Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman were awesome, and Amy Adams was great, too. Meryl Streep was especially crazy since the last thing I saw her in was Mamma Mia. It blew my mind to see her going from "The winner takes it all" to this. Awesome.
Sunday, Dan and Emily got up early to head back to midtown to try and get tickets to shows. Emily wanted a ticket to All My Sons, the Katie Holmes/Patrick Wilson/John Lithgow/Diane Wiest play that was having it's last performance Sunday, and Dan really wanted to see Spring Awakening. They both wanted me to go with them, but I decided to take a break from the theater. I don't want to overdo it. I still have 10 weeks. Happily, both of them were able to get tickets to their respective shows.
Instead, I walked over to the North Brooklyn Vineyard to meet Kristen and Rachael for church. It was a pretty good service with maybe 30 people in the congregation. The worship leader's voice was a little off pitch at times, which I didn't want to be distracting, but it sort of was. The pastor's message was really good though, and the church also meets on Sunday nights at 6 in a bar in the neighborhood. You have to be 21 to get in since the bar stays open, and apparently it's the same message with a more rock-based music. It's definitely something I'd like to check out.
It's definitely frustrating that I haven't found a church I feel like I really connect with yet, after my connection to Mosaic in LA was so easy and fast. I don't know how many new churches to try, since I don't want to waste too many Sundays and miss out on connecting with a community. I know something will work out, though. We'll see. I really want to try and do some sort of service and volunteering soon, so I might go back to Apostles to make that happen.
(44th Street: I love the classic lit-up letters on these marquees!)
Sunday evening, I went back to midtown and took a nice little nighttime stroll through some of the beautifully snow-covered Central Park and wanted to find the ice rink, but it looked like it was far away, so I ended up walking back down to Madison Square Garden where I guessed I could find some kind of sports bar with tv's to watch the rest of the Steelers game. I ended up in the Blarney Stone when I saw a guy in a Jack Lambert jersey inside. From there I watched the last quarter of the game and ate some Buffalo chicken strips. Excellent.
Next weekend, Joan (from UC) and I are going to have to find a Steelers bar to watch the game. I really can't miss a game against the Ravens for the conference championship! I don't know, I think I can smell it...
Well, I think that's it for now. Sorry the post's still super long, isn't it? Bummer. Oh well.
Oh, one last thing! Tonight I bought plane tickets for Kristen and I to fly back to the 'nati for Key Laborers! I'm really excited to be able to see everybody and especially my small group. It will be awesome!
Okay, if you haven't checked out prettyloaded.com yet you need to read the post below and do it. I'll post an apartment tour soon. I hope everybody has a great week. I miss you all!
much love
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