Things have been hectic here at the beginning of 2006. We ended up staying in for New Year Eve due to cold weather and rain and watched the ball drop on television as well as fireworks (pathetic and more like a sparkler)!! It was all over in about 10 seconds!!!! Then everyone poured into the subways to go home in a giant crush which we were pleased to avoid!!!
The weather the past few days have been cold and wet but we did manage to spend a day in Central Park taking photographs and looking for some caches. ( If you don't know what a cache is go to www.geocaching.com to find out what its all about). We met a family of other geocachers and managed to find what we were looking for. Strawberry Fields and the Dakota building were our next stops prior to lunch and then back home through the park and onto Gracie mansion (where the mayor lives). Our theatrical event for today was I Love You, You're Perfect Now Change which was funny – about relationships, dating, marriage and the aftermath. At the end of the show one of the audience members was introduced on stage and he proposed to his Canadian girlfriend who was sitting next to Christopher. The guy on stage did the whole thing – ring in pocket, down on bended knee etc with all the women (and Andrew) crying in the audience!!!
Yesterday we spent the whole day at the Metropolitian Museum of Art as it rained all day. Unfortunately 1,000's of other people had the same idea. 🙂 We were prewarned by a resident New Yorker that the admission of $US15 was only a recommended admission fee and that we were free to donate an amout we saw fit as our entry fee. This we did!!! 🙂 This museum has an amazing collection – too much for one day but we saw the highlights including the largest Egyptian collection outside of Egypt!!! Upon returning home we met our upstairs neighbour – Judith – who sort of scratched on our door and is about 80 years old!!! She asked us why we came to New York at this time of year because, in her words, "This weather sucks!!" She gave us a brief rundown of the local area and then disappeared, only to return in her nightgown 10 minutes later with more tips for our holiday (and she wasn't going to hear that we knew some of the places she was suggesting!!!) Last night we went to see Altar Boyz which was very very funny and well worth the cheaper tickets we scored through a voucher!!! It was about a new "Catholic boy band" who were saving our souls during the concert. A 5 member band consisting of 4 Catholics (including a gay guy, a recovering drug addict, a pretty boy and a black Spanish womaniser) and 1 Jew were very entertaining and had us rolling in the aisles!!!
Tonight we are off to see Wicked which we are both looking forward to even though we have had mixed reviews from people we have told. Tickets are very scarce so we are lucky to have got our seats in Australia. In fact, they are the only theatre seats we have paid full price for. We have managed to get discounted tickets for every other show we have seen (except Las Vegas) and the seats have been excellent!! As a matter of fact everything we have bought whilst being here has been discounted including the memorabilia from Starbucks which was given to us for free as the barcode was invalid!! Our virgin records voucher books have also come in handy – the only problem is they don't stock extra luggage in order to assist us to get things home!!! Hence, we have adopted the addage – Never pay retail in New York City – there is always a bargain to be had!!!
Three sleeps to go and we are not looking forward to the 3am rise on Saturday morning to get to the airport for 5am checkin. Nor are we looking forward to the heat upon our return to Australia. Nevertheless it will be good to get home to watch all our dvds, listen to our cds, and look at our photos on a screen larger than our camera.