Week #15: My NYC blog finale...finally!

So, I’ve had this last blog written out for a while, but I just realized I haven’t posted it yet! Even though I’ve been back in Iowa for over a week now, I figured I should update one last time with what happened during my last week in NY for anyone who is still checking this thing…

As some of you know, I turned 22 December 15th! Woo! The night before my birthday, I went to the Comedy Cellar with some people, where the comedian host for the night was celebrating HIS birthday as well (one day before mine). The comedians were the best I’ve seen there (the most famous was Colin Quinn, but they were all very funny).

My actual birthday was pretty low-key, but still lots of fun! After work, I went to a play called “Heaven Knows” at Ensemble Studio Theatre. Two NYAPers, Sally and Kevin, were interning with the theatre, so we got comp tickets from them. The audience was small, but the play was pretty solid in my opinion. For the most part it managed to tackle a bunch of really “light” topics like homosexuality, Catholicism, abuse, and family without getting too cliché or bogged down, which is admirable, especially since the play was written by one of the actors of the not-so-good production of Race Music that we saw at the beginning of the semester…aww full-circle moment. After the play, we went to a diner, and I had cake and hot chocolate. THEN, we went to Baskin Robbins. Yes, nothing says “Happy Birthday to me” like triple chocolate-y goodness ;-)

My last weekend in the city was pretty eventful. I started out Friday night with a Bikram Yoga class, and then I decided to do the SNL line again afterwards. Why? Because I’m apparently completely insane. And I was bored. And I’ve been a little bitter ever since I missed out back in October. So, I put on as many layers as I could (which made me look like I had gained 20 pounds) and set off at about 11pm. I went alone, which I know sounds kind of sad, but there are always plenty of people to talk with there, even though they’re generally a little weird! Weird people can be fun though :)

I ended up getting to know three girls from Arkansas, one who apparently drank too much before joining the line, threw up all over her friend, and had to go back to the hotel room. I also talked with two guys from SVA (school of visual arts), who were wearing matching hats (the giant, furry, Russian-looking hats everyone’s been wearing lately) and two guys who were visiting the city from Pennsylvania. There was also an annoying group of freshmen from Columbia in front of us. They started out as a group of three or four and “magically” got a lot bigger around 5 or 6am when a bunch of their friends cut in line to join them. Not cool, ivy-leaguers, NOT COOL. It was a long and cold night. VERY cold. I took breaks at McDonald’s (where they had a “bouncer” type guy who made sure you bought something before using the bathroom) and a random café to warm up. Somehow I managed to get free food both times…because I have skills. Ok not really, I was just lucky, haha. Finally, at 7am, I received my stand-by ticket of #31 for the live show!

Afterwards, I headed home to de-frost my feet and get a solid 2 hours of sleep before my last day of work, and then later that afternoon, I went ice skating at Bryant Park with some people from the house. It had just started snowing lightly, and if I hadn’t been so tired it would have been close to perfect. It was still pretty wonderful, nonetheless.

That night, the light snow turned into a full on blizzard, which made walking to SNL an experience to say the least. After a bit of waiting in the stand-by line at NBC, they took the first 40 of us through security and lined us up at the elevators. They put the first groups of people into the elevators and stopped RIGHT in front of me. That would have been a terrible moment if they didn’t take any more people after that, buuut…they did! When I got up to the studio, somehow I ended up getting seated in the absolute worst seat in the place. I was sitting next to one of the matching hat guys (sans hat this time), and we were craning our necks around set pieces most of the time. Even Kenan agreed that our seats weren’t great, giving us a shout out during his pre-show performance—“Hey over there in the crappy seats!” Even though I couldn’t see many of the sketches, just being there was a cool experience, especially after two attempts and so many hours of waiting… We were sitting right above James Franco’s dressing room, so we got to watch him run in and out to do his costume changes. I also really liked the band, Muse, much more than I thought I would, but certainly not as much as the guy behind me who as soon as the band stepped on stage whispered to the person next to him, “I think I just peed myself a little.” Too funny.

walking to NBC in the blizzard...

Walking back to 305 was even tougher than walking to the studios. By that time it was 1:30am and the subway line I took only went to Herald Square, so I had a number of blocks to trudge through the half a foot of snow that had accumulated in the semi-impractical boots I had decided to wear that night. I was covered in snow and thoroughly exhausted when I got home.

The rest of my time in New York was filled with lots of “lasts”—one last Sunday UCB show, one last Bikram class Monday morning, one last cupcake, one last bagel from Brooklyn Bagel (best bagel place in NY, located just a couple blocks from 305), and then I said goodbye to NYC before catching my train Monday afternoon. It’s been a little strange being back in the mid-west, but I’m adjusting, and I suppose a perfect way to end this blog is to announce (for anyone who doesn’t know yet) that I’m officially going BACK to New York in August because I was accepted to the City Year program (http://www.cityyear.org), and I recently signed and sent in my letter of commitment! So although my NYC adventures may be on hold for now, they are certainly far from over.

Nick, Kelly, and I waiting for our last show at UCB

my last view of NYC for a while before I went inside Penn station to catch my train

And with that, I hope everyone’s enjoyed my updates, even if I do tend to ramble sometimes, and I hope your holidays were wonderful and that you all have a very happy New Year!

Week #14: I ain't got nothing but love, eight days a week

Christmas is officially in NYC, and so are the tourists (more and more every day), but one thing that's NOT in NYC yet, is snow! That's more or less OK with me though...apparently I'll have plenty to look forward to when I get back to the mid-west. Blegh.

Last Monday I went to see the Radio City Hall Christmas Spectacular with Anna, Nick, Kelly, and Fallon. The Spectacular was just good, solid fun—no other way to put it—Rockette kick-lines, 3-d glasses, an interesting version of the Nutcracker, streamers, fireworks, and live camels, sheep, and donkeys on stage! Basically, I turned into a little kid again for an hour and a half.

dancing Santas!

pretending to be the Rockettes

Another major happening was the 29th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. I was making something to eat before going to sleep Tuesday night (Dec. 8), and someone in the kitchen mentioned that there was a vigil going on at Strawberry Fields (the Imagine circle) at Central Park where people were singing John Lennon/Beatles songs. My response was, “I’m going…NOW!” Ries decided to go with me, so we headed uptown at 11 and stayed there for about an hour and a half singing with the crowd (I put a couple videos of the singing at the end of this blog).

Unfortunately it started raining, so the guitarists had to pack up, and the singing broke up except for a few people who tried to drunkenly continue without the instrumentalists (which was a horribly unsuccessful attempt). I was bummed that they had stop because I was planning to stay there much, much later—maybe all night—but the night ended nicely with one guy who kept his guitar out a bit longer than the others and played “Imagine” on acoustic. It was wonderful! Yet another reason why I love this city…where else can you be getting ready to go to sleep, and then out of the blue go on an adventure to sing Beatles songs with a crowd of people at midnight? Well…except maybe Liverpool, haha.

One not-so-good thing about this week was that I got food poisoning Wednesday night. I suppose a semester in New York wouldn’t be complete without at least one case of it, eh? It was somewhat mild, but still not fun, and I can safely say I will not be eating at Dallas BBQ again, no matter how cheap their food is!

Sunday I went to the last performance of the Royal Family (a Broadway play) with Kelly and Nick because Nick got comp tickets from work. The show parodies the Barrymore family, and even though I'm not very familiar with their history, the show was really funny, the acting was solid, and the set was incredible. I was laughing so much, I hardly even noticed that it was so long (3 acts)! Nick also got us into the Patrons Lounge, where all the people who donate the big bucks to the Manhattan Theatre Club go during intermission. So I got to pretend to be rich while drinking free coffee and eating the most delicious chocolate-covered almonds ever! Thanks Nick!!

I've also been to two more UCB shows in the past week, one with Jack McBrayer and the other I was #6 in line, so I got to sit in the front row! WOO! I also went shopping at Canal Street for the first time all semester today and bought some hats and scarves (no fake purses this time around though).

Well, that’s all for now. Just one more week and one more update. Wait a second, I need to shed a single tear. Alright, well that’s done. Seeya next week!

^^ videos of the crowd singing "Eight Days a Week" and "Give Peace a Chance." The videos are pretty short because my camera was running out of memory...

Week #13: O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree...

Guess what? I got a picture of the biggest celebrity in NYC right now!

That's right. The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Who knew a tree could turn a city into such madness? More on that later though--I have to start with last Saturday first.

I went to see Bye Bye Birdie as I mentioned before. Although not the best Broadway show I’ve seen, I didn’t think it was as terrible as I was worried it might be. John Stamos was a little questionable as Albert at times, maybe just because he was trying to be a little too Dick Van Dyke-esque, and not too many people can pull that off successfully. I thought he had a decent singing voice though, unlike Gina Gershon (Rosie) who just about killed any good feelings I had for the show. And guess who was in the audience that night?? Aunt Becky! Aka Lori Loughlin… John Stamos auctioned off his glasses from the show, and to up the bids, he threw in a chance to meet “Uncle Jesse and Aunt Becky” after the show. Haha! When I got out of the theater, I found out I had a voicemail from the Tyra Show saying they wanted me on as a guest for the show!! Crazy, eh? It ended up not working out, but oh well, life goes on…

Sunday was UCB once again. Amy Poehler and Jason Sudekis were there, but no one too excitingly new. I sat by the monologist again—Nick Crawl I think?? He was funny. The show was funny. Another humorous Sunday night...ah, how I will miss them.

Skip ahead to Wednesday, which was the Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting! …possibly one of the most ridiculous things I’ve decided to do during my time here. I figured I’d just “stop by” after work and check it out, not realizing how insane it was going to be. The police kept directing the mobs of people in circles, and I was about to give up, but I got shuffled along in a giant crowd somewhere near the tree. I couldn’t see the tree though because we were by a building which was blocking our view. There was a lot of:

“Can you see the tree?”

“No, can YOU see the tree?”

“No, but I can see the TV Screen!”

“You can? Where? Where?!”

“Wait, I think I can hear screams.”

"Oh, the concert must be starting soon!"

I know, how very exciting… why didn’t I go home at that point? Because I was pretty much STUCK. We were packed in like cattle, cattle in the POURING RAIN, I should add. I had an umbrella, but as soon as the concert started, the crowd got very angry at anyone who tried to put their umbrellas up because it blocked their views of the giant TV screen. Why were all these people standing in the rain watching a TV screen that they could watch from their warm and dry homes? Because New Yorkers are CRAZY, that’s why!

Someone near me eventually broke through a metal barrier though, and I followed the crowd that flooded through it. We got to stand in an area that had been blocked off, and we could see the tree from there! Mission accomplished! However, we were packed even tighter then…I could not move even an inch, and it was a little hard to breathe at times. Soon after we were “settled” in our new location, I climbed onto one of the metal barriers to see if I could get a better look, and I ended up getting stuck up there because my spot got filled, and I couldn’t get back down. It was kind of uncomfortable to stay perched on that thing for over an hour, but the crowd inadvertently helped out because they were packed so tight that they pinned my legs against the barrier so I didn’t have to hold myself up. Um...thanks everyone??

But the best part was that I could actually see the stage from my “perch.” While I was up there, I got to see the Rockettes, Aretha Franklin, and Michael Buble perform. As soon as I announced that I could see the stage, people around me were like “YOU CAN?? Take a picture for me please!!” So I took lots of pictures for all the people around me. It’s strange how much you can bond with complete strangers when you’re mashed up against each other awkwardly, all trying to reach the same goal—to see the great and almighty Christmas tree! My section of the crowd even took to breaking out into random Christmas songs during commercial breaks. It reminded me of the end of "Elf." I got a picture of the cattle crowd of people behind me while I was up there so you can get an idea of what it was like:

a small portion of the "herd"

Eventually, after a couple hours of waiting, they lit that crazy thing...and the peasants rejoiced! I got a video of the glorious moment we all waited for:

So was it all worth it for that? Well, I don’t think I’d do it again. At times it was fairly miserable, and I’m pretty sure I looked like a drowned rat when I was walking home, but hey, it was another one of those “once-in-a-lifetime” experiences.

Thursday, I went to a poetry/theater performance called “Hello Failure,” which was published by UDP. I LOVED it. Funny, enlightening, interesting...definitely one of my two favorite pieces by UDP. I almost didn’t make the trek out to Brooklyn for it, but I’m glad I did! On the way back, since it was a nice night, I decided to cross the Brooklyn Bridge again.

Well, that's all for now. May your Christmas seasons be a bit calmer and less...tourist-filled than mine ;-)