Day Three: Times Square & BROADWAY!

Since I first heard of Broadway in NY and West End in London, it's been a bucket list dream of mine to see a show on both. I can't do too much about the West End part of that dream at the moment, but today, we did Broadway - twice! SO so so worth being a line on the bucket list :)

I had always thought that Broadway was a street in NY with all the theatres on it. It's not quite like that. Broadway is a really long street that pretty much runs the entire length (north to south, on the West side) of Manhattan. In fact, Brecken & Justin live on a street just off Broadway, but up on the upper west side. Broadway - as in where all the theatres are - seems to be more a standard, than a location, as lots and lots of the theatres are actually not ON Broadway.

But the theatre district is down in/around Times Square, and some of the theatres really are on the street called Broadway.

SO. We went down to Times Square at about 8:30am this morning, to make sure we were the box offices first up. They have a limited number of tickets that they always sell for cheaper on the day of a performance, and we thought that would be the best way to buy the tickets for today's shows. We had decided to see the play 'Lend me a Tenor' at 2pm, and then the musical 'Mary Poppins' at 8pm. We went to the theatres and purchased the tickets, and then we spent some time walking up and down times Square.

I LOVE Times Square! Really, really, really loved it. The energy and the sheer size of the place is really overwhelming. And for someone who loves to watch and read and analyze advertising - I was in heaven :) It got just a tiny bit overcast as we were taking these photos. I was trying to fix my hair before the photo, and I thought the photos Brecken took made a funny sequence :)























I also saw Samuel L Jackson, and had a nice chat with him too, so that was fun. I usually don't post photos of my side profile, but thought I'd better make an exception this time, so you could all have the chance to meet him too....














After a couple of hours there, we headed back to the upper west side to drop Reuben and Simeon at some friends house, so that Justin, Brecken and I could head back to see Lend me a tenor. Check it out quickly on this link if you have a second. This play was absolutely perfectly executed, and one of the funniest things I have ever seen. It was directed by Stanley Tucci, and it had his signature all over it. It was staring Anthony Lapaglia; the guy who plays Monk in 'Monk'; and the guy who was the sidekick in National Treasure (they all have real names and have done other things, but that's how you guys will all know them). The physical humour was really impressive, and the comedic timing was spot on - every single time. LOVED it, loved it, loved it. We laughed out loud for the entire 2 hours. It was a farce, so lots of doors opening and closing and people hid in closets and exited out one door as the person chasing them appeared through another etc. It had mistaken identity with confusion reigning, and an absolutely hilarious crazy angry Italian wife. So if any of you are out here for any reason during the next several months - go and see it!



Then we went back and picked up the boys so Brecken could feed Simeon. Justin took the boys home from there, and Brecken and I headed out for dinner and our evening show. It was so much fun to have some girl time with her, and I think we both really enjoyed it.

We went first to Care Lalo - the cafe from You've Got Mail. When we saw it the other day, I knew I would never be able to leave NY until we'd eaten there at night time :) We went in and took our seats, and spent at least 5 minutes admiring the cuteness of the store and the extensiveness of the deserts on display (we reckon there were at least 20-30 different cakes/pies). Then we opened the menu and looked for what we wanted to eat. We spent about 5-6 minutes looking through the menu, and everything looked 'wonderful', but nothing was actually jumping off the page at us - that's when we both suddenly realized that it was vegetarian restaurant! Nothing on the menu had any meat in it, which is why nothing was jumping out at either of us - haha! We had a good laugh when we realized, and then decided to order a spinach torte with a Mediterranean vegetable salad, and homemade guacamole and corn chips to share. Despite the fact that it was vegetarian place (lol!), we LOVED dinner. Everything was SO yummy and just crammed full of delicious flavours. We actually ran out of time for dessert, but dinner had been so great it wasn't a problem.







That last photo was actually taken by a guy in the building across the street who'd seen us taking photos of each other, and thought we might like a photo together - nice of him, huh?! :)

Then off we went to Mary Poppins - it was really wonderful. We'd picked this one because I wanted to have the chance to see a Broadway musical with the 'magic' of Broadway. Phantom, Cats, West Side Story and lots of other classics are playing, but I've seen them before (never here of course, but still), and thought it would be fun to see something else. Everyone in the show was fabulous, but that real star of the show would have to have been the sets. The house moved and changed and had secret magic tricks I still can't figure out (ie. Mary Poppins pulling everything out of her bag, etc.), and Bert walked upside down on the ceiling, and Mary Poppins flew through the air (ask mum & dad about it - they've seen it too). It was great :) Big grins on faces as we left.

So that was Broadway/Time Square day. I think you'll have to watch this space though, because there's another 'Broadway/Time Square/2 shows in one day' day coming up again next week! hahaha!

I'm addicted. *Happy sigh*

LOVE YOU ALL LOTS!
xo Tammy