New York, New York -- December 2002: Day 1 & 2

It turns out we could not stay away from New York for very long.  After scoring a deal for a ridiculous $150 per night stay at the posh Soho Grand Hotel, we decided to also catch Baz Lurhmann's production of La
bohème on Broadway.  We drove this time (after the train sat in Connecticut for an hour last time, we realized driving and training would be faster and cheaper).  We got there right around check in time only to encounter the wait from hell. Never, in all my life, has it taken me TWO HOURS to check into a hotel.  I think they were overbooked or something.  They started to hand out champagne in the lobby and I started to worry we were going to be late for our pre-show dinner.  When we finally got our room, it was small, but very tasteful and nice.  This was also the first time I saw a mini-bar with $8 Gummi Bears.  Come to think of it, this may have been my first mini-bar!  I don't quite know what I was thinking, but we didn't have reservations to any restaurant and after making some calls, we settled on Limoncello (now closed but replaced by the well-received Insieme).  It was a fast italian meal in a generically nice setting.  It was pretty good, but more planning would be smarter for next time.

Luckily, we got to La bohème on time.  I had never seen an opera before and this was a good introduction.  The stage set was very similar to the set of the movie Moulin Rouge.  It was the story and music of La bohème, but set in 1930's Paris.  It was funny to see the similarities between the plot and characters of Rent and this show. The show was beautiful and moving and I would love to see another opera.

Upon leaving the theater, we ran into Richard Schiff (again).  This was starting to creep us out, but luckily he doesn't notice us (ha!) and think we're stalkers.  We returned to the hotel and found the lobby and coffee lounge turned into a nightclub with DJs and $8 martinis.  We hung out for a while and people-watched.  The guy next to us was drinking Cristal and draped with women, but he did not look familiar to me.  I felt like we were going to get sent back to our rooms for being so uncool (I was wearing a $30 cardigan sweater from Petite Sophisticate for crying out loud!) but we managed to get sufficiently tipsy before sneaking away.

The next morning, we set off at 9 to roam the streets of Soho in search of some good eats.  We realized that everyone must sleep late on the weekends in Soho and nothing was open.  We ended up with blah bagels at a corner shop and headed to the Whitney Museum of American Art via bus (3, to be exact).  Soho was empty, but the museum wasn 't.  We took the elevator to the top of the museum and worked our way down.  They had a solid modern art collection with some Andy Warhol's and Jasper John's.  The special exhibit featuring "The Quilts of Gee's Bend" really stood out to us, however.  It was a collection of quilts made in a poor, rural Alabama, but many of them had spectacular, modern compositions.  It made me look at quilts in a different way.

After the museum, we went back down to Soho to check-out and grab some lunch.  I had a wonderful veggie sandwhich at Anita's.  The restaurant was empty, which I was beining to think we par for the course in Soho.  We then did some shopping on Broadway at funky Yellow Rat Bastard, where I scored a cool Paul Frank t-shirt, and Pearl River, where they sold every Asian import item imaginable, from dishes to clothes, food, and art.  After we had sufficiently shopped, we jumped in the car to head back home!