Day 440

I'm pretty sure that every day is going to be jam-packed with AWESOME!

Yesterday Kimmy and I stayed with Nick at his place in New Jersey.  The floor was significantly more comfortable than I would have imagined.  For breakfast Kimmy had the rest of her Subway sandwich (at the time I'd suggested that it's worth the money to buy a foot long and save the other half for left-overs).  After we got a decent idea of what was going on we left for New York!  It was only an hour and a half to our bed and breakfast.  An hour and a half... and $17 in tolls.  Just crossing the bridge cost $12.  It was dumb.

We got to our B&B at noon and after being a little confused on how to get in we got a tour.  It was confusing because there was a little sun room/covered patio at the front of the house and it was unlocked.  I knocked (and didn't see a doorbell) but no one answered.  We walked into the sun room and knocked on the other door.  No one answered.  Then we walked inside the house and called for someone... eventually the lady came in the front door behind us.  Thankfully she wasn't offended or anything by our being confused.  The lady in charge is really really nice.

Here is a picture of our room!  And we're allowed to use the refrigerator to keep our food cold.

After we got all situated and got a plan together we set off for the Staten Island ferry.  Parking is free on Sunday and the ferry is always free!  That was nice.  I also learned just how fantastic Google Maps is.  When we got off the ferry I pulled Google Maps up on my phone and searched for directions from the ferry to the Museum of Modern Art, via public transit.  It gave walking directions to the Subway station, it told us which subway to take (and in what direction), then told us what to do after we got off.  It even gave us options depending on when we were leaving.  It was great.

We found the museum, but it was 4:30 when we got there.  And it closes at 5:30.  It seemed silly to pay $13 per ticket for an hour of museum, so we opted to come back some other time.  There was a little gift shop across the street where we bought a couple souvenirs.  Kimmy got a sleep-mask (is that actually a souvenir?) and we got a deck of cards that has a map of New York City on it!  We're going to put all the cards together and put them in a frame. It will look awesome.

We had a couple hours to kill before our next event, so we found a little pizza place.  They had a menu, but basically you just went to the counter and pointed at what you wanted (because it was very loud and English was not the primary spoken language).  It was cheap though. We payed more to get across the bridge on the toll road than we did for dinner.

And there's dinner!

We still had another hour, so we went to Central Park for a little bit.  Even though it was really hot (and it had been all day) it was nice.  We walked around for a bit, then watched a softball game.  I thought it was really cool that there were so many people doing all sorts of things.  There was a huge playground, lots of walking paths, benches and rocks to sit on, a baseball diamond, lots of trees... and we only saw a small portion of it.

It was cool to be able to just go to a park and see a softball game!

We left the park and then went to Radio City Theater to see Cirque du Soleil: Zarkana!  Ahhhhhh!   It was so cool!  We got a little confused at the beginning because we'd purchased tickets beforehand but since we didn't have a printer we opted to just pick them up at the ticket booth.  There was a line for people who had their tickets, but (as we learned) not for people who had purchased tickets but opted to pick them up at the booth.  But we figured it out.  The people there were very good at directing traffic and knew how to efficiently handle thousands of people.  It was really helpful because I was feeling pretty overwhelmed.  But we made it!

It was a lot of fun.  It was about 90 minutes long and there were so many acts, but it was great.  My favorite acts were the juggling, the Ultimo-Hula Hoops, and the Guy Who Was Super-Gymnast.  Expert Jugglers have always fascinated me because I understand the basics of juggling (and can juggle a little bit), so when I see someone who is really good I can only imagine how difficult it is for them to do these ridiculous feats.  For some of the other things... it's so outlandish that I can't even fathom how hard it is.  It's not tangible enough for me to think about it even being possible.  Like the guy who was jumping rope on this huge rotating device.  It looked like an hour-glass that was rotating... but each of the sand glass things was a circle.  So he was on the outside of the circle jumping rope.  It's hard to explain.  But something like that is just too crazy for me to begin to understand it.  And the fact that he tripped twice but kept trying it!  He was easily 100 feet in the air (and I didn't see a harness or anything) but he kept trying it.  The music was great, there was a perfect mix of astonishing and funny acts, the lighting was perfect.  I think that's what I'd always imagined about Cirque du Soleil: immaculate attention to detail.  Every detail.  The stage would have looked fine if it was plain wood... but it wasn't.  It had elaborate designs on it.  Doing a one-handed handstand is impressive... but he had to be tilting to the side AND taking his shirt off.  While keeping his feet pointed.  Every detail mattered.  And even though there were lots of scenes where there were people dancing or whatever in the background and I wasn't focusing on them, it was important that they were there because it would have looked empty if no one was there.  And the peripheral visual stimulus was necessary for this perfection they were seeking.  And in my opinion... they did it.  My only regret was not reading the story beforehand.  But that in no way detracted from my experience.   A++ would see again.

It was raining when we left, but only a little bit.  We got to our subway... but I got confused and picked the wrong way.  I figured we could just ride it to the end and then head back.  But then I realized how long it would be... so Kimmy figured out how to get on another subway and we went in the right direction.  Then took the ferry home.  It was a long, hot day... but it was so much fun.