Up early. Martial arts starts at 9:30 am on Thursdays. Weather was mild, but still, I had left my gloves at the University and carrying my bag to school was a cold endeavour. I made it there, and in little time I was in the gym. Practice practice practice, and I was in the classroom. Learn learn learn, and I was in the cafeteria. Munch munch munch, and I was on the bus.
6:00 pm. Most of my classmates returned for another lecture. Me and one other classmate hopped on the bus. The bus was only half full which would save us for the ride. It would give us a little space to try and sleep. We were on the road and on the way south.
It did not take long to reach the border, and overall we had no issues getting through. Two people on our bus were from France and took slightly longer to get through but it did not take long. The Fredericton bus had more issues. I was very fortunate to be sitting with some lovely ladies, one kindergarten teacher and one guidance counselor, who humoured my by inviting me to play a round of scrabble... I think I got dead last, but I swear I gave those two a run for their money! Throughout the trip their banter was most amusing and uplifiting.
Scrabble and Results
We continued on and stopped... somewhere. Our longest stop at at about 4 am and after we all wandered around a bit we just waited... and waited... and waited. Two things held us back. One, we were waiting for the bust from Fredericton, which had been detained at the border, and two, we were too close to New York. If we pulled in that early nothing would be open.
The Fredericton bus eventually made it, but it made it missing one passenger. Some poor soul paid to go to Halifax to get a US visa, but was turned back at the border. There goes $500 for a trip to just look at US soil. Oh well. The rest of us were together an on the way to New York.
As a side note, I would recommend never going on an overnight bus trip... ever.
So after about a zillion (at least) hours on the bus we made it to New York. Not only did we make it to New York, but we made it to New York many hours ahead of schedule. So many that we got an entire half day out of the trip... sooooo... 9ish am we rolled in.
Statue of Liberty
For those of you who have not seen New York, it is impressive. There are a great many very tall buildings, mind you, it looks much bigger on TV, but it was still impressive. Bearing in mind that New York tends to be rather busy and that this was a long weekend we hopped on a subway first thing and went downtown to the Staten Island Ferry. We took our pictures along the way, but most of the pictures happened when we were floating somewhere between Staten Island and Manhattan. From there we had a clear view of the Statue of Liberty. I would like to go see the Statue up close one day, but the lines were enormous and it would have taken hours. The Staten Island Ferry would do for now. We got to the Island and on the advice of well... everyone... we turned back. We did walk around a little, but not much. Back to Manhattan.
After getting off of the ferry we went to a museum about Native Americans. The museum was good, but it doesn't touch Head Smashed In. Being downtown it was not hard for us to walk to Wall Street. It is after all pretty famous so we wandered around a bit. We found some grub, and we continued to the site of the World Trade Center. Not much to see now, but it is the idea that counts. You can look up and imagine the twin towers that stood there before 9/11. There is an interpretive centre thing, but we opted out of entering for the time being. There is also construction occurring on the site. I do not know the details, but they are building a much better trade center there then the one before.
Wall Street
NYSE
Construction on the New Trade Center
We left Lower Manhattan on a train and made it back to Times Square. We had it in our minds to see a Broadway show. The issue was that tickets were sorta hard to come by. We had been told of a place called TKTS in Times Square where we could line up to get tickets, so that is where we headed and that is where we did. We did not know which show to see at first, but people in and around the line were talking about all of the shows and all that I could tell was that if they were on Broadway they were probably pretty good. We were in line for about an hour and a half and then at the counter. It was a very high speed operation and the pressure was on to know which shows you wanted. We wanted to see Chicago, but tickets were $120 a seat, so we threw out the name of another show that we had heard about in the line called Memphis. $80 a person and the seats were ours.
Being in line for such a long time kind of messed up the schedule. At 4 pm on Fridays the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) has free admissions. That in mind we hoofed our way there. I was also supposed to meet a childhood/adolescence/teenagehood friend who was now living in New York. We aimed to meet at MOMA. This was all good and fine except for two things. One, it was Easter weekend, and two, evidently it was not a secret that MOMA had free admissions. Without and exaggeration I believe that line was over a kilometre long.
Seeing this the plans changed. My friend and I opted to skip out on MOMA and to go for a walk. She took me through central park as we caught up, and showed me some of the sights, including Juilliard. Knowing that time was short we headed down 8th Ave and back towards Times Square. On the way there we found a little "hole in the wall" restaurant and sat down for an enjoyable meal. Very enjoyable. Like, amazing actually... wait wait... not "like" amazing... just... amazing.
We said our good-byes and I was on my way to Broadway. I made it there, found my travelling companions and we were corralled into the theater and towards our seats.
Memphis
Memphis. I did not know anything about it at the time, but it was a spectacular show. All of the actors were flawless in their performances with the singing and the dancing and the emoting and just everything. It was a show about a time when blacks stuck with blacks and whites stuck with whites. The protagonist Huey wanted to bring the black music to the whole world, and it was something he managed to do. I am not an expert on musicals, or on reviewing anything, but if you get the chance, Memphis is a show worth seeing.
Right as the show wrapped up we were on our feet, out the door, and on the way to the bus. We did not have much time, but we had just enough. In the bus, on the way out of New York, into Jersey, into the Hotel, the bed, and sleep...
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