A trip to NYC with Ames

In the past few weeks, I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with my girlfriend Amy. The two of us are extremely busy, so it gets to be a lot of fun when we find the time to get together. Not that it is all that tough to find time, so much as for the two of us to decide what to do with it. The two of us are quite possibly the least decisive people on the planet, which makes finding things to do practically impossible. However, one day within the last couple weeks, Ames says to me, “would you want to go see the “Lion King?” I thought about it and said that I had wanted to go see it eventually. And she said that she had gotten us tickets to the show on Broadway. It was an interesting experience, knowing what we were going to do before we did it. So I couldn’t wait.

We decided that the best way to get there would be to drive, since it cost about a billion dollars to take the train and it wasn’t a guarantee that we would get the times we wanted. So we drove. Although the drive wasn’t nearly as uninteresting as all that made it sound. In fact, the drive there was half the fun. You see, neither Amy nor I had ever driven to or through New York City and it was strange to be driving as we got closer, but the adventure actually started before we left Rhode Island. The two of us, who have both driven through that little Ocean State many…many times could not navigate ourselves past Newport.

So the two of us travelers eventually left Rhode Island and made our way through Connecticut. All the while we were just talking and laughing and singing. It was a good day just in the car before we even got to where we were heading. And once we got there, and kept driving down the same road forever looking for parking. Eventually we found a place to park and eventually agreed that paying 40 bucks for parking was still better than 250 dollars to take the train or 100 to take a bus.

So then we went and got food at Applebee’s which was delicious, but the staff was, let us say…a little off. There was very little service speed and when they were around they were making fun of each other without any respect for the customers…It was pretty funny. Amy and I decided that even though it was before noon, it was ok to order a Long Island Iced Tea just because it was like trying the native customs. And I have to tell you, that even at noon, Applebee’s on 42^nd Street makes a frickin ridiculous Long Island. Saying that I couldn’t drink the whole thing would be an understatement. I barely finished one third. It tasted like vodka mixed with tequila and gasoline, and looked like a glass of water with a yellow tint. The entire thing was quite overwhelming.

After lunch we went to the show and entered the building. The play was in the New Amsterdam Theatre, which was so amazing. The artistry and carvings in the wood, the bronze and gold were so intricate. The entire auditorium was designed to look somewhat like a wooden theme and painted with likenesses of nymphs and gods. Downstairs, near the bathrooms there was a rotunda that was painted in various scenes of New York and American history. It was beautiful.

The show itself was absolutely stunning. There was so much to look at that it was hard to stay on top of what was going on. The costumes were amazing. It was like watching the movie of the Lion King without that pesky Jonathan Taylor Thomas. The entire play was adapted to be a more African experience and all the actors, except Scar, Zazu, Timon and Pumbaa were black. The changes were done so well. The animals were all part human and part the animal they were supposed to be. There were elephants in the aisles and some ram-type things in the balconies at the beginning and the animals were so close to me and Ames (who were sitting on an aisle) that they would brush my shoulder as they passed. We were re-freaking-diculously close, too. We were 6 rows back from the stage and on the aisle!? (did I mention we paid 25 bucks each for the tickets?!) I mean, it was just too cool to be true.

During the show I felt like I was one of the little kids that were pointing at every animal saying, “did you see that?” or “look at that elephant.” Ames and I were pointing things out like that all night. It was like being a little boy at the circus. The show was awesome and we had a lot of fun.

Afterwards, we went to take a walk…and walk we did. We must have walked over 20 blocks from the theater and into Times Square and around St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We walked everywhere and were going to try to find “Ground Zero” but a) we had no idea where it was, b) we had no idea where we were going, c) we were cold, and d) it was getting really dark. So we turned back and got the car out of the lot, but immediately fell back into our “bad at reading directions” phase and took a left out of the parking lot instead of the right we were supposed to take. And I know what you are thinking...“so you just turned around and headed back, right?” WRONG!

You see, New York City is arranged such that turning is Illegal. (Which is stupid as hell!!) But it turns out that this is how you think when you root for Knickerbockers and Metropolitans. After all the driving and eventually turning around and then getting through some New York traffic and even worse some Connecticut traffic. We finally returned to Rhode Island and Newport.

It was a great trip and a whole lot of fun. I guess my point is that any time spent with Amy is a lot more fun than time spent elsewhere. I was stuck in traffic, going the wrong way, paying 50 dollars for lunch and a drink I never finished, sitting through a long play (awesome but long), walking until my feet hurt, being told I can’t turn around because I’m not a bus….

And because I was with Amy Lee, it was ALL the best part of the trip.

So, until I feel another episode of sappiness come on….