We had a relaxed start to the day after all of yesterday’s terrible earliness. Like all good cities that have tourists, Montreal has a hop on hop off bus – though this is more of a “if you can find it” endeavour, the complete opposite of New York where there are people on every street corner trying to sell you a ticket.

Matter a bit of wandering around, managing to take every road that didn’t have a cafe on it, the first place we found was Maccas, so, Maccas brekky it is. Then, ten steps away, what do we see but four or five other cafes. Anyway, we chose not to enjoy this particular treat:

Today the weather is beautiful and sunny, with a top of 21 degrees.

Eventually we did find the hop-on-hop-off bus, and off we went for a ride around town. Learnt a few interesting things – like at one of the big parks, in winter they line the edge of it with huge hay bales. Otherwise, when there’s 6 feet of snow, it’s far too easy to slip down the slope at the edge of the park and slide right into the oncoming traffic … not a problem we have in Sydney as such. We saw lots of nice old buildings, the 1976 Olympic standing (from a distance), and other stuff where it’s much easier to just show rather than tell:

We did a loop of the whole bus route, left the bus slightly embarrassed that we had no cash to tip the drivers or commentator, then got back on a new bus to stop for a quick walk around the gay village. It was a village, it was at least a bit gay, we stopped off for lunch, made the cardinal sin of not trying to speak French first, and got the “Oh… English … OK…” eye roll from the staff. 🙂 Delicious Panini and salad though.

We hopped on, we hopped off, that has been about it. Feeling a bit sunburnt even though I did Slip Slop Slap.

It was election day today in Canada. It’s not mandatory, and polls are open from 8:30am to 8:30pm. Not a democracy sausage in sight though, they really don’t know what they’re missing! But what they did have was lots of peace and no drama, I guess there’ll be nobody trying to storm parliament in a few weeks either.

For dinner we went out to a nearby Ramen joint, Kinton Ramen, with some spicy chicken karaage which killed my tastebuds for a while, some tasty gyoza, and some delicious Ramen. Really nice!

After dinner, because we’re a young wild and crazy couple of people, we … went back to the room and watched the election results broadcast on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. I guess we won’t get a chance to watch the Australian results live, so this’ll have to do in the meantime 😀 A very different kind of show compared to what we’ve seeing in the last 8 or 9 days. It’s funny though when they say “…and that’s the results from Labrador and Newfoundland”. I was hoping next we were maybe going to hear from Corgi and Spaniel, but no.

It doesn’t feel like we did much today, but checking the watch tonight shows we’ve walked about 5km, so not too bad.

What other random details can I tell you? Traffic lights flash green before they go orange. Not many drivers use their horn, it’s very quiet compared to New York and Boston. However both cities have the same regard for red lights, seeing them as a vague suggestion rather than a command. But unlike Sydney all drivers are much more pedestrian-friendly. It’s a nice place, looking forward to exploring more of it tomorrow.

It was 4am. Dark. Cold. Tendrils of steam curled up from 42nd street, like the fingers of a Broadway ghost reaching for once last turn on the stage. Buildings flashed red and blue from police cars speeding by. It’s the city that never sleeps. And I almost knew how it felt.

OK never mind me trying to write the opener to a 1950s film noir. We had to leave for the airport at 5:00am, so up at about 4, we didn’t get home from last night’s show until almost 11pm, so – yeah, I may be no maths expert but I know five hours of sleep sucks.

One thing about New York City, it’s no bother catching an uber at 5am, there are still plenty around and we had our car sorted in about 3 minutes. Expensive way to get to the airport, but that time of the morning, it was worth it for it being so simple.

They’ve completely built LaGuardia airport since we last there in 2013 – and the dirt and dinginess and cramped-ness is gone, replaced with a soaring, sprawling, shiny complex of buildings that was a pretty nice place to hang around in. We checked the luggage in, and went to the American Airlines lounge. I made a bee-line for the coffee machine, and for a machine it did an excellent cup. Not that it did much to wake me up. Something I’d never seen in airport lounge before – built in video games! No I didn’t bother playing them in my half-asleep state.

The lounge was positioned basically over a number of departure gates. So even though it took forever to get to the lounge, getting to the gate afterwards was very straightforward.

They had a good selection of food, I had some yoghourt, and they had everything you need for a delicious bagel – bagels (duh), cream cheese, smoke salmon, red onion and capers. Delish!

Before all that long it was time to board our flight, on a little Embraer plane that had one row of seating on one side, and two on the other, that was it. Sure passes the vibe-check when it came to legroom though.

The flight attendant was closing hte overhead bins with such ferocity I thought we may be in for a bumpy ride in more way than one, but no she was lovely and chatty – just very very good at closing an overhead bin and making sure it stays closed,

The flight was pretty short, only an hour an half, mind you I was only awake for takeoff (yeah I fell asleep during taxiing as usual), then woke up when I was served my in-flight meal (just kidding, it was an apple juice and a oat-based kind of protein ball), and didn’t wake up again til I felt the gentle thud of wheels on tarmac as we arrived in cold and rainy Montreal, Canada… and out of the USA and away from all the political craziness and concern.

Anyway. Hello Canada. ‘Til this point we’d been so lucky with he weather – yesterday was our first bit of rain int he whole trip, but not much. When we landed, Montreal was really turning it on. We made our long way through to customs and immigration, which was mostly automated and very fast, then a brief chat to talk about the few wooden items in the suitcase that we declared, then we were all done. The airport was practically empty, so that was a pretty easy journey.

We bought a bus ticket that takes you into town, and after some pretty average signage, found the bus stop just in time for the bus to arrive, Perfect! It’s bus number 747, which is cute, and it got us a bit less than a kilometre away from our destination in downtown Montreal.

I love the instructions at the bus shelter while we were waiting.

Very important step #2 – say hello to your driver. We made sure to follow step 2 as he very clearly did not want us to follow step 1 (tap your bus ticket on the reader). I don’t know why. Because French? Regardless, after about 30 mins waiting we were where we wanted to be, and hopped off the bus at Rene Levesque / Union. One thing we have learned about this part of Montreal as we walked to our accommodation. There is not one single awning the whole way to stop a single drop of rain from hitting you. Not one. Luckily it wasn’t that heavy, and also luckily the accommodation has a good sized lobby – more to the point, a warm and dry lobby, in which we could wait for 90 minutes until our 1pm check-in time (that I am extremely grateful we paid a little extra for rather than waiting for the standard 3pm).

At first it looked like every shop and cafe was closed – but before long we found one that was (a) open and (b) accepted card payment, coz we didn’t bring a cent of Canadian cash with us. So I ended up a very nice cafe, ‘49th Parallel Coffee Roasters’ – as soon as I saw Flat White on the menu I knew I was in safe hands. I grabbed a coffee and two donuts (to share!) while we waited out or time for the room to be available.

Perry then found there’s an IGA nearby (really!) and went out to buy a few things and before we knew it the room was ready.

It’s more a studio apartment, so quite spacious, and it has one of those travellers-holy-grail things, a washing machine and a dryer, which is great. Really nice looking place.

Now, you can take us boys out of New York but etc etc – there’s still a show to see tonight. So up we walked to Place Des Arts to check it out. On the way though, this sign sure was confusing. Which city are we in again?

On the way up to the show we stopped for dinner at a very exclusive boutique restaurant called A&W – yep an American fast food chain, for some damn nice burgers ‘n’ chips – and extra points for presentation coz would you just look at that!

Here’s the place

Here’s the show and its people

And here’s the theatre – big, and kinda pretty for a relatively modern one.

I won’t say much about the show though coz I don’t want to be one of people in its title. And we’ve just been spoiled with a week and a bit of full-on broadway productions.

Montreal is a very French-first city being in Quebec and all, but so far we’re getting by with Bonjour/Bonsoir and Merci – well that, and the fact that everybody can speak English.

So this very long day is drawing to a close, time to catch up on a bunch of lost sleep, then see what the lovely city of Montreal has to offer. Goodmnight, fais de beaux rêves! (And yes I googled that 😉

The day started very abruptly, with our new non favourite thing – a fire alarm. Luckily this was around 8am. It went off a few more times intermittently, before an announcement an hour later stating they had found the source of the alarm and there’s nothing to worry about. A bit after that I popped out to the local Bluestone Lane for coffee then back to the hotel. I think New York is starting to take its toll – even after the coffee I’m still exhausted. It’s a drizzly day today – our first in this whole trip, so maybe that is not adding to the motivation to get outside just yet. We’re both just really tired. And the thought of a stupid-early start tomorrow does not currently spark joy 😀

I do t have much to show today so here’s a photo of an interesting building we can see from the hotel.

Today we had a matinee – The Great Gatsby, with Sarah Hyland (of Modern Family fame). Very happy to say that this is by no means a bit of “stunt casting” – she’s a great singer in addition to being an accomplished actor. The show itself has some small echoes of Moulin Rouge in so far as “more is more” – it starts with some spectacular numbers, featuring incredible gold sparkling 1920s costumes. The production is sumptuous, lavishly luxurious – and one point a whole large rolls Royce (or two) drive around the stage. Great dancing, including some tap, and even though I know nothing about lighting design the way they made some of those spectacular costumes glimmer and shine and glow was nothing short of amazing. All that and some pyrotechnics too – a maximalist approach st its finest. The second half maybe slowed and flagged just a bit, but I guess that’s down to the source material. Still a fantastic show, brilliantly produced, really enjoyed it.

After that it was time for a late lunch or early dinner at Olive Harden, because why not. And also because it was delicious. Our waiter had been to melbourne once so regaled us with his best “cheers mate!” at every opportunity 🙂

After that, real life intrudes, as it was time to get back to the room and start packing up our home of the last 7 or so days. We haven’t really bought much so it wasn’t too difficult – surprisingly most shows now don’t even offer programs, so we have a lot less of those than we thought we would. We’re still leaving with a respectable stack of Playbills though.

Tonight’s show was “Pirates! The Penzance Musical” – with David Hyde Pierce and Jinkx Monsoon. It’s been only slightly modified, and set in New York because … reasons? It now also features the characters of Gilbert and Sullivan themselves. But not to worry, it all works so well. Jinkx is just brilliant as always, as is David Hyde Pierce, who can do “I am the very model of a modern major general” at 100 miles an hour without batting an eyelid.

I’m writing this at interval on my phone coz I’m not doing my usual job of updating the blog before going to bed. Reason is, we’re up at about 4am tomorrow to get out of here (aww) and fly on to our next destination(yay!), so I’m gonna need every minute of that very short sleep that I can get. This also means even less proofreading than usual so apologies for all the bits that make no sense 🙂

See you tomorrow in another country. Goodnight!

Today, we had a tour at 10:00, way downtown, toward the bottom end of Manhattan. So we hopped on the 2 train down to Fulton St. You know you’re very downtown if you get to the bit where the streets don’t have numbers yet. I guess Manhattan is bigger than it looks, it kinda felt like the train should have already careered off past the bottom of the island while we were still going along, but no, everything and everyone was where they needed to be.

We had time for breakfast and was happy to wander into Zuckers Bagles & Smoked Fish for … a bagel with smoked salmon, cream cheese, tomato, a few other things – delish!! I also popped in to a Krispy Kreme kiosk just to get an iced coffee and met a very strange phenomenon – they’re not allowed to accept tips, weird! I hope they get paid a bit better as a result.

The little tour we were on was called the NYC Underground Subway Walking Tour. It was headed up by this (and I say this in the most extremely positive way) subway nerd who was very keen on the subway, and knew probably everything there is to know about it. He was great, very enthusiastic, New York born and bred, He had us going up to this station, down to that station, regaling us which a bunch of history all of which I had no hope of remembering (maybe that’s a good thing as I would probably have written it all down here!) and even showed us done disused platforms and even some stations that have closed but are still visible as the train goes past.

One of the closed stations we went through was the original, very grand, Grand Central subway station. A station so curved, that once they start putting doors in the middle of subway train carriages, the gap was far too massive for trains to stop there so they ended up shutting it down completely. If you’re lucky you can visit the actual platform, only open 4 days a year I think, we had to be content with a train going past the closed and dark station. The other close station was Worth St. years ago when they made the trains longer to fit more people, they had to make the platforms longer as well of course. One of Worth St’s neighbours expanded southward, the other northward, which made Worth St so close to the others, it no longer lived up to is name and become, well, worthless. But it’s all still there and trains still go by, all you need is a train nerd with a good torch and you can still see it.

The tour lasted about two hours, I really enjoyed it, fair to say the two people on who tour who just talked over everything all the time, maybe didn’t, There’s some in every crowd though, right? Here’s a bunch of train/station pictures.

There was a cool (disclaimer, if you are a nerd, and yes I am a nerd) thing at 14th st, a platform which has a bit of a curve. But they also have a bit of a solution. London just says ‘Mind the Gap’ a lot. New York spent a bunch of money on …. this:

How nifty!

As soon as that tour ended where we started at Fulton St, we were straight back on the train, up to the ‘proper’ Grand Central station further uptown. One little fact about the Subway network – you pay to get in, and then you can go what you like pretty much, with no time limit. So we visited a bunch of stations on the tour, then went up to Grand Central, all for the one $2.90 fee, which is pretty darn good.

Grand Central is as pretty and busy as ever.

We headed up there for our next event, which wasn’t called ‘queue for ages for every little thing’, but perhaps it should have been. It was The Summit Experience, at One Vanderbilt. A chance to get up 93 floors about street level and see the city from a new perspective. We bought our ticket for our time slot, then spent a bit over 30 minutes in a queue in a lovely brightly lit space, to get our tickets checked, get through rather rigorous security, get the obligatory photo taken, get covers to put over our shoes – by this point I was starting to think “well they can get …”, but then we got past that…into something vastly and wildly different – a queue in a dimly lit space, waiting for the lift. TO paraphrase some of their marketing, this amazing experience spans three seperate art concepts. It wasn’t floor 91, 92, 93. It was Air, it was Levitate, it was an immersive art experience that awakens the senses. It challenges. It inspires. It thrills! It clearly had a copywriter with a good budget! Never mind me being cynical, go read all the stuff on the website: https://summitov.com/experience/

There was a floor and ceiling full of mirrors, I’m sorry, there was Air: Transendence 1 which was fun, but everyone’s there for the view out the windows. Fortunately they do give plenty of advance warning to everyone that the floor is mirrored, so they strongly recommend against wearing skirts. I think they even had emergency trousers at the ground floor just in case, which is kind. I guess this is also a long-winded way of saying “I bet this mirror room was designed by a man who probably didn’t think of such things”.

The main bit though, the views. Fantastic. They say you can see for 80 miles and I’d believe it. Being able to look out over New York from every angle is pretty darn cool. Moving on a bit there was an art installation from Yayoi Kusama, but despite that it still felt like a bit of an odd use of the space.

We ventured into the next experience – Air: Affinity 2 – in other words the next floor of mirrors, with some holes so you can see down to the level below.

Having transcended, clearly it was time for Air: Affinity – it was silly, but fun, and all the kids on the room were having a ball. Or many many balls. The room was full of silver balls and powerful fans continually moving them around, because… affinity, y’know? And you could see the incredible views out the windows. It’s relatively close to both the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, so it was great to see those two lovely old ladies of the skyline.

Next up was Air – Queueing Again, er, I mean Levitation – a little glass shelf that juts out over the side of the building, so there’s you, your feet, a slab of glass, and then 90-off floors of nothing between you and the ground. Fortunately for anyone scared of heights this bit was completely optional – and even if you opt in, you only had 30 seconds to take all the photos you could before you were shooed away to let the next person in the queue have a go. But that’s ok, it helped keep the queueing time down.

By this time, according to the blurb on the wall, Summit had denormalized my senses and awakened my primal mind, whereas it felt more like stand in a line, and try to charge $9 for a bottle of water. Our final stop was Apres, and the surprisingly normally named Terrace… which was indeed a Terrace, open to the elements, which ran around the edge of the 93rd floor. We opted not to pay a bunch more to experience Ascent – ie a glass-bottom lift then went up another few floors. But I did choose to experience bathroom – i.e. I went to the loo, where disconcertingly the floor to ceiling windows are still there, open to the world – certainly a loo with a view!

At the exit-through-the-gift-shop stage, we checked the mandatory photos, chose not to cough up $40 for them, and we were on our way…

…to another queue, for the exit lifts to get back down to ground. And another gift shop. I know I’ve been kinda mean about this all, but the long wait times, and the utter silliness with all the descriptions and stuff, it just seemed so unnecessary – the views themselves would be enough, and all the added frippery not needed. And those views really are outstanding – but sorry, I don’t know that I’d recommend this one when you’re next in town. Clearly I am just getting extra cynical in my old age.

After returning to the real world, we caught one of the few trains that goes across Manhattan rather than up and down, the S train that runs along, well under, 42nd street between Broadway and 7th avenue. A short trip, and almost no seats, I guess to move as many people as possible.

Then other exciting things happened – we retrieved the laundry we put in yesterday to get done.

Tonight’s show was The Next Five Years, with Adrienne Warren and a Jonas brother (Nick), at The Hudson Theatre.

We spent a little time in their Ambassador Lounge for a drink, which was a lovely space.

After a delicious lemony gin cocktail, it was time for the show. Here’s my full complete and comprehensive review.

It was boring.

This isn’t just me being in a mood from the the visit to Summit earlier, Perry had the same opinion. Can’t win ‘em all I guess.

Tomorrow, it’s our final day in New York for this trip. Might see a show or two. Surprise! 🙂

This morning, nothing grey about it all, a t-shirt-and-shorts kind of dat. We had coffee and breakfast at a Bluestone Lane cafe – quality coffee, and you can tell they were founded by Australians because they even offer an Iced Milo.

I forgot a detail from Moulin Rouge last night – currently for all the Broadway shows they’re doing some fundraising for an incredible Broadway-based charity the does an awful lot, for an awful lot of people. At the conclusion of Moulin Rouge yesterday, someone came out on stage describing the charity, and they ran a bit of an auction for someone to have a meet and greet with Boy George and a bit of a behind the scenes tour. To cut a long story short, the bidding went up to $7000! And then, the person who was outbid was offered the same thing for another $7000 — so in the blink of an eye they instantly made $14,000 for the charity which was pretty amazing. I dunno though, if you were the person that won it fare and square, would you be at all annoyed that someone had the same even though you outbid them? All for a very good cause, I guess.

Today we set off for a visit to ‘Rise NY’ – a bit of a history of New York told through a number of different spaces – but really I guess it was all a prelude to more of a theme park ride that was a ‘flyover’ over New York City. The different spaces were interesting, a brief history of the subway, radio and television, theatre, fashion, and the like.

The ride itself was, for reasons we might never know, set at minutes to midnight on December 31 1957. While waiting for the ride, we watched a TV broadcast all about it, it was all ‘Happy New Year! 1958!’ And so on and so on. Then we were ushered into the room for the ride itself, strapped in to a seat that was probably even narrow for skinny people. The moment the ride started it was if this room hadn’t talked to the previous one, all the historical stuff pretty much instantly out the window and forgotten. But it was a fun ride – basically a bit long tilting bank of chairs and a massive not-quite=wrap-around video screen, giving us the impression we were flying in, around, or even through the streets of Manhattan. We were so very fortunate so join this ride at the same time a whole school’s worth of teenagers. I mean, teens are gonna teen, but the whole thing just turned into a performative screaming competition which was equal parts to-be-expected and annoying-as-f. The ride was fun enough, anyway. Oh and when the ride propelled us under some firefighting boats and their jets of water, we too were hit with a bit of cold water from a nozzle, to give more of the effect. All good fun. In summation, a little bit silly, would I recommend it? If you can a cheap ticket, yeah I guess. It did fill a chunk of time and even though the history was kinda minimal I did learn a number of things so yeah maybe I’m being a bit harsh in my judgement.

After the ride was done and we exited through the gift shop, I checked my phone and am somewhat proud to report a victory – the Boston hotel, fond of throwing some mystery charges our way, finally agreed that yes that all quite wrong and they will all be refunded. It was a few (polite) emails back and forth, but in the end they did the right thing and I’m very happy about that.

We popped into the Krispy Kreme Times Square to kill a little time, had some of their Cinnamon rolls – they were nice enough but nothin’ compared to Cinnabon.

Next up was the Time Square Steps on top of the TKTS ticket seller. We were waiting here to catch up with one of Perry’s colleagues and a friend who were visiting BY as well. Always nice to meet someone from your part of town a very different part of town.

After that, very exciting things happened – another laundry run and a stop off at Starbucks to grab a drink. A “blackcurrant sage lemonade refresher” – or as I think we call it a home, basically a cold Ribena. 🙂

This was right near the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where buses fly through the air … well kinda.

Dinner was some grab-and-go Stromboli at Famous Famiglia. Don’t worry that sentence would not have made any sense to me either, yesterday. Stromboli is a square of pizza, rolled into a roll. It’s also delicious! We scoffed it down on the side of the footpath one our way to tonight’s show in West 45th Street. I think this particular section of W 45th St, between Broadway and 8th avenue, would have to be the theatre-y-est street imaginable. In this small section of road, there’s theatres shoulder-to-shoulder, showing Smash, The Outsiders, The Buena Vista Social Club, “John Proctor is the villain”, The Lion King, and of course the play we went to see – The Picture of Dorian Gray, at The Music Box Theatre. As you might imagine queueing to get in was a bit of a nightmare, I feel from the staff that have to manage all those crowds every night.

Very soon, we were in, front and centre, gazing up at a blank stage, no backdrop, just a large video screen hanging in the middle. Then, I saw the best play of my life (so far). Dorian Gray was played by Sarah Snook. The artist Basil Hallward was played by Sarah Snook. Basil’s close friend Lord Henry Wotton was played by … Sarah Snook. You get the picture (of Dorian Gray, heh) – Sarah Snook (which I have now learned rhymes with Luke, not Book), somehow, plays all 26 characters in the play. There are times she plays against pre-recorded video of herself, but it’s done cleverly and seamlessly. Props come and go, wigs come and go, a substantial camera crew comes and goes, as the action sometimes take place on stage, sometime on large movable video walls overhead, and often both at the same time. It’s an incredible use of technology yet still fits so well with the book Oscar Wilde released in 1891.

The show runs for 2 hours straight through with no interval – and somehow Sara Snook becomes more and more energetic with each passing minute building up to frenetic pace and a finale that showed who hadn’t read the book – you could tell by the significant number gasps from the audience. All this while going through a tightly choreographed dance (sometimes literally) with the camera crew, even using a phone at one point to project her picture on to the stage, her use of phone filters a modern take on Dorian’s ideas on beauty. Who knew something from 1891 could still be so relevant.

There was one part where it strayed significantly from the book – without too many spoilers it was related to what happens to James Vayne, I don’t know that it was necessary to add extra tension and drama, but if you haven’t read the book I guess it feels like it belongs.

It must be an absolutely exhausting performance, not to mention remembering two hours worth of lines, all the choreography, and yet doing all that and also bringing such significant emotional heft to the whole thing, all while walking the tightrope that is live theatre. Just stunning. It was no wonder that after the conclusion, the crowd, all standing, brought her out for four more bows. (Can one still have a curtain call when there’s no curtain?). To stretch my Masterchef analogy ever more thinly – this dish had one ingredient, and it was perfect.

After the show we had some health food – a delicious Cinnabon cinnamon bun and some (American) lemonade. Practically a salad!

There are three things to do tomorrow, so I’d better go get some proper sleep. Night!

We started the day by heading up to Ellen’s Stardust Diner (no not that Ellen) on the off chance that maybe the queue wasn’t ridiculous. But, sure enough the queue was ridiculous. It’s a cafe where all the staff are theatre performers so they’re always doing Broadway songs through the restaurant, sounded like a bit of fun, but not when there’s an hour (or more) wait.

And while we were walking through Times Square, who did we (almost) bump into, but Nichole Scherzinger, doing a piece to camera, probably promoting Sunset Boulevard (sadly we couldn’t get good tickets for this one so we gave it a miss)

With the Stardust Diner ruled out, guess what’s right across the road? Din Tai Fung! Sweet! Nothing wrong with an early lunch, so in we went, and wow … this was the poshest (and hugest) Din Tai Fung I’d ever seen.

Also I think the priciest – I think the prices in USD were more than we used to pay in AUD. But hey, they also did cocktails.

We were hungry so no food photos, but everything was delicious. After lunch, it wasn’t tooo long til our matinee show. Perry went back to the hotel to change and I took a bit of a wander around this more northern part of midtown – I stumbled upon the massive Louis Vuitton building, which looks kind-of surreal.

Since I was in the neighbourhood it would have been rude not to pop to the 5th Avenue Apple Store just to see how it’s going. At the moment, it’s kinda covered in scaffolding or something to protect it from building work nearby, and they’ve added a bit of colour to the big cube, bit still recognisable as the big glass cube Apple shop.

Inside it was a bit different too – the glass stairs replaced with metal, but the stairs still work so hey can’t complain.

After wandering around and somehow successfully not buying anything, it wasn’t long ‘til it was time to meet up with Perry at the theatre. So I jumped on the M train this time, at 59th st, for a very quick trip down to 49th st to the theatre. Easy peasy.

Today’s Matinee?

Hadestown, at the Walter Kerr theatre. A more modern interpretation of the story or Eurydice and Orpheus, something something underworld something, Greek mythology? Sorry I’m a bit ignorant about it – so on the plus side, it’s all quite fresh to me I guess. We could not have been more front and centre.

This was another show with the band on stage, which was pretty cool to see (and hear). The show itself had plenty of great, strong performances, Philip Boykin as Hades had so much presence, and an incredible bass baritone voice. All the cast did a great job, singing, dancing, and some playing instruments as well. A lot of talent on one stage. I just checked the Playbill and this was only the second time that KC Dela Cruz had played Eurydice. You’d never have known it – she was fantastic. And I can see how Eva Noblezada (from Cabaret last night) would have excelled in this role too.

The show itself … I mean, it was good, but I didn’t love love love it and wouldn’t rush to see it again. It was a little bit plodding in parts, and the songs, whilst conversing the right mood, I can’t say I can remember single one of them a few hours later. As a whole it just didn’t stir my soul, y’ know?

After that, Perry went back to the hotel to rest and I had a very small adventure – buy some deodorant. Exciting, yes? But the point of mentioning this very mundane thing, is that at the pharmacies, all the deodorant, and much of the skin care stuff, is all locked away in cabinets and you have to press a button in the aisle so someone can come along and unlock it for you. Guess there’s a bit of shoplifting going on? Anyway, mission complete, and don’t worry New York, I will not be stinky. 🙂

After spending some time in the underworld during the day, tonight it was time to go back to Paris, because we haven’t seen Moulin Rouge in enough cities yet. After Sydney (twice), Melbourne and London, it was time to see how it goes on Broadway.

We squeeeezed into our tiny cabaret table seating , which isn’t so much right in front of the stage but more inside it, behind the big ‘Moulin Rouge’ neon sign. Once you’re in the seat, the walkways of the stage close around you – so except for emergency that’s where you are staying no matter what.

One aspect that I found very different to the Sydney, Melbourne, and London versions, was the crowd. Every staff member you’d walk past on the way in made it super clear that there are to be no photos of videos taken of the performance – you know, the standard stuff. For this performance there’s a bit of ‘pre show’ where some cast members come out before the lights come down, to parade around and help set the atmosphere. What the atmosphere was really like though, was many, many calls of “No photos! Stop taking video! Put that phone away now!”, as it seems pretty much everyone completely ignore the ‘no photos, no video’ rule , which is a tiny bit sad.

It started off with the usual riot of sound and noise and colour and movement – it sure does have a fantastic opening to set the scene and bring up everyone’s energy levels.

There were a few notable people in the show tonight, I guess the most obvious being Boy George, taking on the role of Harold Ziedler. I try to say this tenderly, and with respect, but … it did feel a little like was mostly phoning it in, not exactly giving his all. On the flip side, I guess he has been doing 8 shows a week for quite a few months now, so it is perhaps understandable that his singing voice really was somewhat ragged. Still, he’s an icon, so what can ya do. I guess pretty much all was forgiven right at the end of the show, where they altered it slightly to include a few Culture Club songs, which was lovely and brought a massive cheer up from the crowd.

The other notable was the woman playing Nini – Samantha Dodemaide. I thought she looked familiar, and more sounded familiar as her Australian accent rang through the theatre loud and clear. Sure enough, she played Nini in the Australian production, and Moulin Rouge over here is her Broadway debut. You go girl!

Unlike the last few shows we’ve seen this was a tradition big musical – tons of sets, lots of props, must be a bit of a storage nightmare. But as we know from the Moulin Rouge movie – more is more, and it all works well to set, and tell, the story.

Was it the best Moulin Rouge I’d seen – not sure. The leads were amazing but I don’t know if the intangible connection between the two characters was so strong – nothing I can put my finger on as they both gave fantastic performances. Glad I had to opportunity to see it again, that’s three continents now, how many more can we manage 🙂

Happily, this time the theatre was only a few streets away from the hotel, so not too many crowds to battle through to get back after a big day. Who knows, might do it all again tomorrow!

Not literally, of course. No, todays morning adventure was down to see The High Line. The High Line is an old elevated freight railway line that started in the 1930s, built due to too many people being mowed down when freight trains used to just run down the streets with regular traffic and pedestrians. (Since the last 1800s)

By the 1960s freight traffic was waning and by the 1983 the last of the elevated train lines was abandoned. Parts of it had already been demolished and plans were in place to get rid of the rest. But there were people who saw its potential, and though the wheels turned very slowly over the years, it eventually re-opened as a park in 2009.

Take a look at https://www.thehighline.org/history/ for much more detail, including photos of trains running down the streets.

Anyway I’m getting ahead of myself. We left the hotel this morning – it was shorts and t-shirt weather today, up to 26 degrees, unlike yesterday’s high of about 14. Heading to 42nd St Station, we took the A train down to 14th St, into Chelsea. They’ve zhuzhed the trains a bit since we were last here – and made the whole subway much easier to access thanks to ‘OMNY’ – where you can just use your phone or a contactless card as payment. It sure beats buying Metrocards with the magnetic stripe and having that ‘did that swipe work or not’ moment, every single time you used it.

Immediately after stepping out of the train, you’re in another world compared to mid-town. it’s open, it’s airy, it’s quieter, it’s still no wonder why people like Chelsea.

We headed straight for Chelsea Market for second breakfast / early lunch. I had a delicious bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese and onion and capers…all the good stuff, and a cup of regret masquerading as a cappuccino. (Sorry!)

It wasn’t long before we found a way up on the to High Line, where we walked around and I took a bunch of photos:

It was interesting to see just how much has changed since our first visit – so many of these buildings just weren’t there back in 2013 when it was much more of a warehouse-y vibe. Some of the new buildings sure are interesting though.

The High Line has also expanded a bit since our last visit, so from entering it somewhere near 14th st, we exited at the other end near 34th. As luck would have it there was a subway station on the 7 line – first stop, 42nd street near the hotel. Bingo! The trip down to the concourse level is quite pretty.

Some of the tile work in 42nd Street’s underground concourse was nice too. The five flights of stairs to get out … much less nice.

OK, that’s enough of Manhattan. Now let’s take Berlin.

And what better way to visit Berlin than to walk up to 52nd st, to the August Wilson theatre, currently masquerading as the Kit Kat Club, for a production of Cabaret.

We saw the same production in 2023 in London, so I don’t need to go through the whole show again, the review I wrote then pretty much fits the same as tonight’s performance. Scroll down toward the bottom of this 2023 blog entry if you’re keen to read about the show when we saw it in London.

For this 2025 version, the Emcee was played by Orville Peck. I didn’t know anything about his until he did a song with our Kylie (Midnight Ride – catchy tune), but apparently he’s more of a country artists (explains why I’d not heard of him!) who never shows his face and lives behind a mask. Well, until Cabaret came along. I guess it’s a safe space where nobody can take photos, but I can happily reveal that Orville Peck looks … completely normal. There we go, no big revelation. Maybe he just doesn’t like being bugged when he goes to the shops, so he wears a mask.

The role of Sally Bowles was played by Eva Noblezada – another person who I’ll admit I’d never heard of (maybe this is more a young people thing). For an American actor her English accent was almost completely spot on, quite impressive! And boy can she sing – both her and Orville gave really impressive performances.

And being right up the front at the dining tables again, it’s kind of odd – like, Orville Peck is right there, I could just reach out and … get thrown out of the theatre. Also you could feel every move as the dancers danced on stage, and the floor trembled beneath. It made for a pretty immersive experience. Drinks and food were exactly the same as at London. A whole bottle of Moët (thanks very much, and how on earth did we finish it and still walk home), and a tiffin filled with hummus (served with a warm pretzel), a selection of charcuterie, and an assortment of cheeses with crackers. More filling than it looks. A giant Neenish tart was served at intermission. As was a rather special phone call … for the ‘dining’ tables around the stage, each is equipped with a telephone. According to the show (and maybe real life, I haven’t googled it) you could phone table-to-table in the clubs to say lovely things to people you may fancy when you see them across the room. Our phone rang, and it was, I’m sure, one of the cast having a bit of fun, saying “you’re beard is lovely and you and your friend are dressed so well” – followed by “did you know … the champagne your drinking, is just a bucket of warm piss?” Hilarious, in contexts at least. Otherwise, probably horrifying! I wonder how people get awfully offended when their phone rings? Anyway after a few minutes of banter intermission was over and it was on with the show.

As before, actually I think even more so now, it was just horrifying when a Nazi armband suddenly appears. In these times, this show is now perhaps part entertainment, and part education, and we can only hope people get the message.

Of course just like London, as soon you enter the venue you get a stick put over your phone, so no photos of the staging, the food, etc. Here’s an article about it if you’re keen: https://playbill.com/article/see-how-cabaret-renovated-the-august-wilson-theatre

It was interesting seeing two shows by Kander & Ebb in two days (they also wrote Chicago). Some of the key themes of the performances similar – both shows are very sparing when it comes to scenery and props, and both have that Masterchef conundrum of “if you only have a few ingredients, they all have to be perfect”. (Is that even a conundrum? I’m too tired to look it up) In this case, Cabaret completely pulls that off with every element perfectly baked (where Chicago perhaps had some parts slightly under-done). Cabaret is funny, it’s clever, at times also sad and quite chilling, but all executed perfectly. Just like in 2023, I loved every minute.

In the blink of an eye Berlin was soon gone ,and we were back on the streets of Manhattan, our next destination being back to the hotel to write it all up and now, yay, time for some sleep. See you tomorrow.

No it’s not a sudden change in plan, it’s just the show Chicago. Everybody calm down. More on that later.

We didn’t have a matinee show to see today but Broadway was still calling, so our destination this morning was The Museum of Broadway. Well that was our second destination. Our first, a near(ish)by Bluestone Lane cafe – founded by Melburnians, so you an be sure the coffee is good. Very happy to say that yes it was very good indeed.

The museum itself was really interesting – a history of Broadway from its very beginning to the present day. The first show in New York was performed in … wait for it, 1732! I don’t think it had too much in the way of laser effects of Dolby stereo sound systems of whatever, but a show is a show. (The museum also discounts however many Native American events that took place on the land for who knows how many years before that)

All the theatres used to be Downtown (at the bottom of Manhattan), they later moved around the 40th-50th street district because (and this makes me laugh) the real estate was cheap 🙂

There were about 70 theatres in the area before the Great Despression, but of course that affected quite a few.

In the late 1960’s / early 1970’s, the whole area was kinda in peril – New York had a lot of crime, Times Square particularly, and it was a pretty sordid and seedy kind of place. The show creators even seemed to lost their way – with quite a few shows only last a week or two before closing down (which has to be a colossal waste of money and effort). But we all know how to story ends, everything bounced back slowly but surely and here we are. If you can believe what you read on the internet, there are 41 large theatres currently operation. Not 70, but still about 37 more than Sydney 🙂 (State, Lyric, Capitol, Theatre Royal, are there any I’ve forgotten?)

The museum had three floors of exhibits, a great big history chock full of shows of course, but also an interesting section on what it takes to to get a Broadway show happening these days – it doesn’t take a village, it feels more like a city. You need a good sized creative team to make it come to life, you need a theatre that will actually decide to show it, so you need a ton of financial backing … it can’t be an easy thing to pull off (as we learnt the other night at Smash, the musical about a musical). All the tech stuff required these days was also pretty cool -the sound desks and lighting arrangements and all the other stuff you don’t normally see, plus the stage manager who ‘calls’ the whole show making sure all the sounds lighting, actors etc all turn up and go away when they’re supposed too — with so many piece in motion it’s amazing any show works at all. The example they gave was for Wicket, where there about 125 staff in addition to all the cast and musicians, just making sure everything happens when it needs to happen and the show runs smoothly. It helps give a little perspective to the expensive theatre ticket prices. A LOT of work goes into it. I took way too many photos, here are some of them:

Next up was a small bit of nostalgia for us – lunch at a place we were really happy to discover on our first visit to New York – a casual dining place called Schnippers. Nice food, reasonable prices, so was good to drop in again and get one of the world’s largest Caesar Salad for me and some delicious gooey mac’n’cheese + sloppy joe (cooked mince) combo. Good stuff!

In the afternoon we popped up to the bar at the top of the hotel to take in some views and a cocktail because hey, did I mention we’re on holiday?

Tonight’s show was Chicago, at the Ambassador Theatre up on 49th St. While we were lucky enough to have tickets in the front row, I think this was one of those shows where it would have been better to be a rows back, or the front row of the mezzanine. It’s great that the performers use the whole width of the stage, but at times it’d be easy to get whiplash trying to cover what was going on.

One thing I loved about it was the band was literally on the stage – on tiered platforms so you could clearly see, and hear, every note, and every performer. They weren’t tucked away in a hole under the stage like most orchestras. There was still plenty of room downstage for all the performers, including famous (once Perry told me) plus-size supermodel Ashley Graham as Roxie Hart. Her looks? Flawless, she is absolutely gorgeous! Her acting? Great. Her dancing? Absolutely fine. Her singing?

Anyway, as we probably know the story is mostly about Roxie Hart and fellow alleged criminal Velma Kelly and their struggle to build their fame and careers of the back of their crimes. It’s a good story, well told, and I really like the fourth-wall-breaking that goes on throughout, where the show acknowledged that this is indeed a show, here for us to enjoy. I don’t know if it was just me but maybe for the first half hour or so the energy felt ever so slightly low. I guess doing a show day in day out, and especially on a Monday when nearly all other shows take a rest, may eventually take a toll – it wasn’t anything I could put my finger on really. Having now seen the show, I can only imagine how incredible Caroline o’Connor must have been when she performed as Velma, that must have been epic.

I know next to nothing about choreography, but I can identify a Fosse move when I see it. Almost everything is said through small movements – the roll of a shoulder, the curl of a wrist, and of course, ‘jazz hands’. It’s kinda sparse, very precise, and really makes you pay attention to the detail. Fantastic. I can see how he and Gwen Vernon caused a bit of a revolution when they arrived on the scene, and still to this day I guess.

It must be a difficult show to stage, despite the lack of sets, minimal props, minimal costume changes and so forth. Like they say on Masterchef, if you only have a few ingredients, they all have to be perfect as there’s nowhere to hide. So, the show as a whole didn’t quite hit those levels of perfection, but was still really enjoyable and a fun night out.

After that, the usual walk through Times Square which is still completely bonkers as usual. We popped into Maccas for dessert and it would have to be the bleakest one I’ve ever seen.

Before long we were back at the Hotel and I was able to FaceTime Dad, was good to have a chat.

That’s it for another day, hmm, might go see a show tomorrow! 🙂

I started the day a little later than I expected – thanks to the best night’s sleep I’ve had all trip and also totally sleeping through my alarm. but hey this is generally recommended behaviour when you’re on holidays.

After a cup of hotel-room-coffee-maker-coffee (could be worse), off we walked, heading upward to 54th street.

Our destination: 54 Below

54 Below is a small cabaret/supper club. It gets its name because it’s its in the basement below former legendary disco night club Studio 54. (Incidentally, Studio 54 has been turned back into a theatre again). Anyway. It’s a beautiful, intimate space, very cozy and cool.

We were there to attend the Big Broadway Drag Brunch hosted by Marti Cummings. We kicked off with a non-alcoholic cocktail which was a tasty as it was pretty.

When it comes to brunch, in the city that never sleeps I guess calling a 1PM show ‘brunch’ isn’t the biggest stretch of the imagination. The brunch itself was magnificent – much better than I was expecting for what I thought was primarily a music venue.

For an entree (Australian verison of entree, not the American version of entree) – Baked Brie, warm and gooey, with nuts, herbs and a whole clove of roasted garlic, served with delicious crusty bread… every bit as good as it sounds.

Washed down with a ‘Flight of Mimosas’. First, I didn’t know a mimosa could be more than champagne and orange juice (uncultured swine that I guess I am), and secondly, who knew a flight of mimosas was even a thing? Well it is a thing, and a tasty thing at that. There was traditional, tropical, guava & lychee, and pear. Which rhymes with Cher. Which rhymes with Share. Which we did.

For mains, posh smashed avo with an egg on it. And “chips” or salad.

Last but not least, cinnamon rolls for Perry, and a trio of gelato flavours for me.

Then … on with the show! Our host, miss Marti Gould Cummings, ridiculously funny, smart, sure knows how to work a crowd and boy can she sing! She introduced a few other folk on to the stage, all of whom did a great job.

Everything was live – all accompanied by a pianist on stage – no backing tracks, just the piano and the performer, with both were for them to hide, they all sang great and god the whole things was just hilarious, primarily thanks to Marti. I was not sure what to expect going in to this show but my expectations were blown away – both by the food and by the performers – so very glad we went, that was some brunch! It was just brilliant.

Like all good brunches this went for nearly three hours, after which we went from 54 Below to 54 street level and back into the craziness of manhattan. Even a little bit of extra crazy with it being Easter Sunday, with trucks and megaphones which, I think, were supposed to be preaching messages of love, but sadly it was just all about hatred. It’s very odd indeed. On the plus side, seems like Jesus isn’t a sound engineer coz they were all so distorted (their sound, not just their views) that they were borderline incomprehensible, so that was a bonus.

It may be the seventh day but no way did we rest – we had to go pick up the washing we put in yesterday, mission accomplished. On our walks though New York this time, one thing we’ve really noticed this time around is that there we weed, like, everywhere. I guess it’s been legalised, you can smell it more here than in Amsterdam or Seattle I think. And lots of people on street corners chanting “smoke smoke pre-rolled smoke” – whether that’s legal or not, who can say, and I’ll leave it up to someone else to find out.

Because there’s no rest for the wicked, it was time to see another show tonight. This time, keeping to today’s theme, it’s “Drag – the Musical”, at the New World Stages up on West 50th St. On the way up there, and on every other walk we’ve taken in New York, I guess it’ll come as no surprise that the drivers here love tooting their horns even more than the people in Boston do. It is just like every TV show you’ve ever seen set in New York (except maybe Hello Dolly, which didn’t have much in the way of cars). The other New York TV/Movie cliche – steam rising from the streets, is also true:

It happens because in addition to water, electricity and (I assume) gas, steam is also delivered to building throughout Manhattan, piped into radiators for heating. And since many of those pipes are probably over 100 years old, you get leaks. OK that’s enough learning for the moment, back to the matter at hand: Drag – The Musical.

Bloody hell it was funny! It was great seeing a couple of stars from RuPaul’s Drag Race, e.g. Alaska Thunder-(children, avert your eyes)-fuck and Jujubee. The whole cast did a great job. The show was heaps of fun, though it did at times lapse into being a tiny bit message-y (unsurprising, drag queens have been through some shit, ok?) , and the high drama bits felt a bit too high drama to really fit the tone of the show, but that’s just being picky. Overall, it was a hoot, and again, so very glad we were lucky enough to get the chance to see it. Vocal performances were stunning, comic timing on point, hair and makeup were of course perfection – for a drag show it just has to be, right?

Oh let’s learn one more thing – and off-broadway production doesn’t have much to do with how far away it is from Broadway (coz it wasn’t that far). Instead, it’s to do with the size of the venue. Because this venue is smaller in size, it’s an off-Broadway production. So there you go.

And off we also went, via a shop where we picked up some cheese to add to the hummus and bickies we already had at the hotel, and that was an easy dinner.

Now for the important bit – publishing this entry, falling asleep, and seeing what New York brings us tomorrow.

The morning started without any fire alarms. Always a good start to the day when that kind of thing doesn’t happen.

It was a little bit of a bummer to pack up and say goodbye to Boston. Rich in history, and home to so many significant American historical events, I think we really only scratched the surface with our short visit. Glad we got to see a bit via the trolley tours, and with some good old fashioned walking around. Boston Common is nice. And judging by the numbers of theatres clustered together near the one we visited last night, seems the entertainment scene there is pretty cool too. The coffee scene, much less so, but at least I found one good one. Of course, it’s always nice to visit somewhere with squirrels – still a novelty. 🙂 The city’s mix of very old and new architecture kept things interesting, and its chaotic street layout shows it was a town that was grown more organically rather than planned from the start. Nice place. Give it a visit.

Checkout from the hotel was much less arduous than checking in, though I have to do some sums and figure out how an ‘early checkout fee’ makes any sense at all…. Since we didn’t check out early. The main train station wasn’t all that far away, but when luggage is being lugged, even a short distance…isn’t. So we Uber’d to South Station, no dramas, and checked ourselves in to the Amtrak Lounge to wait for our train.

The lounge, I guess maybe it was a formal ballroom or something in a past life because what a pretty space! The ceilings were amazing. The snack selection was not. The coffee machine was eager to please. Otherwise it was just, I dunno, comfy chairs in a space. Which is fine coz it’s not like anyone is going to spending any considerable amount of time there.

About 20 minutes before the train was due we wandered back to the main train hall to see where our train might be going on – but that wasn’t announced until about 10 minutes before boarding, so everyone rushed down to platform, er, Track 7 to get on board. After our trek to the front of the train we took our comfy seats and settled in on our ‘Acela’ train.

The service was friendly and incredibly prompt. e.g: Someone took our drinks order and very promptly, almost immediately I’d say, forgot all about it. But not to worry, the staff were kind and after a prompt we did get our drinks served with lunch. And considering how incredibly strong my Margarita was (so what, day drinking on holiday is acceptable, shut up!) I think it included an extra shot or two of apology.

The train whizzed along at speeds of up to about 240km/h, no bullet train, but still pretty good. Imagine that at home, getting from Sydney to Melbourne in about four hours, that’d be pretty awesome. I spent part of the trip doing very useful things like napping, and watching the latest episode of Doctor Who. Like I said, very useful.

I was kinda amused that all the provisions for lunch were loaded on at… Providence station. How fitting. Lunch was delicious, a tandoori chicken with rice, delicious warm bread and a kind of tiramisu in a jar. Perry had a cheese and fruit plate. All good stuff.

As we travelled along, trees and trees and trees and trees starting to give way to trees and houses, which in turn became concrete and metal and metal and concrete, signalling our destination was getting closer and closer. It must be an absolutely spectacular trip in autumn when all the leaves take on their oranges and reds and browns – certainly pretty than the forest of unadorned grey sticks we saw, at a guess.

It was a pleasant journey, here’s a bunch of random photos taken out of the window as we went.

Three and a bit hours comfy later we said goodbye to all the trees and hello to all the buildings, and suddenly darkness as the train dipped underground, to bring smoothly to Penn Station on 34th street, or more accurately, to the shiny new Moynihan Tran Hall which is surprisingly spacious and pretty.

Also surprisingly, it was 28 degrees – warmer than Hawaii! After a bit of walk, there we were at the hotel. The room is New York sized (ie not big), but perfectly and thoughtfully formed. Plenty of storage shelving, and it must be modern as there are plenty of power and even USB-power outlets around the place. Surprisingly there is also a fridge – not guaranteed by any means in New York. The view is ok – a bit of old and new.

Having settled in it was time for that unavoidable holiday task – getting some washing done. There is a place with a good reputation about 10 minutes away, so we went and dropped off laundry for pickup tomorrow. It was either that or pay hotel prices of around $15 per shirt. Yeah right!!

There’s no time to waste so now we’re in town, we’re right off to our first Broadway show for this trip – Smash. I haven’t watched the Netflix show it was based on, but apparently it loosely follows the same story. It’s all a bit meta – this is a musical about the making of a musical. Which must have been even more meta while they were making the musical which is about the making of a musical. Perhaps it nearly wrote itself? Anyway, before I get too dizzy…. It was fantastic. Amazing performances from all the cast, great songs, great story, it kept up a good pace the whole way through and had just the right mix of funny and serious. The Director character always on hand to give some much-needed comic relief. I loved how it gently poked fun at all the roles involved in getting a musical happening, particularly the *theatrical gasp* drama coach. The only criticism I can level at it, is there were no wandering ice cream sellers during intermission – this is borderline unforgivable! 🙂

After we all flooded out of the Imperial theatre, Times Square was its usually bonkers batshit-crazy self, everyone packed shoulder to shoulder just trying to get the heck out of there, which, eventually, we managed, back to the hotel via a small detour to Carnegie Pizza for some serviceable pizza. And homeless people asking us to buy pizza. New York, like everywhere it seems, has had an increase in people living rough on the streets since our last visit, I’m sure. It’s much more sad than it is annoying.

One thing we’ve learned about our hotel is that it has a lot of people, and those people like to be going places, so you can easily wait 10 minutes for a lift. I think one was out of action today which might explain it. Not the end of the world by any means, but you do need to plan ahead a bit.

Well that’s a pretty big first day and we have a bunch more to go, so as it approaches midnight, I approach the end of this blog entry, and all being well a good night’s sleep. Goodnight!