Las Vegas, NV

Our last full day in crazy town – so how else do you start? Buffet breakfast/brunch! It sometimes feels like its the only way to get food in this town. Sure, there are lots of McDonald’s, Starbucks etc, but I have to admit it is quite hard to pass up a good all-you-can-eat pig trough, especially since we got this one at a discount for buying Donnie and Marie tickets. So we hopped next door to the Monte Carlo and ate ourselves stupid. On the plus side – in Vegas, two meals a day is more than enough – there’s no such thing as lunch anymore. We basically spent the day casino-hopping. Anything to get out of the heat – it was only 30 degrees, but in the city that shade forgot, the sun was pretty punishing. It wasn’t too nice being outdoors at all. I can describe all the casinos equally well by saying they are enormous, noisy, a little tacky, and it makes the mind boggle just thinking about all the money in the place. So with that out of the way here are the edited highlights of the casinos we visited today. Monte Carlo – nice breakfast! MGM grand – I don’t know if its the biggest casino here but it sure feels like it. Harrah’s – any casino with a slot machine called “kitty glitter” can’t be all bad. The Venetian – lovely faux-Venice canals and gondolas (and gondoliers) inside happy to take tourists on a ride… Though seeing the propellers on the boats did remind you that it was as fake as the est of Vegas. Singing gondoliers did a wonderful job of singing though – I don’t know that I’d like to be singing “that’s amore” for an eight hour shift but they were doing it with aplomb. Caesars palace – as opulent and decadent as Rome in its heyday. Lovely fountains. And the curved escalators were pretty cool. A very odd feeling though! After that I headed up to the “fashion show” mall, while Perry headed back to the hotel for a nana-nap. I only went there so I could ‘check-in’ to the Apple Store on Facebook. Otherwise, it’s a big mall full of high-end shops, but it was indoors, and the aircon was good, so that made a nice place to visit! I made my way back to the hotel via a few casinos, and a, happy to report I came out ahead on the pokies I played on the way through, so that was a pleasant surprise. Then it was time to pack to suitcases and prepare for our last show. Why pack now? We’re checking out at 4:30am tomorrow – I’ll be lucky to even recognise my suitcase never mind figuring out how to pack it at that hour. Tonight’s show was cirque du soleil’s “O”, at the Bellagio. Since Bellagio is famous for its fountain, it was no surprise that this show had a lot of water. The stage was at times a giant pool – floors appearing and disappearing, a triumph of hydraulics over storyline. Ok, there was a story – “boy gives girl her scarf back”, but of course the story isn’t the point. Again, he performers were incredible, anything and everything from synchronised swimming to trapeze to contortionists to fire dancers to clowns to high diving… There was so much going on, and all of it was spectacular. However of the three Cirque shows we saw. I’d have to pick Ka as the favourite. After the show finished we had a final chance to see the Bellagio fountain do its thing again – it’s an even grander display at night as the lights really emphasise what’s going on. The it was time for a short walk back to the hotel. Just kidding. There is no such thing as a short walk in Vegas. The Bellagio is effectively three doors up from our hotel, but it takes a good half hour to get from A to B, such is the immense scale of everything in this city. It takes about 15 minutes to walk through the MGM Grand, for example. So it really pays to plan ahead when you have to be somewhere. So it has been an interesting place. Much bigger than I thought, and actually, more family-friendly than I anticipated, seeing as how’s all the really dodgy places are a little out of town. But the one thing that sticks with me is the realisation that the city really only exists, because of people that have too much spare time and money on their hands. In a way,it serves no meaningful purpose. But it does give a lot of people a brief chance to forget about the rest of the world for a little while – if that’s a meaningful purpose, then consider it admirably fulfilled. If not, then go ahead and be angry at the world that it even allows such a place to exist. But I don’t think Vegas would even notice. Next stop – up at 4:30am (argh!!) for the next leg of the adventure…

Las Vegas, NV

This day began with a jolly good sleep in. No massive breakfast buffet this time, instead we jumped in a cab and headed straight for the old-school Vegas district, Fremont Street. Home of the Golden Nugget, the Four Queens,and whatever else you may have seen in Diamonds Are Forever or other films of the same period. It was surprising how tiny those casinos seem now, compared to the behemoths at the new end of town. Still, it was interesting to have a good look around and sacrifice $10 to the poker machine gods 🙂 Speaking of poker machines, there must be rounds and of different varieties, at the very least. It seems they will make a poker machine based on internally anything. Today, we played A Star Wars machine, and. Sex nd the City one. Yesterday, one based on one of my favourite computer games, Plants vs Zombies (there’s also one based on another fave game, Crazy Taxi). There are countless other movie and tv show tie-ins (like Survivor which we had a go at as well) … If you name it, there’s a poker machine for it! One productive thing we did at Fremont Street today was visit the half price ticket booth, where you can get a discount on shows that are on the day. And yes we scored the hottest tickets in town … Donnie and Marie Osmond!! What can I say – it was kitsch, a little tacky, and a lot… Awesome! It was a real Vegas show – ok, not totally Vegas, no boobies. But the theatre was a proper ‘tables and chairs’ club arrangement, the songs were plentiful, the dancers snappy, and the stars, well, still pretty much the Osmonds we knew and loved from the 70s. And Donny did Gangnan Style which was all kinds of funny. So yes, a great show in the truest sense of the word – colour and movement, song and dance, and two people who seem to still really enjoy working together some 50 years (!) after Donny started his show biz career. We had to leave at the start of their final number to make sure we made it to our 2nd show in time. It was cirque du soleil’s “Ka”. Now, I’ve run out of fancy words that I could possibly use to describe this show. A triumph of acrobatics, dance, costuming, and engineering. Yes, engineering, for the whole stage rose, fell, tilted and rotated until it was completely vertical at times – apparently it weighs about as much as a jumbo jet or something. Incredible. The story didn’t make a lick of sense but you don’t go to cirque for the story, you go to be amazed. And I was, and then some, and then a lot more. It would seriously be worth going to Vegas just to see that one show. Tomorrow is our last full day in Vegas and yes, it’ll be our last Vegas show.

Las Vegas, NV

It’s our first full day in crazytown – so we start it the way many people advised: Buffet breakfast at the Bellagio. The Bellagio, like pretty much everything here in Vegas, is almost overwhelmingly huge. We did eventually find the buffet though, which was of course delicious, but my expectations may have been set a bit high because, despite being big, it wasn’t huge ginormous and overwhelming. Can’t complain though, still had a great feed. And it had soft-serve sorbet machines. What? Yep, apparently that’s a thing now.

After gorging ourselves at the posh pig trough we jumped in a taxi and headed to a big outlet shopping centre. I wish the watch shop we went to didn’t have “buy one get one half price”, we all know how that story ends… After that we went back to the Bellagio and yay they’ve fixed the fountain – it was an impressive display, will be interesting to see it at nighttime. One unavoidable aspect of walking anywhere in Vegas are the countless people handing out business cards for strip (or more) joints. They’re at every single intersection , and about every 20 metres in between. (The people. Not the strip joints!). You have to give these people some credit though – today’s best response to my “no thank you” was this: “They’re just titties bro they ain’t gonna bite ya!” 🙂 In the early evening we had of a bit of a walk around, through the MGM Grand (huge), the rest of New York New York (huge), and the Bellagio (huge). Yes there’s a common theme running through the Vegas casinos. Each one is the size of a suburb – it makes Star City look like a quaint little village.

Tonight’s show (we might not be near broadway but that won’t stop us) was Cirque du Soleil’s “Zumanity”. It’s the Vegas, grown-up version of cirque – so yes, lots of boobs-out-for-the-lads. But despite that it still managed to be mostly artful and in good (enough) taste. And the performers are incredibly talented, regardless of their state of dress. Zumanity was at the theatre within our hotel, so it was a very short walk to dinner (in one of the 8 or so restaurants here). Then we spotted a Wizard of Oz pokie machine so we had to give that a whirl – and for once actually managed to turn $15 into $50 so I guess Glinda the Good Witch really was on our side after all.

By this time it was nearly 1am so definitely time to just crash. (Hence no update last night). I will surprise you all now by mentioning that tomorrow is time for another show…

Las Vegas, NV

Up and at ’em this morning, to check out of the hotel at 8:00. Should you ever be visiting New York I can strongly recommend the Tryp by Wyndham, it was a great place, friendly staff, a good comfortable, room kept spotlessly clean, and it’s very well located near Penn Station for great subway coverage to get wherever you need to go. The car we hired ended up being 20 minutes late (dial7.com, I’m looking at you!), but we’d allowed an extra half hour and still arrived at LaGuardia airport more than 90 mins before our flight was due. I still took the opportunity to wield a bit of New Yorker’s Revenge (I don’t know if that’s a thing, I just made it up), and only gave the driver a very modest tip. First flight from LaGuardia to Chicago O’Hare was great. Calling it “First Class” is maybe a bit of a stretch, but the seats are big and comfy, you get real glass, and metal cutlery, and the quality of service on board was great. The in-flight wifi is a fun gimmick for us foreigners who don’t get to experience it at home. Chicago O’Hare is o’huge – but for the benefit of nerdy travellers the world over, the place is positively festooned with power outlets – both normal power points, and powered USB ports as well. Nice one! And very welcome since our 3.5 hour layover has stretched out to 4, thanks to a delay on the Chicago to Vegas flight. But we made it eventually with the minimum fuss and here we are at New York New York, Vegas.

As a New York themed hotel, of course it has a giant roller coaster out the front – I guess that’s Coney Island. One thing that is very un-New-York-like is the size of the room – it’s enormous compared to the actual New York hotel room. Probably about double the size. We went outside for a quick wander into crazytown, which to be honest wasn’t that crazy once you get used to it. A world of neon and artifice, and people on every corner inviting you to go to their strip shows. Nice. But despite that sleaziness, ‘the strip’ itself is very well kept, clean, tidy, and … everything is just massive. So much neon and light, the moon hangs sadly in the sky like some kind of afterthought. We waited by the Bellagio fountain for a while, but alas it wasn’t doing its tricks as it chose today of all days to break. Ah well, we still have a few days. We had a “when in Rome …” moment, donating $10 to the upkeep and maintenance of our hotel via the ‘Survivor’ poker machine. Sure enough, those $10 were quickly voted off the island. 🙂 But for now, off to sleep! Since we’ve been heading west all day, the shift in time zones means we’ve actually had a 27-hour long day – 11pm here is like 2am for our New York selves. So… Goodnight!

New York, NY

Like it or not (here’s a hint: not) this was our last full day here in New York City. It helped reinforce the fact that if there’s anything we don’t see or do today… it can’t be done tomorrow. So it was time to make the most of it. We started the day grabbing breakfast to go at Best Bagel and Coffee. Without the coffee, this time. Then straight on to the subway to get the E train up to 50th street, to meet up with our TV and Movie Sites tour. It was a bit of fun for three hours, seeing a good deal of places like the apartment block used in Friends, the firehouse used in Ghostbusters, Grace’s office/studio building from Will and Grace, and many many others, from Taxi Driver to Glee, and everything in between. It was also nice just to see some parts of the city we hasn’t previously seen. Well lets face it, ‘parts of the city we haven’t seen’ is, oh, probably about 90 percent of it.

After the tour finished we visited the Museum of Modern Art. For many many years, I have heard the phrase “This object is now a part of MoMA’s permanent collection” applied to all kinds of things – the original Apple Mac, IBM’s revolutionary ‘butterfly keyboard’ laptop, and many other things beside. None of which were actually on show. So to be honest I didn’t get a great deal out of our visit, but that probably says more about me and my relationship with/understanding of modern art, than it says about MoMA itself. After leaving MoMA we fulfilled another tourist obligation. Hotdog from a street vendor: Check!! As a bonus, it was delicious – pickle relish is a strange green gooey thing, but one that elevates the humble hotdog to new heights. For the record, apparently there are around 4,000 food cart vendors dotted all over the city. Just another numerical aspect of New York City that blows my mind. We did a bit of a trawl through a few of the many, many, many tacky tourist discount/souvenir shops (and by tacky of course I mean awesome!), where I picked up, other than tacky souvenirs, two watches for $5 each… They may not still be working by the time we get back to Sydney but what the heck.. I mean, five dollars!!

What other crap can I rattle off about this city before we go? New york brain dump: Every Starbucks is always crowded. And having sampled the coffee in other places, Starbucks would actually rate as “pretty good”. So yeah there’s a reason to feel a bit sorry for people in this town. There are tourists everywhere. The drugs ads on the telly are hilarious. The subway doesn’t have timetables (that I know of). Trains just arrive when they’re ready, with pretty good frequency. Travelling just a few streets or avenues away can feel like a different city. It’s surprising how many cars are Hybrids. Even some of the busses and trucks. Pretty much all hotel rooms (including ours) don’t have a fridge. And, surprisingly, it’s not a problem, thanks to an ice machine on the ground floor. Tipping’s not that big a deal, just remember any service that seems cheap will cost about 20% more, unless you’re lousy. Every second person is an aspiring actor. Broadway shows are awesome. Every night is bin night. There are no buttons to press to cross the road. And no “it’s safe to cross the road now” noises. There are heaps of dogs but I haven’t see a single cat. Or a single rat. But lots of squirrels. And that’s a good thing.

The last day, and so, our last show. “Bunty Berman Presents” – about a struggling Bollywood director. I don’t think it’s ever going to win any awards, but I loved it. What it lacked in songwriting it made for with heart and enthusiasm. After the show we just sat in the middle of Times Square for a while, just enjoying the last chance to soak up the atmosphere and watch the world go by. Dinner was wonderful fast food at Schnippers – for the third night in a row. Good food, good price, it was well worth returning to. Then back to the hotel to, sigh, pack up and get ready to leave tomorrow morning.

I have to be honest, I am a bit glum about having to move on. But to have the opportunity at all to be able to visit this city has been a privilege. It’s a city whose bones are all about getting on with it, getting work done, making a dollar, getting on to the next thing with a minimum of fuss or delay. It’s a well oiled machine, even if some of the parts need work. But it just gets on with it, and it never stops. And I wish it all the best. We will definitely return one day.

New York, NY

We took things down a notch and had a more relaxed day today. We headed down to the Chelsea district to visit what I think is New York’s newest public park -The High Line. Created from a disused elevated freight train line, it gives a literal overview of Chelsea and surrounds. I read about it ages and ages ago so it was nice to finally be able to pay it a visit.

After a quick stop in the Chelsea Apple Store (yes, of course we has to!), it was time for lunch. Gotta love this place, where your French fries come covered in two types of melted cheese, with additional melted cheese sipping sauce. Mmm. And next thing you know there’s Prince Harry going by in a double-decker bus. No, there weren’t hallucinogens in the cheesy fries. Prince Harry was in New York today and while we were walking up Chelsea, he and his considerable entourage were driving down it. So this city continues to live up to its “you never know what might happen next” reputation. Tonight’s show: Kinky Boots. Cyndi Lauper’s take on a true story from England, where a dying shoe factory finds a new lease on life by producing shiny boots for drag queens. What can I say, it was brilliant. The only time I’ve eve seen an entire theatre give a standing ovation. Allegedly, Cyndi herself was in he crowd – which would have been two close encounters with royalty in the one day! Tomorrow: our last full day in New York. Damn.

New York, NY

Operation “get some washing done” got into full swing early on, at a laundry two blocks away. With wonderful friendly customer service, I was surprised the guy didn’t end up yelling “No washing for you!” and pushing us out the door. Never mind, at least we’ll have clean clothes. Breakfast was at “Best bagel and coffee”. The bagel? Awesome. My cappuccino? Well, it was created by a guy pressing a “cappuccino” button on a machine. And this wasn’t any kind of espresso machine. But hey, put a bit of frothy milk on top of over-sweetened percolated (or who knows, maybe even instant!) coffee, and that’s a cappuccino, right? Like all New York coffee, it’s served at a temperature not that much lower than, say, the surface of the sun. I guess this would be welcome when one is grabbing one’s ‘cawfee’ in the snows of December when walking a block or two to the office. I’m just glad Perry orders iced coffee – I steal his ice cubes to get my coffee down to some kind of less-scalding temperature.

We learnt a bit about the subway today. Or more specifically, how the express A-train can be, well, rather expressive indeed. Let’s look at the numbers. We hopped on at 59th St, aiming for 86th (more on that shortly). Well the train zoomed off from 59th and kept going. Next station was 72nd street. But there’s no stopping the A train. It zoomed through 72nd, and 81st. Then 86th (oh well…), 96th, 103rd went by in a blur. I was singing “Across 110th St” as it too zipped past us almost too fast to read. I was wondering if I should have carried my passport today, as I pretty sure at this rate we were heading straight for Canada. After 116th street, finally we began to slow… Lo and behold the A train does sometimes stop, as we finally parted company with the train and exited at 125th street station, in Harlem. So hey, cool, we’ve been to Harlem! Until the C-train arrived and took us back to 86th street, anyway. So now we know about the A-train… When they say express, they mean it!

We took a stroll across Central Park, from Central Park West over to the East side, through the Shakespeare Garden, and past plenty of squirrels, that I could have just sat and watched for hours.

Having crossed the park it was time for a little culture, at the Guggenheim Museum. I was a bit surprised – it’s way smaller than I thought it would be. I pictured it as some kind of massive behemoth, but it’s quite a modestly sized building, not dominating the 5th Ave neighbourhood like I thought it would. Alas a good section of it was closed for a new installation – so no chance to walk the famous/infamous ‘rotunda’ – the constantly sloping spiral that also forms the most eye-catching part of the exterior. Even so, in the space of two minutes we had already seen a number of works from Picasso, Matisse, Degas, Van Gogh, and on one of the upper floors it was nice to see a Mondrian.

Further wandering around the city ensued, heading back downtown until we happened across a cool collection of food stalls in Madison Square, near the Flatiron building. Hello, freshly made Nutella crepes! Tonight’s show was Newsies. How to describe Newsies… well, it’s a musical about the industrial dispute process and the power of organising a powerful union that can successfully negotiate effective workplace agreements. In 1899. As done by Disney. Yes really, it was a Disney musical. It was entertaining, sure, but … I never really warmed to it. Not because of the subject matter – heck maybe they’ll do one about people’s jobs being outsourced offshore. But the story was quite predictable, some of the big dance numbers seemed to be inserted just because “umm, don’t know how to advance the story, I know, let’s just do a big dance number!” Still, most of the crowd really seemed to love it, so what would I know. Great set design, and the lead actor put in an excellent performance, trying very hard to sell a relatively thin story. And to get the girl. Of course. Had a great dinner after the show, a sloppy joe and a purple cow. At least I know now what a sloppy joe and a purple cow are – a burger basically full of delicious bolognaise sauce (yup, sloppy), and a soft drink float with grape soda and ice cream (yup, purple). Only two full days left in New York… What to do. Might go and see a show….

New York, NY

We’ve been here a week already. A week! Already! Another year or two and I’m sure we’d have pretty much all of Manhattan covered 🙂 First important thing of the day was to catch up with Mum on Skype – alas it was all a bit one-sided, the microphone wasn’t working at her end. But we got by with me doing the talking and Mum and Dad doing the nodding. Was great to see them, if not hear them.

The first destination for the day was Grand Central Station, for a proper look around this time. An amazing place for people-watching, and with 117 platforms (update: actually a lot less, but highest platform number was 117), probably a great place to get lost, though we found our way around ok. Especially when it came to finding the Apple Store. Surprising, I know …

Leaving Grand Central, we wandered to Bryant Park for lunch. Walking around this ‘small’ park, it dawned on me that this small park is about the same size of one half of Hyde Park in Sydney. When it comes to New York, I guess size is relative. Had a lovely lunch at a cafe in the park – and so nice to see public spaces being used so well by so many. There were tables set up for chess, table tennis (!), a carousel for the kids, even an outdoor reading library with shelves of books and newspapers set up. And chairs everywhere. So, not a bit like Hyde Park, then. We could do so much more if we had the will and the resources.

Next stop was Ripley’s Believe it or Not in Times Square – hey, we’re tourists, we have an obligation to visit the tourist traps! It was pretty squarely aimed at children, but as far as freak shows go it still had its fair share of interesting moments. The highlight for me was the work of the artist who was able to clearly sculpt all four members of the Obama family, clearly recognisable… Within the eye of a needle. Amazing work.

Today’s show was a matinee – we wandered off to 50th street at 3pm to see Avenue Q. I’ve seen two regional productions of it before, so it was interesting to see how they compared to a ‘proper’ broadway version. The biggest difference was in the set – it was really cleverly done. It’s clear what a broadway-sized budget gets you, and what a regional amateur production doesn’t. The surprising thing though was that the whole show was done with just 7 cast members, many of whom took multiple roles during the show. It didn’t detract from it at all, it was still a great show and really well done – but the performances today showed just how strong the casts of the two regional productions were too. Way to go, Rockdale and Tamworth!

After that it was a leisurely stroll back to the hotel – all the while experiencing that strangely wonderful New York soundtrack: traffic, tooting horns, police sirens, and rumbling subway trains. It’s a funny thing how in many places you can clearly hear the subway trains passing underneath you – something I’ve never noticed in Sydney (except when seated in The Theatre Royal). We walked past a barbershop, still open at 5:30pm on a Sunday – I love this city. And now I love it with a very, very short haircut. Yes it even finished with the steaming hot towel like you see on so many Warner Brothers cartoons – though with much less disastrous results may I add.

Dinner was at the retro-happy-days-styled Tick Tock Diner (or if you’re a local that’d be ‘Tick Tawk Dinah’), where we had the good fortune to tackle meals with embarrassingly large portion sizes, and also to have a brief chat with an older couple seated nearby. And that was about it for the day, except to watch the final episode of Survivor on the telly.

Tomorrow’s exciting mission, should we choose to accept it… Actually there’s no choice, it’s time to tackle the really-quite-large pile of washing that has accumulated over the last seven days. And, of course, we have another show to go to. Bring it on, Broadway, bring it on!

New York, NY

Today started with an exciting achievement – finding an ATM that worked with our travel card. Sweet. Next was two hours of behind-the-scenes goodness with the Wicked “Behind the Emerald Curtain” tour. So it doesn’t literally go behind the scenes, but two cast members of the show spent two hours with us all, talking about just some of the incredible hard work that goes into putting a show of this calibre together. I also now know the difference between a track, a role, and a swing. Yup, totally showbizzed up…

Lunch was next – a pay-by-weight Italian buffet, what’s not to love! The good news is that garlic bread’s pretty light 🙂 A side-visit to m&m world followed, which was pretty amusing – three whole floors of candy-coated chocolate and merchandise dedicated to it. Couldn’t resist the customise-your-own-m&m machine though – sure my nieces will love their very own m&m’s.

The weather was starting to turn so we headed indoors to that very unbroadwaylike entertainment medium, the movies. We saw Pain and Gain. It was… a movie. The complex we saw it on was probably more noteworthy – 25 cinemas spread over 6 very tall floors, it literally (as in literally) took us 10 minutes to get from the ticket hall to the cinema, which of course had to be number 25, right at the top.

Tonight’s show was “My big gay Italian wedding” – a play held in a small converted church… Well, looked like the basement, I think. But it was good space, and an excellent show. It was hilarious, the audience were having fun, and you could tell the cast were having a hell of a lot of fun with it (and us) as well. A great night. It was a bit surprising to hear people I the audience talking during the performance though, that was a bit odd. After that we walked back to the hotel, through the crowds and past the taxis with their blaring horns. You know why every New York movie or tv show always featured the sound of car horns? Because it happens. Everywhere. All the time. Mainly it’s cab drivers tooting at pedestrians to get out of the way, or at other cars to get out if the at, or sometimes I think it’s just for the pure joy of it. Regardless, there is a LOT of it going on. All the time. But I can’t complain, it just seems to be just another one of those things that makes New York, New York. Tomorrow: Another show. Who could’ve guessed that!

New York, NY

Today was the “slice of Brooklyn pizza tour” – where we did what I think many Manhattan locals fear to even contemplate – we got out of Manhattan and into, unsurprisingly, Brooklyn. We jumped on the subway to get down to E 14 St where the tour began, and while waiting for the tour bus to arrive, we notched another tourist moment. Bagel with cream cheese: Check! The bus arrives, and over to Brooklyn we go.

Alas the famous Brooklyn Bridge is closed to big vehicles, but we took the also-very-pretty Manhattan Bridge over to Grimaldi’s, apparently world famous for its incredible pizza. I guess something I’ve learnt today is that my worldwide pizza knowledge isn’t all it could be, as I wasn’t familiar with it beforehand. But still, what landed on our plate was some beautiful, simple, Margherita pizza. Cooked in 3 minutes flat, in their 900 degree coal-fired oven, it was light, tasty, not at all greasy or oily, a wonderful slice of pie. Yes just like the Dean Martin song, they do all refer to a whole pizza as a ‘pizza pie’. Just down from Grimaldi’s was Brooklyn Bridge Park, where we had a brief chance to stop and get a few photos before we piled back on the bus to see more of Brooklyn.

To stop us getting restless while the driver was working his way through the Brooklyn traffic, our guide played clips from the many movies that have scenes in Brooklyn. Goodfellas, The French Connection, Saturday Night Fever, Moscow on the Hudson … It was a little odd to be in the bus, on the street, watching a movie clip of a car chase happening on that very street. It also means I can watch a whole bunch of movies and annoyingly shout “been there!” every few minutes 🙂 The second pizza place we visited was the appetisingly-named L&B Spumoni Gardens. Spumoni, apparently, is another Italian ice-cream that isn’t gelato. With a name like that, can’t imagine why it hasn’t caught on. The pizza was Sicilian in style – deep, and square. And yummy. I think the best thing about this place was that it isn’t a hot tourist spot, a must-visit destination, it is simply a good pizza restaurant where all the locals go. And talk in a very very Brooklyn accent. (Or maybe the tour company hired a few “genuine local Brooklyn characters” ™ to add to the local feel. )

A very brief visit to Coney Island was next, which might be worth a revisit, though not to the still-working 86 year old wooden roller coaster, can’t say that inspired confidence. Nor the Wonder Wheel – a Ferris wheel where the gondolas aren’t fixed to the outside, but fall from the centre of wheel to the outside and back again, on a track.

After that it was goodbye Brooklyn and back ‘home’ to Manhattan to get ready for our next Broadway Show. The Book of Mormon. The funniest show I’ve ever seen, I think it’s safe to say. So clever, so hilarious, and so well put together and wonderfully performed, it was awesome. It was enough to (almost) make you forget that when the Eugene O’Neill theatre was built in 1925, people must’ve been a lot smaller, coz things were a bit squishy!

After that it was the now-usual fight through the crowds of Times Square back to the hotel, where it was time to write up the day, wrestle with an uncooperative travel-blogging app, and go to sleep. Tomorrow, the behind-the-scenes Wicked tour, and, surprise surprise, yet another show!