Friday, July 25, 2014

Summer is going fast

I intended on writing a blog entry daily but I procrastinated. Why? Because I waited for something significant event to occur. It finally happened. I love going to New York City to see a show and walk around. The first time that I became acquainted with the term, "The Big Apple" was in my sophmore year in high school. Our English teacher gave us a survey on our first day of class. One of the questions was about our familiarity of the Big Apple. I didn't have any reference to it. The only trips until then were  train rides to Penn Station or boarding a Greyhound bus at the NY Port of Authority. New York City was a connection point to somewhere else and not a destination in itself.

Through my grown up years, New York City has become a destination, even if it is only for a day. We are fortunate to get there by train in less than two hours. It is definitely a photographer's paradise. I would be lost without my camera. I do travel with family and that inhibits my creativity to capture as much as I would like to photograph. You have to travel with fellow photographers because we are focused on what we see. There isn't any rush to get somewhere unless you have tickets to a show or dinner reservations.

This past Wednesday we went to see a Broadway show. Ticket prices for a show are high. We made our way to the center of Times Square and stood in line to buy tickets at a discounted price. TKTS is the company that purchases tickets from the theaters. Les Miserables was available at 50% of the original ticket price. We purchased three orchestra seats that were six rows from the stage. They were towards the right of the stage but we benefited because some of the performers were staged on the right.

I didn't know that all of the dialogue was sung as in an opera. Some of the songs are so poignant and some are rousing. What a remarkable adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel. I am reading it as well and have only read over one hundred pages. The show's script follows the novel closely, although if it were as faithful to the novel, the show would have to be done in a series. It's much like a film where some parts end up on the cutting floor.

We are exploring different parts of the city beyond the theater district. We are subway riders now. We had dinner on the Lower East Side at Katz's Delicatessan. My readers will be unfamiliar with the film "When Harry Met Sally". The movie was filmed on site in New York City and one of the funniest scenes was filmed at this deli.

It was along day and we caught the 8:36 pm train back to New Haven. The train stopped at every little station beside the larger towns and cities. We arrived home after 11 pm, tired and very satisfied with our day's adventure.


6 comments:

  1. Wow... you must have had a very enjoyable day!!! I saw the performance of Les Misérables musical at a theatre when I was in NY the last time, but not sure about the theatre name, maybe Imperial. I smiled when I read your readers might not be familiar with 'When Harry Met Sally'. Oh, that movie was very successful in Lisbon. I have a DVD and often watch it. Thanks for sharing your day in the Big Apple...

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  2. There is actually a sign over the table where Billy Ctrystal and Meg Ryan sat during the shooting of that scene.

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  3. Sounds like you had a great day in NYC. I've only visited there once and that was entirely by chance. Back in 2010, I had flown out with Joanne to visit Las Vegas and travel to some of the national parks in the Nevada/Utah area and was due to stopover one night at Newark, NJ before getting my flight back to the UK. Not having watched any TV while out west, it was only when i arrived in NJ that I heard about the Icelandic volcanic eruption. I was basically stranded there for an additional week, so I took the opportunity to spend a few days exploring NYC.

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  4. I remember the Icelandic volcano eruption. It did prohibit flights back to northern Europe. You did take some good photographs while you were in NYC because you shared them on Picture This. It must have been frustrating to be held back from returning home. I hope you enjoyed your time. A member of our camera club was in the same situation over in the UK.

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  5. We spent a week in NYC many years ago, some time in the nineties and the twin towers were still standing. We did the musical show in Broadway as well. It was Guys and Dolls and loved it. We didn't have a digi camera at the time, so had to wait for all the photos to be developped. And we had a stretch limo to the airport on the way home - I just had to have one of those. It was an unforgettable week. Not just two hours by train, but about 7-8 hours by plane.

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  6. And of course wanted to add that I read Les Miserables about a year ago from beginning to end, it was a sort of gap in my reading. I enjoyed the book. I only saw a couple of excepts from the film, but not my sort of thing.

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