New York City

We had originally planned to go to Ashville for a month to do some hiking, experience the fall foliage, and work from somewhere new, but Hurricane Helene changed all that. Our Airbnb hosts were super gracious in offering a refund and we had to plan a new location. Stephen's mom suggested NYC, and we thought that was a good idea. NYC recently passed a law outlawing short term rentals, though, so it was a bit hard to find a place. We had one place in Park Slope that was about to work out and then the current guests decided to extend their stay. We ended up booking a two bedroom place in outer Crown Heights. The space has nice light, a view of midtown Manhattan from the master bedroom, and it's only a 10-15 minute walk to the A or 4 lines that run express into Manhattan. With that said, there isn't much around here and we need to travel at least 6-8 subway stops to get to the heart of the active part of Brooklyn. Williamsburg is practically another country.

We do have a pretty good grocery store about 3 blocks from our flat. It represents all of the different communities in our neighborhood well and all of the varied foods and tastes that come with it.... Jamaican, Dominican, Haitian, African-American, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran. The layout of the store was strange, too, as many items were repeated in different aisles if they were used by multiple cultures, even though the signs didn't label an aisle as particular to an ethnicity.

We got pretty much everything we needed for our first grocery run there, other than fresh bread. We figured there had to be a bakery baking fresh bread somewhere in the neighborhood. We're in Crown Heights; there has to be a Jewish deli somewhere nearby to get a loaf of rye bread. There are all kinds of placed called "Deli" and "Bakery" on signs on the commercial streets so Stephen offered to go out again while Eli worked after we dropped the groceries at our flat. Additionally, he wanted to check out a local gym to get a membership for the month.

Blink fitness is a chain with a big footprint in the city, and it's unbelievably inexpensive for what Stephen thought he would have to pay in NYC. An initiation fee of 20 bucks plus $22 for a month of access. The machines are well kept, and the crowd seems really respectful of the gym (replacing freeweights in the right spots, disinfecting touchpoints). There aren't any classes, though, so no Zumba for Stephen.

After securing his membership, he ventured out to check out the local "delis" and "bakeries" to find a loaf of fresh bread. He stopped in at a few "delis." Deli in this neighborhood is more like a corner convenience store like 7-11. They will have convenience store items, hot food, and cold cuts, but no fresh bread other than hoagie rolls behind the counter. The Jamaican bakeries are mostly patties, and he did find one bakery that sold a loaf, but it was a loaf of fresh baked..... white bread like Wonderbread. We texted our Airbnb host to see if she an any recommendations, and she had one that was one stop down further on the subway.

Stephen headed there and landed smack dab in the middle of the hasidic Jewish neighborhood on the first day of Sukkot. It was interesting to see the activity on the street and the amount of Hebrew being spoken (vs. Yiddish which was what Stephen would have expected). When he arrived at the bakery, it was closed. It wasn't clear if the bakery was Jewish, but that would seem likely. He looked at his Google Map and saw another bakery just a few short blocks away so figured that he'd check that one out. If it was closed too, he would just give up and get bread another day.

On his way there, he passed some sort of outdoor festival for Sukkot, complete with special paramedic trucks especially for the hasidic community. On his way, some people from Chabad Lubavich asked him if he was Jewish and if he wanted to celebrate Sukkot today. He quickly moved on. When he got to the bakery, it too was closed, but there was a Kosher certification in the window so it made sense. At this point Stephen was frustrated and done with trying to find bread to make our sandwiches for lunch, so on his way home he stopped at a Jamaican takeout and got the best curry goat we've ever had (for $18 bucks... things in NYC are expensive).

Do You Want to Shake my Lulav?

October 18, 2024

After working, we headed out to Coney Island, one of the iconic spots in NYC that we had never been to yet. On our way, we got accosted by another Chabad Lubavicher who first asked if we were Jewish, and then, we kid you not, asked if we "wanted to shake his lulav." We had never quite been propositioned that way before and had a chuckle about it as we walked on to the subway station. We're not quite sure if he understood with a wink and a nod what he was saying or if he was just that clueless.

It probably took just as long to get to Coney Island from our part of Brooklyn as it would have from Manhattan, but it was good to see. It was pretty dead when we arrived in the late afternoon on a Friday, but we thought it might be more busy on a Saturday/Sunday or later on at night. We got some shots of historic and pop-culture items (Eli needed a reminder of the film that referenced Zoltar), had a Nathan's hotdog, and then headed back to downtown Brooklyn to walk along the waterfront. We got some shots of the Brooklyn Bridge and appreciated it more after learning of its history from watching The Gilded Age. We headed back to our flat to quickly change and then headed back to the Downtown/Park Slope area for dinner.

We went to Ghenet... not the best and not the worst Ethiopian we'd had. On our way back to our flat, we stopped in at a local pub that our Airbnb hosts recommended that was walking distance from our flat as opposed to having to take the subway. The joint was pretty dead and not very interesting... it was just a simple bar without much ambiance. It was interesting, though, for us to watch the AL championship game going on on a Spanish language station and reading the closed captions in Spanish. We learned a whole bunch of new words and anglicisims that we hadn't ever heard before.

Halloween decorations on the walk home.

Bread and Beer

October 19, 2024

We rode the Subway to the Grand Army station at the edge of Prospect Park for the weekly best Brooklyn farmer's market. There were a fair amount of varied stalls and we picked up some veggies, fresh goat cheese, and our elusive bread loaf. From there we headed to the Target in downtown Brooklyn. As well stocked and as large (for NYC) as the kitchen is in our place, it was missing some essentials. We figured it was easier to just go ahead a purchase them than to try to make due and work around (see our knife journey in London). For dinner, Eli used some of our bounty from the farmers market to make a really amazing tomato and goat cheese tart.

For our entertainment, as we were in a relaxed mood, we decided to head to a local Brooklyn craft brewery. We started out at Threes Brewing, but when we arrived they were closed... not because of Sukkot, but because someone had bought out the entire venue for a wedding party. We decided to head to a smaller local brewery called Strong Rope. On our way between the two, we remarked about how the skunky smell of weed was hard to avoid basically everywhere we've been in NYC this visit. The last time we were here, the new marijuana law had just passed but distribution hadn't really been happening yet. Now it's literally everywhere. Fresh air is less than 30% of our time.

We both did a five beer flight for $28. We thought the beers were interesting, but none really blew us away. While we were at the brew pub we started checking out zillow to see what kind of prices apartments were going for in the area. We found a few condos we fell in love with, but as much as we'd probably like it, moving to NYC full time is not in our future.

Eli's Facebook post from the brew pub attracted a lot of attention and it looks like a bunch of different friends we haven't seen in a while are going to be in town while we're here; hopefully we'll be able to connect.

Still some beautiful details left in the subway stations.

The Breakup Restaurant

October 20, 2024

Before anyone gets too concerned, this is not a reference to us... Apparently this restaurant, Pomodoro Roso, where we met our friend, Adam, tonight, was featured in the breakup episode of Seinfeld. We arrived a bit early and walked around Columbus Ave. The street is closed on Sundays a few months every year. Even in the Upper West Side, we were still unable to escape the weed stench (although we were probably closer to a 60% clean air ratio here). It was great to see Adam and to catch up, and all three of our dishes were excellent. Eli had a great seafood pasta, Stephen's was a special Sunday brown sauce with meatballs, sausage, and braised beef. It wasn't too expensive, even for NYC; we managed to get out of there, the three of us, for $220 including a nice bottle of wine.

Fall foliage is starting to show up more frequently.

The Outsiders

October 22, 2024

This was a surprise win for Best Musical at the last Tony Awards. Stephen had heard good things about it, but didn't know much other than general comments. Eli knew nothing about it going in. We thought it was just okay. The second act was much better than the first. The male lead's voice was outstanding and the group numbers were strong although it was hard to hear some of the dialogue because the accent the lead was affecting made it sound a bit like a mumble. The lyrics were a bit too simplistically rhyme-y (in the same way we had a problem with lyrics when we saw Treason in London). Stephen like the group choreography and staging that felt modern but with references to the 60's when the show was set.

Remnants of the World's Fair

October 23, 2024

Stephen has a lot of extra time on his hands as he's only working part-time now, so took a warm afternoon to head to Flushing Meadows to check out the remnants of the 1964 World's Fair. It's only about 4 miles from our flat in Brooklyn, but there is no good way of going on public transit that is less than a 1 hour and 45 minute trip. Stephen had been interested in checking it out after he ran across a youtube video about the history of the fair, its complex politics, and its connection to Disney. When he arrived, he was kind of disappointed. The Fountain of the Planets wasn't operating (the mosaic of what it was supposed to look like was also pretty much paved over) and the pools of water on the main axis to the Unisphere and Rocket Thrower were all empty. If you concentrated, though, you could imagine the grounds being populated by pavilions that were the Epcot of its day. Some of the most famous Disney rides, like the Carousel of Progress, and It's a Small World, actually debuted a the fair. The New York Pavilion, which was still standing, was shrouded in scaffolding as they were doing a restoration project. You might also recognize the New York Pavilion from the Munchkinland of the movie version of the Wiz.

The Queens Museum which, is housed in the only building left from the 1939 World's Fair that was hosted on the same grounds, has a number of interesting galleries. It houses the scale relief map of NYC that was created for the 1964 fair and that blows the pants of the scale model of Singapore that we saw at the City museum there. Stephen couldn't capture the whole map in a single shot no matter what angle he tried. They also had a gallery of Tiffany lamps (Stephen got a photo of each one), and of memorabilia from both the fairs. It was also interesting to see how the context of the fairs was portrayed in the museum descriptions. A little heavy-handed maybe, but not wholly inaccurate.

Willkommen to Fall

October 24, 2024

Fall foliage is just about to peak here, so after working out and with Eli having some work stuff to do, Stephen went to walk around Prospect Park. It's way more compact that Central Park and he covered a good portion of the northern half in about two hours of walking.

Tonight we're saw Cabaret. This latest revival sets up the seating as if you were in the actual Kit Kat Club. To sit as the "cabaret" seating for Cabaret, you have to order a food package, so we did. We thought it was worth it to get the table seating. The timeliness of the show could not be better with all of Trump's former generals calling him a fascist. And the general conceit is that we're all getting lost in the spectacle of the club while the world is hardening around us. Eli really liked the choreography and the immersive experience. At the same time, a revival needs to offer something new, and Stephen, at least, wasn't sure that this version did that. The impact of "If You Could See Her" is lessened as you know what's coming (as with the finale), but Adam's choice to go soft and almost tender with the final line of "If..." was an interesting one vs. other performances of the number we'd seen.

Bebe Neuwirth as Fraulein Schneider was a surprise for us. We didn't know she was in the show (and she was great). Auli'i called out for our performance, so we saw her understudy, who was good enough, and Adam's voice was as brilliant as always, particularly on "I Don't Care Much." The rest of the material didn't give him lots of opportunities to use it.

Subway Stories

The NYC Subway is the notorious meeting place for all of humanity.. and we've had our shared experiences of the weird, frustrating, and illuminating. On the weirder side, Stephen was taking a subway trip on his own to walk through Prospect Park and a guy with no shirt on screeching loudly to whatever was coming through on his Beats earphones (or maybe he was screeching unrelated to the music he was hearing... it was that bad). Stephen decided to move over a car. Then the guy moved through the gangways between the cars and sat down on the small first bench. He the proceeded to do pullups on the upper handrail, all the time still screeching something. Next he proceeds to light up a cigarette; thankfully he has the courtesy to open the gangway door again so that the smell traveled out the car. Another time when Stephen and Eli were together, a "rapper" got on our train and rapped all the way from Franklin to 4th Avenue. After he got off the train (finally), we heard a bunch of conversations in the train car critiquing his performance (none were very positive).

Frustrating was our weekend trips. Since the subway runs 24/7, they use the weekends to do track work and maintenance, meaning there are all kinds of shutdowns and reroutes on Saturdays and Sundays. On our first weekend in town, we had to take a local train to get the the farmer's market because the 4 express wasn't running. This last weekend they were doing work on the A,C,E lines and the whole thing was a mess; no express service and all kinds of backups. On our way back from Manhattan visiting with Carlos and Evelyn, we decided we'd take the 7th avenue line instead. We got down into the station and no 2 or 3 trains are running at all. Apparently there was someone down on the tracks and they had shut down all service. Luckily there was a really helpful station attendant who helped us figure out a way home... We ended up doing the Grand Central Suttle to the 4 express and made it back home relatively quickly.

illuminating was our trip to the New York Transit Museum, which is housed in an unused subway station near Brooklyn City Hall. While not as diverse as the London Transit Museum, it was interesting to see the old subway cars and read about the construction of the subway. Eli thought that as much as they fronted information about the dangerousness of the work and some of the political and racist aspects of the subway's construction, that they were only telling a part of the story.

Based on our experience, no one is paying attention to this.

Adding to our collection of interesting public transit prohibition signs.

Kindred Spirits Old and New

October 26 and 27, 2024

One of the great things about NYC is there everyone almost always finds themselves coming here at some point. We were lucky enough to meet up with Eli's friends from when he lived in Mexico, Evelyn and Carlos. They're embarking on their next adventure retiring in Spain. Eli and Evelyn met when they were singing in the choir in Mexico City. There isn't a word that captures the experience other than kindred spirits. There are special people, who, even over the passing of time, even as we grow and change ourselves, who are there to meet us on that journey and pick right back up again as they walk their own journey.

Before meeting with with Evelyn and Carlos we headed into Manhattan a bit early to check out the Whitney Museum. We were really disappointed for $30 a piece. Granted, they had a whole floor of galleries closed to install a new exhibition that would be opening on November 1, but they had very little space dedicated to ongoing displays of their huge collection. The temporary exhibit they had on the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater of Harlem was an interesting choice to curate everything in one large gallery that took up the entire floor, but Stephen felt distracted by the music and narration playing in the background and found it hard to concentrate on the art.

Our friend Debbie knows people everywhere (she rivals Roz in that respect). She said we had to meet with her friend Lynn, who lives in Brooklyn along the waterfront. Lynn had met Debbie traveling in Costa Rica. Lynn met us along the waterfront for one of her favorite Brooklyn views-- sunset with the Statue of Liberty in the distance and the lights of lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. We then had an awesome meal at Felice, which has outlets all around NYC. It was great conversation topped off with an incredible pistachio tart that we all agreed was the best thing we'd all had in a while.

The Late Show and Sunset Blvd.

October 30, 2024

While we were in town, we thought me might try to get free fan tickets to some of the shows that tape here in NYC. We applied for Kelly Clarkson's show, but those tickets were WAY hard to come by, SNL you have to book way in advance too, but The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (a favorite of ours) looked like it might be a better bet (although there were no guaranteed tickets for his show either). We got notified that we had been given tickets for Stephen but it fell on the same day as the tickets we had for Sunset Blvd. Fear not, though, since taping would rap for The Late Show around 7 and Sunset Blvd. didn't start until 8 and they were just 10 blocks from each other.

The taping involved a lot of sit and wait. We had to arrive before 4:15 and they don't really start taping until just before 6pm. There was about 45 minutes of standing in line, a bathroom break, a warm-up comedian (who was awful), Stephen came out to talk a bit, and then the taping started. While Stephen was out before the show, he took questions from the audience. There was a really annoying guy who asked Stephen for a selfie (which he partially obliged but took way too long). One of the guests asked the question, "Apart from the birth of your children and marrying your wife, what was the happiest day of your life?" and you could see him actually giving it some thought. And his answer, about a gift his children gave him for his 56th birthday felt really sincere.

The monologue is so rapid fire, Stephen stumbled over himself a few times. Even though the show is recorded live, they do go back and fix things in post-production. He redid a joke and they will splice that in, and he re-recorded some audio of him saying baseman a bunch of different ways a bunch of times (instead of "basement" which is what he said in the original take) and the best one that matches the video will get spliced in as well.

Before each guest, during the :"commercial break," (which was barely longer than the actual 2.2 minute commercial break) a production assistant would sit in the guest chair and talk with Stephen (presumably) about the upcoming guest. Stephen would take notes on the blue card, and then show would start again. Stephen's guests tonight were Kiernan Culkin and Ta-nehisi Coates. Clearly Kiernan worked on his "funny appropriate topics for talk shows." At the same time, though, Stephen's background in improvisation led to this little bit about soft hands that was really playful; you could tell they were doing a lot of "yes... and.." The interview with Ta-Nehisi Coats was well-informed (clearly the production assistant had done her homework) and Stephen addressed the book as a whole while also touching on what has been in the news as the most "controversial" part. After Ta-Nehisi it was a wrap and as slow as it was for us to get in, we were quickly ushered out.

We stopped at a food truck on the way down 7th Avenue to get a gyro and ate it on the way to the St. James theater to see Sunset Blvd. Nicole Sherzinger had received rave reviews as Norma Desmond. The reimagining for this revival played up the film noir elements, basically using only a black and white color palate with an empty stage and creative use of video to heighten the paranoia in Norma's head. Nicole was AMAZING. Her voice had so many shades and colors in it; she is deserving of all of the accolades she has received so far. It was hard to imagine this voice coming out of a former Pussycat Doll (when we hear Ariana Grande doing broadway material we often think the same thing). Tom Francis, who played Joe Gillis, was fantastic also, as was the understudy who played Betty. We both thought the score had parts that reminded us of the music from Chess (in a good way). Andrew Lloyd Weber, love him or hate him, does know how to go big.

Fatherland

October 31st, 2024

We ended up not deciding on any Halloween plans, and from Stephen's experience in San Francisco decided that going to the West Village for the traditional Halloween parade might be kind of sketchy. Fatherland had been on Stephen's radar but he had completely forgotten about it until his mom mentioned something about it when they talked on the phone earlier in the day. We checked it out and there were only seats available for tonight before the show closed its run on Nov 10th, so it was either go tonight or not go. Eli was tired from having done Colbert and Sunset last night plus having worked all day, so he decided to skip.

The show is taken from the transcripts of the trial of a man who stormed the Capitol on January 6th who was later turned in to the FBI by his son. It uses the transcripts to weave an understanding of how a very middle-of-the-road person, though circumstance and siloed media became radicalized, the motivations of both father and son, and the impacts that result. It was well acted (with a very smart ad lib from the guy playing the defense attorney when someone's cell phone in the audience went off), and very powerful considering the election is only days away. Like "The Laramie Project," or "8," it is an important part of histroy dramatized to great effect.

Water for Elephants (and the Met)

November 1, 2024

Stephen ventured into Manhattan today; Eli met a colleague who lives in New Jersey and went on some client scouting around the area. Stephen started at the Metropolitan Musuem. Back in the day it used to be free, but now they charge tourists $30 (NY, NJ, and CT residents can pay what they wish). Following our 2 hours at a time philosophy, he scanned through the Egyptian galleries (including some rare wood sculpture pieces and a the ruins of a temple gifted by the Egyptian government that would have been submerged by the building of the Aswan dam). They have a series of galleries dedicated to musical instruments and he spent some time there, and then headed to the impressionist and modern galleries. The impressionist galleries were almost as impressive as the galleries at the Musee D'Orsey in Paris. Before leaving, he checked out a temporary exhibition of Mexican printmaking.

Since he was in Manhattan, the plan was that he would stop by the TKTS booth to see if discount tickets were available for any of the other shows we wanted to see, and then Eli would meet him there. Eli has a friend who he performed with in Fort Lauderdale who lives here in NYC and who we've seen when we come up in some cabaret shows and in an off-Broadway who was performing in Water for Elephants, so we knew we wanted to see her in her Broadway debut. We also knew that we were likely to be able to get pretty good discount tickets for it so we hadn't booked in advance. Stephen had forgotten that while in line, they have touts promoting shows. Not only do they hand out promo cards, but they also will give "advice" to those in line, although none of them Stephen heard had anything other than great things about any of the shows (and they get to see all of them). The harshest criticism he overheard was someone saying about Chicago and Lion King is that they'll always be here and therefore you can see them the next time you come to NYC and better to see a show that might not always be around (which is not untrue).

Since it takes about 50 minutes to get to our flat from Times Square, it didn't make sense for Stephen to go home, so he sat down at a (not very good) Dim Sum place in Hells Kitchen and had a snack of some dumplings and Jasmine tea before meeting Eli at the theater. We, of course, loved seeing Marissa in her Broadway debut. She invited us and another friend of hers who was in town and saw the show backstage to visit a bit before she headed back home to rest. You meet your cast member on the stage, so while we were waiting for her we got to pretend we were "on Broadway."

Eli was less sold on the show overall, although he really liked how they handled creating the animal effects. Stephen liked the balance of pastiche numbers with contemporary pop. While the acrobatics were amazing to watch as well, sometimes they were distracting from the core elements of the show. We thought there might have been one too many numbers that were there, not so much to move the story along, but to just be big production numbers.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

November 2, 2024

Stephen was working all day, so Eli went to the TKTS booth and ened up getting tickets for Harry Potter. He thought the special effects were outstanding, and appreciated that it was a new story set in-universe vs. just a rehashing of one of the book or movies.

For dinner, we headed to Gowanus to eat at Ayat, a Palestinian restaurant that we had thought to go to when we went out with Evelyn and Carlos, but we couldn't get a reservation. They offer mansaf, which was one of our favorite dishes from Jordan. It's lamb shank or leg braised in yogurt and then served over rice with a sauce made out of yogurt thinned with the lamb drippings. It's delicious! The location of this outlet of Ayat had only a partial menu, which we didn't know going it, and looked like it was ment to be more of a lunch spot for the offices and retail in the converted warehouses around it. The retail in the warehouses reminded us of the micro-incubator retail shops that were all over Taiwan, but these weren't quite so micro-incubator... more established.

Election Night Inspiration

November 5, 2024

In need of a little election night pick-me-up and not wanting to be glued to our phones awaiting returns, we thought we'd try to see Suffs. Stephen went to the TKTS booth at Lincoln center as it opens in the morning on Tuesdays vs. at 3pm, but no tickets to Suffs were to be had. In fact, many shows had canceled their shows for the night. Suffs, the guy at the booth said, was probably a hot ticket for election night. In the end, we bought the bullet and found reasonable full price tickets.

In the in-between time Stephen headed to MoMa and Eli would meet him at the theater. Eli picked up a slice of NY style pizza at Artichoke and Basille, which he had seen as one of the top pizza places in the city. The line was shorter there than it was for John's which is another famous joint. They both have locations all over the city. The pizza was good but not earth shattering; the crust was crisp.

The show was amazing, and the crowd very rowdy. The music was great... it was a mix of Sara Bareilles, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Sesame Street. It was all about allowing the new generation to lead, the long march toward justice (it took almost 80 years from the start of the Suffragist movement to earning the right to vote), and the tension between assimilation and palatability and rabble rousing.

Our inspiration turned to desperation the next day as we woke up to the news of Trump's election. We got into high gear and started checking out options for digital nomad visas and other possibilities.

The Brooklyn Museum

November 7, 2024

Again, looking for distraction, Stephen headed to the Brooklyn Museum, which is just a few subway stops away. It's pretty good for a regional museum, and it has standout collections of Korean pottery and, for some reason, got a whole bunch of Assyrian relief carvings to keep when they toured around from Britain in the early 20th century. The explanations of the art at the museum were really strong as well, in addition to what Stephen thought was a well balanced take on some of the controversial issues in provenance and who gets to display and keep what these days. The had an interesting take on the period rooms section too.

They also had a display of contemporary art created by residents of Brooklyn, that celebrated the local creative spirit. For some reason there was a lot of fuzzy art in this installation.

Dinner in Williamsburg

November 8, 2024

We wanted to check out famous Williamsburg, notorious hipster neighborhood. When we got there, we realized it hadn't been hipster in quite a while... It looked a lot like Park Slope. All the hipsters moved to Bushwick. But, still, we found Le Crocodile, a great restaurant with a French bistro flair, and had a great truffle and mushroom pate and wild chocolate dessert.

Random Museums

November 9, 2024

Today we ventured into Manhattan to check out some random smaller museums. We started at The Fashion Museum. We were hoping it would be like the Dior or YSL exhibits we saw in Paris and Marrakesh respectively. Their permanent collection was closed, apparently, and they did have an interesting contemporary display focused on fashion from Africa and the diaspora.

We then went to the Design Museum in Columbus Circle. We had loved some of the design museums we had seen in Copenhagen and in Singapore especially. There wasn't much of a permanent collection here and the temporary exhibit was all about Barbie. Can't say we loved this one much.

We then headed to the Morgan Library. JP Morgan (the Gilded Age financier of Chase Bank), was a collector of original manuscripts and important documents. His collection is housed in a bunch of neoclassical buildings on the East Side. Part of the library is open to the public and housed in some beautifully frescoed rooms. The exhibit on display while we were there highlighted the life of the curator of the library, who was a Black woman who passed as white. It was a well thought out display that highlighted the socio-cultural context of the time, her family life, and the main focus on her skills as a librarian and the relationship she had with JP Morgan.

Eli still experiences anxiety when he sees Don Quixote. It reminds him of having to read it during his study abroad (le cuesta mucho).

Last Week in NYC

November 10-16, 2024

In our last full week, we made a few meals to last with leftovers, ordered jerk chicken from one of the local Jamaican restaurants, had hot pot dinner with Adam, had a just okay anniversary dinner in Park Slope, and caught two more shows. All in all between the two of us (we went solo to one each), we saw 9 shows. That's more than 2 a week. As we reflected back, we thought about how cool it is to be in NYC, where there is always something new going on.... shows opening and closing, temporary art installations coming and going.

We were both surprised by Maybe Happy Ending. It was quite touching, and while the music may not have been particularly memorable (and Darren Criss was struggling a bit with his voice sans autotune), it was an interesting road trip, odd couple rom-com, musing on mortality and humanity. the show was originally produced in Seoul, South Korea. Apparently, there has been quite an explosion of musical theater in Korea as of late. Oh, Mary! Was just non-stop over-the-top for 90 minutes and we loved it!