A Progressive on the Prairie

NYC: Witches, phantoms and spam

Posting has been virtually non-existent due to a several day trip to NYC with my three daughters this past week. Between what the hotel wanted to charge for internet access and my preferring to roam the city rather than the web, I was virtually cyber incommunicado.

I am still trying to recover from herding and keeping up with the three girls. It was the first trip there for the younger two and seeing how wide their eyes got the first night in Times Square was alone almost worth the cost. I generally served as direction finder/tour guide and financier. A few random observations from the trip:

I am not a fan of musicals but each daughter got to pick the Broadway show they wanted to see, meaning we saw three musicals. While I couldn’t imagine converting a great Python movie into a Broadway musical but Spamalot was truly enjoyable. Wicked not only strayed from the book (which I didn’t like), it was absolutely stunning. But I still don’t understand the fascination with The Phantom of the Opera, now the longest running musical in Broadway history.
I almost had to be dragged out of Strand Bookstore. And as might be expected, that was the location of my first personal purchases — three books and a t-shirt.
My next personal purchases also reflected my interests — several t-shirts from the NHL Store. It opened last October and was just at the end of the block on 47th Street from our hotel.
Most of the food was exceptional, although what may bother me most at some of the highly praised restaurants isn’t the prices but how pretentious they are.
As has been the case with every trip I’ve made to NYC, four days or so is about the max of my tolerance. There’s just too many people in too big a hurry to go who knows where. To top it off, it was Fleet Week, meaning there were thousands of sailors and Marines throughout the city.
Despite the diversity of culture, food and arts, a NYC trip has always refreshed my perspective on life here and this time perhaps more so than before.