Friends

For me, going to New York is like visiting a good friend. I know I'm going to have fun and wish I could spend more time with her. I also know her well enough that I don't have to plan too much or worry that I'll be bored.

I knew the trip would have to be particularly short when I booked it. My area at work is currently short two people - one of my colleagues is on parental leave and they still haven't back filled a vacant position over a year after a retirement - so one week off at a time is about as much as I can manage until May. It was also a very last minute trip - I booked the flight just over two weeks before departing - so going somewhere familiar felt like a good idea.

When I'm in New York, I generally spend most of my time doing three things: going to live theatre, visiting museums, and eating food. I also try to get to live music and just like to walk around the city.

Choc NYC

I didn't spend as much time going to fancy restaurants as I did the last time I was in New York, but I did have some excellent pizza, an Italian sandwich from Pisillo so huge that I didn't think I could finish it but so good that I had to, some wonderful yakitori, and was lucky enough to get seated right away at Russ & Daughter's when everyone else was being told there was a two hour wait. I also got to a lot of bakeries. My favourite find this trip was Choc NYC which is located at the north end of Manhattan relatively close to the Met Cloisters. It's small and doesn't have the biggest selection, but the food was incredible and I love being able to see into the kitchen.

The timing of my trip coincided with the tail end of the New York City Ballet's fall season. Unlike other ballet companies, NYCB has multiple different performances within the same week that are then repeated over the course of about a month, so I went twice. Once on Sunday afternoon with the highlight there being Symphony in C and then again on Tuesday night with where I got to see Justin Peck's Everywhere We Go which was possibly my favourite performance of the trip. I also went to Betrayal (with Tom Hiddleston and Charlie Cox) which had a minimal set (basically just two chairs and a wall) with brilliant performances telling an interesting story of an affair.

Surprisingly, I was able to get tickets to see Hamilton. It's been sold out since it opened and resale tickets are insanely expensive, but there was a rare Sunday evening show, so I was able to get a balcony seat without going broke. (There were also some orchestra seats available, but they were outside my price range.) It's impressive, but maybe a bit too much American history for me to truly love it.

I also went to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I'd strongly recommend it for Harry Potter fans and I was very impressed by the effects and moved by the story. It's presented in two parts so I went to the first part in the afternoon and the second part in the evening. (For those who don't have a whole day, there is an option to go on two consecutive nights as well.) Finally, I also saw Percy Jackson the Musical which was kind of goofy but also fun.

View from the roof of the Met

Ordinarily, if I had to pick one museum to go to in New York, it would be the MOMA. They were just finishing a major expansion though, so it was closed while I was there, so I didn't get to see Starry Night or the Water Lilies this trip, but I did go to a lot of museums: the Whitney, the Gugenheim, Intersect by Lexus, the Museum of Art and Design, the American Folk Art Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian (the contemporary art here was a definite highlight), the Noguchi Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, the Met Cloisters, the New York Historical Society, and the Met itself. About half of these I had never been to before.

I wasn't originally planning on going to the Met. The collection there doesn't change that often and I wasn't particularly excited by the temporary exhibits. However, I had never been to the roof top sculpture gallery and my ticket to the Cloisters allowed me to get in anyway. The view from the roof is spectacular and there's a bar so you can get drinks and snacks and there were lots of people buzzing about.

Swing 46

The best find of the trip though, was my new favourite bar tender. Most theatre shows take a break on Monday nights, so I was looking for something else to do that evening. I checked a couple of the Jazz clubs I knew about and wasn't particularly interested in the people who were performing, so I ended up at one I hadn't been to before - Swing 46. The music is mostly swing jazz and there's a dance floor and restaurant area, but if you just want to sit and listen, you can sit at the bar, so that's what I did. I ordered a Whiskey Sour, and chatted with the bar tender. I found out her name is Marley, she's from North Carolina, came to New York to study opera originally, but is now taking clinical psychology. When I finished my first drink she asked if I wanted another at no charge. Sure. (Apparently, it was happy hour, so drinks were two for one.) When I finished that one, a third drink magically appeared without me asking (after that I switched to water.) At the end of the night, she suggested that I should come back on Friday night before I left town. How could I resist? It was far busier on Friday, but we chatted some more and I agreed to let her know the next time I was in town. So, now I have a friend in New York. So, if you are going to New York, pop by Swing 46 and say hi to Marley for me.

(If you want to see more pictures they are here.