Taking another bite out of the Big Apple.

So as I promised I owe a blog post about my trip to the world's theatre capitol NYC! This will be a long one so settle in (Hope was worth the wait!) It was almost 5 years since I was last in NYC. A visit was long over due. I went with my boyfriend N. to celebrate 5 years together. Ironically a few days after we started dating was the last time I was in NYC. In the vein of Meg Cabot,I try to keep my personal life private which is why I only refer to him as N. and you won't find any pics of him on here. 

 On Monday December 9 we spent the night in Toronto the day before we left, because my mom gave us a life experience package at the former Skydome hotel (Now called the Renaissance Hotel and the skydome is now called the Roger's centre) The room was pretty lush, two flat screen TVs. Our package included champagne and chocolate covered strawberries, breakfast for two, and tickets from a selection of local attractions. It was fabulous. Here's a pic of the room.

 

For the attraction we decided to go tour the Steam Whistle Brewery. It was fun getting tipsy at noon ...something to try once. There were samples before and after the tour, plus everyone got a freshly bottled of beer right of the assembly line, time stamped and everything. It was awesome, I really like the beer too. We ended up being lumped in with the George Brown College school tour, the instructor was treating us as if we were his students, he wouldn't let us fall behind. The brewery is located in part of an old railway roundhouse. Here's a pic from the tour:

 

After the tour I went back to the Chickery, because I still wanted to meet Chef David Adjey. I had something different this time and was much happier with the food. Chef Adjey was pretty cool, he said they were trying to reboot his former  show The Opener on A&E. He promised us extra sides, but never delivered Naturally I got a picture with him

 

At 6:40 that night we caught the overnight bus to NYC. It was a bargain at 100 USD round trip for the both of us. We were all prepared for the trip and had the laptop to watch movies etc. We had even been considerate and got a splitter so we could both listen with our headphones and to not disrupt our fellow travellers. I was disappointed to see that others weren't so considerate and were just playing youtube videos on their phones with out headphones, or listening to music really loudly even with headphones.

We arrived in NYC shortly after 6 am, first thing I hailed a cab like the New Yorker I am at heart. Our destination was to the Dominque Ansel Bakery home/inventor of the cronut. For those living under a rock ;O) the cronut is pastry that is a donut/croissant hybrid. In the summer people line up at 4 in the morning for  them. When we arrived we were second and third in line. This guy Robert was ahead of us in his sleeping bag. He is professional line sitter, so people pay him to wait in line for him. Someone for example was paying him $40 to acquire a $5 pastry for them, and he does things 4 or 5 times a week. ! The longest he ever waited for something was 18 hours. It wasn't all that cold but eventually the staff came out and gave us complimentary hot chocolates and madelines while we waited for the bakery to open at 8. While we were waiting this girl who stated she was a stripper, wanted to get warmed up in Robert's super large sleeping bag, she came over and was all "Hey boo", he let her sit beside him, but made sure she knew she still had to go to the back of the line with her friends. She was inexplicably in nothing but sweats even though her friends had her coat. She was definitely drunk if not high.

When the bakery opened Robert let me go in first which means I got to hold the golden loaf, I thought that was pretty sweet of him, he'd never been first before. The cronut has a new flavour every month, and has the texture of a flaky croissant, but friend like a donut. In December it was orange and champagne with gold dust sprinkled on top. It was worth every penny let me tell you!  I get a kick out of the fact I got one with out a problem, but Emma Roberts niece of Julia Roberts got bumped to the back of the line this summer when she tried to queue jump! Anyway here is a pic of the queue and the cronut

After the cronut we made our way to American Museum of Natural History (For those who have seen the movie Night at the Museum, that is where it is set. Personally I like to see my animals live not stuffed, but I acquiesced as this was one one really touristy thing N. wanted to do on his first trip to the big apple. especially since they had a butterfly exhibit that was pretty cool going on. The butterflies liked my right boob, that seemed to be the only place they were landing (Pervs ;O) )

 

Kind of a funny story, there is store back home that has these gemstone bracelets with initials on them, I have never been able to find a K. When I saw the exact bracelets at the museum gift shop I figured I would have no problem finding my initial if not my name. No dice, are you kidding me? One of the biggest cities in the world and I can't find a K? I did get one that says I <3 N. though. A cute little souvenir.

We made our way to try White Castle for lunch, as I had never been to one before. I was underwhelmed, and don't get what Harold and Kumar went to all that trouble for. I asked N. which one of us was Harold and who was Kumar, he replied you're the Indian, you're Kumar. (As one of my co-workers points out wrong Indian I am feathers not dots.) White Castle burgers are itty bitty, but still calorie laden! That is one thign about the US calories are listed everywhere UGH! I don't need to know some venti drinks from Starbucks are 500 calories!

Project Runway haven Mood Designer Fabrics is just around the corner from White Castle so of course I had to go, didn't buy anything but a "Thank You, Mood" t-shirt. I was hoping to meet Swatch the dog or run into Tim Gunn, but no such luck. Still it was cool to see three floors of fabric, imagine what I could do for my upcoming show, if you let me loose in there with an unlimited budget.... sigh. Anyway here is a pic of me at Mood and the burger.

  

Then it was off to try and get my first celeb autograph of the trip. James Bond actor Daniel Craig and his wife Rachel Weisz (Runaway Jury, The Mummy) were doing a play Betrayal together, but we couldn't get tickets - not that we wanted to see a play about infidelity on our anniversary trip anyway. I am a HUGE Rachel fan, so I was super excited to stage door. We knew the show ended around 3:30 so we went and hung out. Sadly she never came out, and Daniel was only signing playbills, he politely informed me so I couldn't get Skyfall signed as a Christmas present for someone, he was polite about it, and I sorta got a pic with him. 

 

As it was after three by this point we were finally able to check in to our hotel. We got a bargain, but as they say you get what you pay for. The  Carter Hotel is located in Times Square, and was $129 USD, I checked the hotel the day before and they the same room for $109, I asked if they could do an adjustment for us, but they wouldn't. I was assured though by the front desk clerk that he would put us in the nicest room he had available though. I knew that this wasn't a luxury hotel so I had low expectations, but I didn't expect there to be a sticker from someone else's tee on the comforter, and I expected the bathroom to have a bath, not be a tiled room with a curtain and a grate in the floor. After moving rooms to one that had a fabulous view of a brick wall, but at least we had brand new out of the package clean blankets. I should have known when I girl Vicky I volunteer usher with knew it by reputation and I saw that there was a wikipedia page about our hotel. A lot of sketchy things happened there, murders, suicides, I just figured it would be a bit of colour, but it had gotten good reviews lately. I wouldn't stay there again though.  I did like that the front desk still had mailslots for each room behind it, that was cool. Our closet even had a fire escape plan in it from when it was the Dixie Hotel. Here's pics of the bathroom, our first and second room and the fire escape plan.

After freshening up we went for dinner at Sardi's. I had made 6pm reservation for us the week before so we could have a nice leisurely dinner before going to see a play at 8. I had to send my food back though because the chicken was over cooked, the second time it was fine. I swear I had a run of bad luck with restaurants over cooking my food. It was still neat to go there and we could see the whole restaurant from our corner table. Here's a pic of our view and a close up of a drawing of former Wicked and 9-5 performer Steph J Block. 

I knew I couldn't convince N. to see a musical, as he isn't a fan so I didn't see one this trip, as much as I would have liked to have seen Matilda or First Date. We agreed on seeing Sir Ian McKellan and Sir Patrick Stewart in No Man's Land by Harold Pinter. For those who don't know Ian McKellan plays Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies and Magneto in X-men, Teabing in The DaVinci Code. Patrick Stewart plays Professor Charles Xavier in X-men but trekkies would know him as Captain Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek:The Next Generation. Billy Crudup from Stage Beauty and Almost Famous was also in the play too.

When we were in line to pick up our tickets, a familiar face walked by. I had an rubbernecking"oh hi, your Edward Norton" moment. (He was in Fight Club and the "good" Hulk movie). He was seeing the play, I tried to get a pic with him, but he didn't co-operate, but I can't blame him he was just a regular guy out on the town. I seem to have met/seen a lot of comic book actors in the past:Mark Ruffalo (Hulk in the Avengers), Gwenyth Paltrow (Pepper Potts in Iron Man and The Avengers), Colin Ferrell (Bullseye from Daredevil) and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine in the X-men movies) Ironically I have never actually read one of the comics, but come across as a total comic book nerd having seen a lot of the movies ;O) . I digress, the play itself didn't hold my attention, that fact that I was up since 4 am had absolutely nothing to do with my dozing off at all really. An expensive nap to say the least. *hangs head in shame* The stage door was great though even if they were only signing playbills, mine was signed by all of the cast. They were super polite about not signing X-men/LOTR stuff too. Ian posed for a pic with me, he was sweet. Here's a pic of my playbill (The Canadian in me feels so wrong typing that it's programme!) and one of me and Ian McKellan, a pic of Billy Crudup and Patrick Stewart.

On the way back to the hotel we checked out the stores that were open late in Times Square. I totally wanted to ride the ferris wheel in the Toys'R'us but it wasn't running. Each car had it's own theme Barbie, My Little Pony etc. Here's a pic and that was day one.

 

Day two was not as eventful and a lot shorter, because our bus left at 6:40, and by this point my feet were killing me because I decided to just pack a pair of high heel boots  that I thought were broken in enough. We were out of the hotel asap, and had breakfast at this cute cafe, again calories were posted. We also stopped by the Cake Boss Cafe too and had a cannoli. For those who don't know Cake Boss is a reality show on TLC where this Bakery out of Hoboken, New Jersey makes amazing inventive cakes. Here's a pic of me and the cafe along with the pastry

We made our way up Fifth Avenue and Rockefeller Centre. Being the tourists we are we took a pic in front of the big tree. Of course we had to stop at the Nintendo store around the corner. Afterwards we went to Dylan's Candy Bar. This store is owned by designer Ralph Lauren's daughter Dylan. They have mini chocolate bars, with your name on it, but I couldn't find my name, they didn't even have my mom's name Cynthia or any variation, rather surprising.  It is three floors of candy, N. was disappointed by the selection of sugar-free candy, as we know a lot of diabetics. The store was also featured on Project Runway for an unconventional challenge where they had to make couture out of candy. Here's a pic of the storefront.

 

Next stop was the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side. There was a Marc Chagall exhibit on that I was excited to see. While living in Europe 9 years ago I became quite an art aficionado. I found the paintings very dark especially compared to the ceiling he did of the Opera Garnier in Paris. That was my first introduction to Chagall's work. I thought he was French, but he was actually a Russian Jew. A bit of trivia his paintings about the pogrom of Russian Jews inspired the title of the musical "Fiddler on the Roof. " The museum also had an exhibition on Art Spiegelman who basically invented the graphic novel with his work Maus. It was okay, we had other things we wanted to do so we didn't see the whole museum.

 It was almost a theme day when we went to Katz's deli in the East Villiage.I say it is a theme because it is a Jewish deli. Katz's just happens to be where the famous faking scene from the movie  When Harry Met Sally was filmed. They operate on a ticket system which you are handed when you walk in, they write down everything you have on it, and you need it to leave. Let me tell you although expensive the pastrami on rye was orgasmic (As was the cheesecake)

 

When planning our trip I had finally worn N. down and he had agreed to go to the Life Cafe for breakfast (I really wanted huevos rancheros). When I went to look up their hours of operation to my horror I discovered that it had closed in 2012 :o( At least I got the chance to have them once before it closed.( I have the geeky pic from my last trip to prove it) Walking around the East Village was nice, even though each step was painful. N. though it was the heart and soul of the city. After that we made our way to Macy's to see the store windows then to the bus. The store windows were cool and it was neat the people could interact  with them. Here's a pic

The bus was late getting there. The ride back was a lot better, less packed so we had four seats all to ourselves and a table, with no loud people around us.  There was a long wait at customs because these passengers on a previous bus had 20 bags among three people, and every bag was being thoroughly inspected.  The bus driver was pretty nice to us though he dropped us of at Union Station instead of Bay and Dundas, so it was easier for us to get home. Overall it was whirlwind trip, but a lot of fun. My cats were definitely happy to see me, they'd never been left that long before.

Anything Goes and TIFF

I will make up for my lack of posting with a very long, newsy post. I have been to Toronto quite a few times in August and September, some times for shows, and for TIFF, one day I went just to be a foodie

On my foodie day, I went to the Chickery, which is run by  Celebrity chef, David Adjey. It was okay, the chicken tenders were moist, but I prefere my dad's beer can chicken and my mama's coleslaw. I really liked his ranch dipping sauces though. I don't think the value was there. Here's a pic of the food:
  

Afterwards I went to go a Magum pop up shop. The Magnum brand is pretty new to North America, but it is a British ice cream bar. This pop up shop let you customize your bar, with choices of what kind of ice cream, chocolate coating (dark, white or milk), and toppings, some of the flavours are crazy for example grape nerds! Seriously! There was a line to get into the store to be served by a "pleasure maker" which is what the employees are called. I hada vanilla ice cream bar, with white chocolate coating, macadamia nuts, strawberries and toffee bits for toppings and milk chocolate drizzle. It was $6 and worth every penny, glad I got to try it, as the store was only around until the end of August. Here's a pic of the goodie:

Another thing was was only around in August was the touring production of Anything Goes. This was one show that I knew I wanted to see when Mirvish announced it was coming. It didn't disapoint, it was everything I love about musicals, the costumes, the sets, the dancing, great music. Cole Porter really knew his stuff. I would love to play the part of Reno Sweeney, it seems like a fun role. The one negative, I kept on wishing it was Sutton Foster playing Reno, not Rachel York, even though she did a fine job. I love the title number... "god knows Anything Goes"

The show was being performed at the Princess of Wales Theatre which will eventually be demolished to make way for ugly condo buildings. In case you can't tell, just a little bitter about this. I have known about this for a while but it makes it sort of bitter sweet when I go to the PoW because of that, everytime, I wonder, will this be the last time. This time I noticed something I never noticed before: a letter to Ed Mirvish signed by Princess Diana! I took a pic:

 

I also found myself in Toronto for the Toronto International Film Festival.  My friend Siob had offered my tickets to a South African made kids movie called Khumba, it was really cute. It was about an zebra (Khumba) born with out stripes on his backside, (so he had a white bum) the other zebra's thought he was cursed because of this, and blamed him for the drought, so he sets out to earn his stripes. On the first Saturday I dragged my friend Alex along and we were on the road at 7 am to make it on time for the early morning screening. The Q&A with the director was fun, I got a kick out of watching the kids ask questions. We were the first North American audience to see the film.

After the movie we were walking down King St plotting our next move, what celebs we wanted to try and meet etc. I saw people waiting at the red carpet at Roy Thomson hall in the rain no less. We found out Mike Myers was coming in an hour or so for his directorial debut "Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon" so we stuck around. I was talking to this guy from etalk who was covering the red carpet, and we found out Alice Cooper was going to be there too.Apparently my eyes lit up, and the guy from etalk tried to talk to me but I was interview me, but I was speechless, this girl next too me, called me cute. While we were waiting this guy came right over to me, and asked me if I wanted tickets to the movie, um let me think.... Yes! I would have been happy enough just to meet those two, sadly because of timing, they couldn't spend alot of time with the fans so I didn't get to, because they had to go do the interviews. Here's the pick I snapped of Mike Myers and Tom Arnold.

  

As we entered the hall, I was greeted by Yvan Pedenault who was the lead in We Will Rock You back in 2007, he didn't recognize me from the multiple stage doors (I was over sixty pounds heavier back then) We also noticed that out tickets were Red Carpet Lounge ones, when we asked, even though there was only 5 minutes before the movie, we got to go into a lounge were that they gave us free drinks and snacks. I tried Chablis for the first time, it was nice. I don't know why we didn't take pics of the room though. Alex and previously quipped that the only thing that could have made this day better was free alcohol, I didn't think that would happen, little did I know! We even had reserved seats. I don't know how I got so lucky, my theory is the guy thought I was cute, or was attracted by my hot pink Betsy Johnson tights and scarf. (The tights dyed my feet pink by the way, because my Michael Kors boots got wet in the rain)

The movie itself was interesting, it is doctumentry about the life of this manager Shep Gordon. It had some really funny moments and poignant ones. After Mike and Shep were interviewed on stage. It would have been better if the audience could have answered questions. I did learn neat factoids though like why Alice Cooper performed his new stuff during the movie Wayne's World. Basically Shep his manager said if you don't let him, then you can't have him. (I love Wayne's World) Alice Cooper didn't come on stage even though he was interviewed in the movie, he just sat in the audience (He got mobbed afterwards)

 

Day 2 was just about the red carpet, and I dragged my friend Verena along for the ride. I wanted to meet Sandra Bullock, so I found myself outside the Princess of Wales theatre where the premiere for Gravity was happening, I got to be right up front of the barricades. It was kind of crazy seeing King St closed off to traffic other than street cars. The poor security guard, who had to lift the pile ons everytime time one need to get by. My impression of Sandra is she is a real lady, who seems to really care about her fans, she came early and spent a decent amount of time on the red carpet. I was lucky enough to get my copy of Miss Congeniality signed. I was a little more prepared this time and had brought stuff to get signed. I thought George Clooney was going to be there, but he wasn't. Here's a pic of Sandra signing and of my DVD:

 

After that I wandered over to the Elgin for the main event. I was a hugh Colin Firth fan, so my mission was to met him when I heard he was going to be in town. I got to the red carpet for Devil's Knot nice and early, and was right up front. I had brought my copy of Bridget Jone's Diary to have him sign, I wasn't sure if his Devil's Knot co-star Reese Witherspoon was going to be there, so I didn't grab one of my many movies with her in it, so I ended up running into to the Eaton Centre and buying Pleasantville for $8.

When the stars arrived, they literally stopped traffic on Yonge St, so that the starts could go see the fans, who had been lined up across the street from the theatre. Pretty crazy! Here's what the set up looked like:

Colin Firth apparently didn't like me, because he missed me on his first run by, and when he came by the second time, he completely ignored me when I was holding out my DVD, and said please Mr Firth. I know he saw me because he looked right at me. I don't know maybe he thought I was too eager or something, and thought you get nothing. What a jerk. So needless to say I am not a fan anymore. I might give him a chance to redeem himself in the future, but right now I am still bitter. Here's a pic:

 

Back to the positive, it was a really pleasant surprise to see True Blood's Stephen Moyer (he plays Bill) he didn't come near my part of the line.Here's my blurry pic of him:

Reese was prefectly polite, she almost crossed the back across the street, but stayed when fans called to her. She didn't sign the blank paper the lady next to me was holding out. I almost got a poised pic with her but Verena couldn't get the camera to work. I did however get Pleasantville signed so it was worth the money. So that was TIFF for this year, I will leave you with a pic of Reese and my autograph: