Catch-up

Oops.
Got a little behind.
Apologies. A lot has been going on!
We'll see how far I get with this tonight.
I'll start with yesterday.

Well, we were supposed to take a ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island that morning. But we got there and the lines were huge - all coiled around the block all over. The estimated wait was three hours or something. Then a work boat capsized near the Statue of Liberty and there were all these helicopters and the ferries were ultimately suspended until future notice.
We decided to try again today and instead we went to the Natural museum of History.
The museum was HUGE. I mean, there was really no way that we would get to see it all, so it was pick and choose. We were scheduled for the noon planetarium show, so until then we just hung out on the first floor, reading about the Big Bang and measuring our weight on various stars and planets on these little scales. Then we went In this special elevator up to a large dark waiting room where we were lined up against the walls before being funneled into the "Planetarium Sphere", to which we were directed by a creepy GlaDOS voice.
"Please file into the Planetarium Sphere. Do not linger in the exits. Remember, there is no bad seat to view the universe."
The planetarium show was very good. It was about stars. There wasn't that much that I hadn't already read, but it was presented in an extremely cool way all the same.
After a short lunch in the cafe thing, we headed towards American Mammals.
...
The exhibit was very impressive, but disturbing. There were the most complex dioramas of animals. Full of very large, very real taxidermies. And gosh was I disturbed. Ugh. I mean, it was amazingly detailed, but... I mean seriously. They had baby tigers in there. Not just tigers. Otters, deer, lions, buffalo...
I mean, who would go out and shoot a family of tigers to stuff them and put them in a case and label them with a plaque about how endangered they are? I mean, if I was a tiger, I would not want may premature body to be forever staring out at a ton of gawking children with eyes that aren't even mine.
How as that even legal? It isn't. So how did they get them? I mean people have taxidermies rhinos and stuff from before that was illegal, but who would want a stuffed baby tiger in their living room? Who would go out and kill them? How would the museum acquire five stuffed baby otters that just happened to be lying around on eBay?
...
Enough ranting. Point being, that was disturbing, but the exibits were well done nonetheless.
There were exhibits on different cultures - ancient cultures from each continent - that were very cool.
And the mineral exhibit! It was HUUUUUUGE!!! I had to walk around in ther forever to see al the cases. Minerals are so cool. The bubbly ones and the cubic ones and the puffy ones, and the gems.... I really love opals. Black opals, fire opals... All of them. Amazing.
There were tons and they were all amazing. I do have pictures.
And that was that!
The museum was cool, I think. I wish I could have seen more of it. But I have not gotten over the baby tigers.

We went back to the hotel through central park, which was cool. The weather was nice so we just hung out by the lake and talked. On the way we purchased a bag of c- um, vegetables. Yeah. From a cart. Then we went to our hotel to rest.
The dragon fruit was just sitting there. In a bowl. On the table.
And I was like, you know what, let's eat this thing. And I just had this instinct to peel it. So I did and inside was this slippery white oval thing completely peppered with small black seeds. We cut it and each took a piece.
I went first.
It was weird.
Kind of like a soapy kiwi, but very mild, not really sweet, kind of a faint hint of diluted citrus. It was almost as if it could be triggering every taste bud at once, but so barely that you could barely tell. It was just really confusing. Each bite bamboozled me all over again.
I guess the after taste is a little sweet. Maybe. Or maybe it's sour. Or savory.

Point being, we needed to rest up for what came next.
Broadway.
YAAAY!
Exciting-ness. First we took a bus into Times Square where I walked around feeling small. It was packed at people, and I got rather phobic, but the space was so big that it helped a little, although that doesn't always help. I guess the buildings were so tall that it really worked out. Of course all the buildings were glowing and sliding and buzzing.
Plus Nokia was releasing the new smartphone in about half an hour and so there were all these TV cameras and I sort of jumped around in front of them. Then I realized I was in a tight pack of people also jumping around and I freaked out.
After a while we started walking to the theatre.
We were seeing Wicked!
I had neither seen nor read Wicked previously (Although I got the gist of it) so this was a big deal for me. I wasn't quite sure what it would be like.
It was AMAZING.
We had a cluster of seats at the very edge of the fifth and sixth rows. I was worried this would be really irritating but it was actually great viewing. We couldn't see all of the set on our side going into the stage, but that really didn't matter. Overall I think the seats were great, if not possibly the best we could have hoped for (closer to the middle) but I was able to really lock in. No tall person was blocking my view.
The curtain was a map of Oz. Above the stage was the large dragon clock thing. The curtain went up and it started writhing and glowing. It also did that when magic happened.
The show was captivating. It was wonderful. Everything about it. The costumes, the set, the effects, the actors, the characters they played, the singing, the dancing... The plot.
The actors were wonderful. Glinda. Was. Hilarious. I feel sorry for anyone who did not get to see that actor. She was just spectacular.
I was able to really lock in to Elphaba.
By the end I felt so glued. I was really feeling the emotions. Sometimes when I watch a movie and something dramatic happens, I tend to unconsciously mirror the facial expressions of the characters. I'm happy to say that did not happen, but I was really moved.
Our actresses for Elphaba and Glinda were Jackie Burns and Chandra Lee Schwartz.
(by the way, I noticed that blogger actually recognizes Elphaba as a word! Yay!
I think my favorite song was Defying Gravity. It was all good though.
Yay.

Then today we tried the ferry thing again. We got there nearly an hour earlier and the lines were nearly as long ( it seemed at the time ) But we waited it out. The whole hour and a half of it. Then a security tent. Then finally the ferry.
It was very fun on the fairy. I was slightly worried that I might become seasick, but I didn't, and I really enjoyed the motion of it actually. It was really windy.
Then we passed the statue of liberty. Not much to say about that. You guys all know what it looks like. Well, it looked like that. I did find the torch very impressive. Big and gold and shiny - torch like! The Statue was very impressive. Although I have to say, I just have always pictured it a lot bigger up close. I mean, it is very big. But I guess I have to be right against it to get the full effect I'm looking for.
We did not get off at that stop, instead going to Ellis Island, where we walked around in the museum for two hours. It was Scotland day or something, because these guys in army suits came marching over with bagpipes to play as we got off the ship. Then these Scottish dancers danced around outside. Scottish dancing is a lot like Irish step dancing, only a bit more in the legs, generally more in place, and I found the movements a little more geometric in the legs.
There were also three harpists playing gigs inside the museum.
And a bunch of Scottish flags outside.
Always, the museum was cool, but in a way I felt it kind of lacking. I had hoped to feel that sense of connection through history, feeling the space and the floor where thousands of immigrants - including Zaslaws (or Zaslofskis or however their name was then) - had poured through to a new country. But I just didn't get that. There were fancy glass doors and the floors and walling had been redone and I didn't feel connected at all. I couldn't plug this new remodeled space into Ellis Island. It just wasn't that space to me. As if some people decided to wreck Ellis Island and build a museum in it's place.
That made me a little sad.
Anyways, after the first floor and part of the second, I was worn out, so I rode escalators up and down for a bit and then went outside to listen to the bagpipe people until I was supposed to meet the grandparents in the lobby at three. But I went in the lobby early and it turns out my Grandparents were worn out too, so we leapt onto the leaving ferry.
There are three ferries. Miss Liberty, Lady Liberty, and Miss New York. We rode the liberties to and from. A ferry comes every twenty minutes.
Then we got back to rest up for our Seder, which would start at 4:30.