New York New York June/July 2008

So…..NEW YORK! How awesome was it? Very. So here goes….I finish my packing on Tuesday morning (with the “help” of my cat) and then head up to Kimbo’s by car. I’m RUBBISH with directions, so this little journey (which wasn’t even difficult) was quite an adventure in itself. I managed to get lost and ended up ringing Kim for directions….but I made it in the end in plenty of time.

Once inside her house, Kim had left her pasta on the hob for far too long so I think it was soggy. Yum. Her Dad turned up and off we headed to the airport. Terminal 5 – hmmm this could be interesting we thought. We’d checked in online so all we had to do was drop our suitcases and go through security.

So terminal 5? QUIET. It was sooooo empty, no queues for anything, straight through security and into the really huge terminal. We had ages to wait, but there was plenty to keep us occupied. We ended up in Wetherspoons to have some early dinner before boarding.

Once we got to our gate, we sat around for a bit. I rung a very overexcited Soooz who screamed down the phone at me…so funny. Then we headed onboard. We had the seats next to the window…and some man was sitting the otherside of me….however, the plane wasn’t full and he moved next to his girlfriend on the other side of the aisle…fab! We had plenty of room. My headset thing wouldn’t plug in on my seat..so I moved over leaving a gap between us meaning we could spread out. Looooovely.


The food. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t amazing. Apart from the amazing orgasmic chocolate brownie. Loved it. Kim nearly threw up from the oatcakes….nice. After ‘sleeping’ well, trying to, I looked out the window and saw America! How exciting!!


We landed soon after and then headed out to go through the entry thing. The queue was sooooo long and dull and we were shattered. But hey…we went through then went to collect our bags which were there in one piece..phew.

We left the airport to get a taxi to our hostel. I was soooo tired, but was looking out the window as we drove along and got really excited when I saw the Chrysler building and various other things.

We got to our hostel, checked in and paid and then headed up 5 looong floors to our room. Now…this hostel room was ok. It was fairly clean, just hot and small. But, we only showered and slept there so it was fiiine. We went to sleep straight away.

Day 1:

We both woke up extremely early so got up and dressed and decided to go find the subway. After going the scenic route to it, we found it and bought our 7 day metrocards ($25!) and a very nice man helped us out finding the right train/platform. I loved that the trains were air conditioned..made it so much more pleasant. Anyway…we got on the express train to 42nd st/times sq and it was realllly quick.

I think our faces must’ve been a right sight when we left the station because we just gawped. Everything is so high! We were slightly overwhelmed by it all and wandered a bit aimlessly to start with. We soon found various things….and got some food and drink and then headed into the Times Sq info centre and picked up tons of leaflets and checked the emails etc.

Then I think we wandered some more. Oh, we walked north and passed various theatres and things….we looked for the Town Hall where we had to go in the evening for Idina’s concert.

We found the Gershwin and randomly entered the lottery as it was happening when we got there. We didn’t win…but turns out Julie was on anyway…sooooooooo didn’t matter.

We sat out in the sun with some food and then went to search for the shops. We headed to 5th Avenue and eventually found Abercrombie where we fangirled the prices and got shopping! After lots of walking, our legs HURT so we headed back to the hostel to change before the concert that evening.

Idina’s New York concert:

Woooow. I was sooo excited. Kimbo had only seen Idina perform in Chess so was also excited to see her do her solo stuff. I hid my camera and zen down my bra to sneak them into the venue..it worked. Turns out we were sat infront of some of Idina’s family…but listening to them talk…I don’t think they’d met her many times!! Her Dad came over to talk to them and I, recognising him straightaway, made a squee face at Kim and mouthed who he was. We looked away but may have heard some of their conversation. If I’m honest….I was quite offended. One of the woman who I don’t think was a direct relation was whinging on and on about how Idina was late on…were they going to get to meet her afterwards? Then was asking other people who’s that guy? Why is he talking to her? SHUT UP.

Anyway…Idina was half an hour late on but that’s cool…didn’t bother me. Just gave me more time to get overexcited. So out she came to the familiar beginnings of “I Stand”. I know I just sat there with a ridiculous grin on my face as she sang. She went through the usual setlist…seemed very excited to be in NYC again. She said it many times. She had some tech issues and kept asking the sound guys to turn the band down because she couldn’t hear herself. I loved loved loved the version of Brave that she sang. It was just beautiful. She came out with some funny stuff…she is obviously in love with her dress as she kept mentioning it. It was pretty “coral..or salmon..or orange”. Also some classic quotes “can you see my crotch?”. And just so much more funny stuff that I can’t remember off the top of my head.


There were some REALLY annoying people in the front couple of rows who kept talking to her during the show…at one point she turned round and went “WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?!Hold on a second…this is MY show” so so funny. At one point I think she even swore loudly in their direction. It was very entertaining. She did a mini q+a thing with the audience and people just went waaaaaaaaay overboard. It was scary. Credit where it’s due...Idina handled it all very well and ignored people who yelled weird things at her. She stuck her stomach out when someone asked about babies and had a whinge that Taye hadn’t turned up as there was a possibility he might do…but couldn’t make it. Aaaaaaaaand I can’t remember what else. I keep getting the 2 concerts confused and mixed up. It was all very funny though…she had the audience in hysterics. She also did a lovely speech about Perfume and Promises about how she’d written it in London the day after she left Wicked. So it was all about London….she went on and on about how London is amazing and she recommends it to people and blah. Made me very happy. Her acapella version of For Good was also amaaaazing.

I decided I wanted to wait after the show and see if she came out….and she did….2 hours later. Crazy. But I bumped into a friend that I’d met camping out for Idina’s last show so that was awesome. We caught up and chatted while we waited. Eventually out she came. Some people were so rude about the fact she’d taken a long time – seriously? You don’t have to wait…. And she doesn’t have to come out. Gah. Anyhow..it was mayhem. People pushing, cameras flashing. I ended up in the street. A policeman was telling everyone to get back on the sidewalk but I physically couldn’t move. Ewww. Anyway, I had the photo of me and Idina from the meet&greet in London but it had got crushed in all the mayhem but I thought I’d get it signed anyway. So..Idina was having photos with people and chatting briefly..she saw me and started talking to me in the middle of having her picture taken with someone…I bet that’s attractive. Then she pushed through to give me a hug which was nice of her (but ohhhh the looks I got from some other fans..haha) and she saw the photo and asked if she was signing or taking…and then “can I have it?” *pulls photo from my hand* I grabbed it back and told her she could if she wanted but it was really creased up so she made me promise to bring one to the concert the next day in New Jersey because she wanted a copy. I didn’t get a photo…there were so many people and to be honest…I already have a few. It would have been selfish of me I think. She said goodbye and then continued on. I struggled through to get out of the crowd towards Kim. She was talking to a lady about Chess and her and her daughter were extremely jealous that we’d sat so close both nights! Anyway, off we trotted to the subway and headed back to the hostel for some sleep. We were both knackered!

Day 2: New Jersey Day!

We got up early and headed to the Port Authority bus station to pick up our tickets for our exciting bus journey to Atlantic City. I forgot to mention that on our first day we discovered the amazingness that is Jamba Juice. So so so so good. We found one in the bus station and bought one to have while we hung around. Well, we went and did some shopping first, then returned to the bus station for Jamba Juice and queuing.

We ended up getting an earlier bus than originally intended so we got to Atlantic City earlier.
This was a good thing because we had to find our way from where the bus stopped to the Borgata. The Borgata is huge and we could see it wherever we stood…but we weren’t sure how to get there. We walked most of the way then grabbed a cab from another Casino. Now…Kim got blisters from her flip flops on the first day so walking wasn’t the easiest of tasks for her....but we managed.


The Casino was amazing. It was so nice and cool inside and BIG. Really really huge. We found the Music Box and picked up the tickets then wandered to find something to eat. Our dinner there was the best meal I’ve ever eaten in my whole entire life. It was a buffet for around $30 including drinks and dessert. We ate so much. And the food was amazing….just amazing. We sat there just like “whoooooa” to everything.

Anyway…we headed to the Music Box and went inside. The merchandise stand was there again selling tshirts and things. I had realised yesterday that the person running the stand was infact the girl who had been emailing me from Idina’s management team. I was too shy at the town hall to say hi to either her or Burt but I found some confidence and introduced myself to Jen and we had a little chat. We headed to our seats and soon discovered that the seats infront of us were gonna be empty…and Idina’s Dad and managers were telling people to move forward..so we did! FRONT ROW!! It was fun. I’d brought the pic of me and Idina for her with me…but we had a bus to catch so I didn’t think I’d be able to wait so I asked Jen if she’d pass it on for me…she said she’d talk to Burt and told me to go see her after the show.

The show. Again…half an hour late starting. She was wearing black skinny jeans, a black tank top and belt. Apparently she’d had some sort of fashion emergency just before the show and had to run to La Perla and buy a $170 bra and the black top. She then kindly showed us all her very expensive bra. Lovely. Anyway…she said she wasn’t feeling in a dress mood today..she was feeling naughty and she couldn’t just sit herself on the floor in a dress…she had to be careful so she was happier in trousers. However… “I’m showing you my ass crack” came up a few times. Oh dear oh dear. Erm….she sung a ‘new’ song. “I wrote this this morning…..not really” It was ‘Faithfully’ and it was stunning. She grinned a lot during this one and then revealed that she was smiling because she’d made out to that song when she was younger. Wonderful. She sung “I Feel Everything” I *think* instead of P+P but I could be wrong. I can’t remember and I can’t be bothered to listen back to find out ;) Anyway…she was just as funny. Far more relaxed. I think this may have been because the audience were more relaxed and weren’t talking at her the whole way through. She pretty much cut the q+a…which didn’t surprise me after the previous night. She also got a little girl up on stage with her to sing Defying Gravity which was cute.

So I head out to Jen after the show with my picture. Jen says I can wait with her for a while or go backstage with the meet&greeters to give it to Idina myself. I took a look at who was there going to the meet&greet and decided that noooooooooooooo. So I hung around for a bit chatting to Jen about random stuff including the fact that no, I do not want a tshirt with Idina’s face on it because it’s weird…ok for little kids…but for us who are a bit older? No. Hopefully they’re gonna sort some more stuff out. International stuff (meaning London) is being worked out slowly…so fingers crossed. Saw the meet&greeters go in..(one girl totally lied to get a pass…it was disgusting to watch) and then I really decided I had to go coz of our bus. I gave the photo to Jen to pass on which was cool.

So got the bus back…got back to NY at 2.35am. ewwwwwwwwwwww. TIRED. Anyway, we headed back to the hostel and fell asleep straight away.

Day 3: We woke up quite a bit later than previously and after showering we walked to Central Park to have a sit down. We eventually (after many failed attempts to take nice photos) sat down with books and magazines. We chatted to a lil kid Jake for a bit who was immensely cute. Then we got asked to take part in an interview thing about plastic surgery. It was random. I don’t think we were much help to be honest! Anyway, we sat around for a while. Thought we’d try the wicked lottery so headed to the Gershwin….we failed. So headed to tkts to get some tickets for something else. We decided on Mary Poppins. Had some dinner at TGIs which was lovely…and then saw Mary Poppins.

Mary Poppins: WAS AMAZING. Ashley Brown was absolutely brilliant as Mary…their accents were all amazingly English which made us feel right at home ;) We’d got amazing seats and loved it all. We had the understudy for Bert…but you wouldn’t have known. The kids were great and it was generally just so so so good. I’m gutted it’s shut in the West End…but at I may get to see it on tour I guess. It was just so good. I think I almost cried when she flew up at the end. I’ve loved the film ever since I was really small so yeh….loved it. I can’t really remember but I think we headed pretty much straight home.

Day 4: WICKED!!

So at 10am we had our Behind the Emerald Curtain thing. It was actually quite good. First we looked around the museum thing they set up. I stared at Idina’s dress for a long time until Kim dragged me away to look at other things. I got excited when I saw some stuff from the London production…nothing exciting…but still. Then Sean McCourt and Tony someone..(I forget) gave us a talk about the technicalites behind the show such as costume fittings etc….they were really funny. Then Tony talked about Idina’s dress and bowed down to it before asking if he heard angels singing somewhere when he mentioned her name. so so so funny. He also told us how one time a girl had screamed when she saw it and started crying and lying at the base of it…weiiiiiiiiiird. He said it was scary haha. It was so funny.


So after this bit we sat in the theatre. Now I’d been told it was tiny and not very nice..I disagree. It was bigger than the other theatres I sat in over there and it was sweet. The set included the audience a bit more which was cool. They told us about the stage managers and blah blah. It was all interesting. Then there was the video thing which I think I’d seen before somewhere…probably illegally. So after, Kim and I headed to the shops and Jamba Juuuuice. We shopped and walked all the rest of the day before returning to the Gershwin for the show. We picked up our tickets then sat outside for a bit as we were early.

Wicked (1st time):

Katie Adams on for Kendra.

Well……all in all I was disappointed. Glad that Kerry was on….not bothered that Kendra wasn’t….I dunno. The whole production wasn’t as slick as it is in London. It bored me. The sound was awful in the theatre….we couldn’t even hear the ensemble at the beginning.

Good points were the guy playing Boq…he was really good. Lenny as the Wizard was awesome. A totally different take on the character to any other Wizard I’ve seen. Absolutely loved it. He was gentle and caring and sweet. Jayne as Morrible was also very impressive. I really liked her. Katie had a beautiful singing voice. Kerry was quite hilarious in WITF and OSD. She made the funniest faces and came out with some of the funniest noises at various points. But yeh…in general…I didn’t particularly enjoy it. Either I’ve become bored of the show (which I doubt because I enjoyed the London production the last few times I’ve seen it) or I’ve just seen the London show too many times…and in my opinion it’s completely superior to the B’way one….which surpised me.

So what made the day more exciting..Kerry. She was SO funny at the stagedoor. She was calm, relaxed and chatty as she made her way down the line. She stopped to talk to anyone who talked to her. She answered questions, took photos and stood giggling for quite a long time. No-one was rushing her…she was taking her time. It was lovely to watch her interacting so happily for so long. So she gets to me..”hi..*looks up * OH MY GOODDDDDDDD” *pounce* We had a little chat about new york and the show..I lied and said I enjoyed it. She was so bouncy that I couldn’t say anything else. After talking to some guy about getting the green off (I wonder how many times she’s been asked that?!) oh, and she still had green in her ears. Apparently I felt the need to tell her this. Anyway, after that she turned back around to continue talking about the show. I told her I liked the monkeys flying across the audience, because I did rather enjoy that bit. I thought I may as well get a photo seeing as it was a different continent…she seemed to agree “well…we’re HERE”. Haha. After a quick high-5 (well 2, because she missed the first one) about Tuesday, off we went…and as we passed Kerry crossing the road to her car she turned, waved and went “byeee” still squeeing. Bless her. We were knackered by now and so went home and straight to sleep.

Day 5?

We had nothing planned for this day apart from heading in to town at some point to go get tickets for a show. I think we slept quite late and showered and things before getting the subway to Times Sq. We headed to tkts and got half price seats for Xanadu. It had been recommended to us by many many people so we thought we may as well try it. The seats were amazing.
Before we got there though…we went to the information centre to check the emails and faceyb….just as we were about to leave. Total downpour. Did we have umbrellas? No. jackets? No chance. Did we get soaked? Absolutely. To be honest…..sitting in a tiny theatre when you’re drenched and can’t even lean back on your chair because your back is so wet, is not fun. But it was funny. Xanadu is only short too…so we survived.

Xanadu: our seats were like 6th or 7th row in the centre. Amazing. The show was fun. I really enjoyed it. It was really funny – Kerry Butler’s Australian accent? Hilarious. We had the understudy for the main guy (totally forgotten his name and the characters…great) but yeh, he was awesome still. I loved the music and had a minor spaz when I heard ‘magic’ playing in a macdonalds on our last day. Loser.

Anyhow…after Xanadu we went for dinner and then headed back to the hostel for a relaxing evening in. Kim washed her hair which, as she has SO much, took forever to do. I read a magazine and we had an early night for a change.

Day 6: RENT day.

We originally had planned to head out to the statue of Liberty or something on this day but we were unorganised and didn’t sort it out. Instead, we bought tickets for a boat cruise around Manhattan for the next day and resigned ourselves to the zoo in Central Park for the afternoon. I was SO hyper all day about RENT…like, ridiculously.

The zoo was fun…we watched the sealions get fed and they were sooo clever and showing off. It was fun. We also had fun staring at snakes and various bird things in the rainforest section….it was all good. Was a really relaxing way to spend the day just wandering round the zoo.

We stopped in at Abercrombie on the way to dinner as well as a couple of other shops.

Had dinner and then it was time for…


RENT.


But it rained. Again. We had jackets this time and had to run from the restaurant to the theatre. Bugger. Soaked again but hey, we had shelter under the theatre where we sat taking photos with Taye and Idina ;) naturally.

When we got inside, I checked that Eden was on…she was. Phew. Then I headed to the merch stand to buy Nicki’s cow. I also bought myself the souvenir brochure when I remembered that this was to be my one and only time seeing the show…waaaa.

Show was AMAZING. I was on the edge of my seat completely focused on the show. I found myself looking for Eden the moment I knew she’d be on stage somewhere. The whole cast were fantastic…it was full cast and they were amazing. A very very good final cast in my opinion.

Highlights for me:

Eden Espinosa: Well. What.A.Voice. Her Over the Moon was absolutely hilarious, Take Me or Leave Me. OH MY GOD. Her and Merle together was like fireworks going off. They were fantastic.

Adam Kantor as Mark – kudos to this guy. Dunno why but I loved his performance.

Have I yet mentioned Eden Espinosa? Gah…she was so good. So so SO good.

Anyway…I wanted to stagedoor….but…nevermind.

I couldn’t sleep for a while that night…I was so happy I’d finally seen RENT, and Eden…yet so so soooo sad that I wouldn’t see RENT again and probs wouldn’t see Eden in a long time, if ever.

Day 7: Last full day L

We had our 3hour boat cruise which ended up taking most the of the day. It was nice to see some water and have a breeze around. I did get sunburnt…but what ya gonna do? I survived. It was a very relaxing trip round the whole of Manhattan, we saw all the ‘sights’ and enjoyed some food and drinks too. I got way overexcited at seeing a sign for Wicked. It must have been around 81st street and it was just there. It seemed so random that I took photos. Loser.

Wicked again that night. First I went to get a few last minute presents for people and then we had dinner.

Kendra was on this time which was good because I like a bit of variety ;) She was ok. Vocally not as good as Katie, but acting wise was far more interesting to watch on stage.
Kerry was better than on Saturday…I quite enjoyed her in this performance. But again…the sound was so bad. Couldn’t hear the ensemble at the start and the only time I really heard much was in the flying portion of Defying Gravity when they clearly cranked up the volume. I wasn’t complaining…I liked hearing Kerry very loud.

It was my mission for the day to get Kerry to do a sock….so I took one along in an envelope addressed to me and got up the confidence to ask her. Stagedoor was busier than Saturday but she bounced along in her (very short) shorts and jumper. Again she was chatty with people and again she jumped on me. Lovely. Before I asked her about socks, I had her sign the playbill for my sister and then I held up my copy of ‘Wicked in Rock’ to which she started bouncing up and down going “yay yay yay yay” and said how excited she was about it. She grabbed it before I even had a chance to ask her to sign it and checked it was for me before scribbling on it. Usually I don’t say anything but I seriously could not read what she’d written…I had to get her to read it to me *eyeroll* she did (it said ‘much love and thanks’) and then admitted it pretty much was just a scribble. Then, and I felt bad, I asked if she’d mind signing my NY book. It had been my intention to get lots of people to sign it over the week….and well, I failed. Idina – I forgot about it in the moment and then I never got to stagedoor for RENT sooo yeh. Anyway, she scribbled away in that which was sweet.

Then..socks. She just looked confused as I explained and she was like ‘Oh I kinda remember this’ and anyway…I told her the Hairspray total and yeh. Basically, she grabbed it saying she’d sort it and send it back. AWESOME. I did tell her she could only sign them if she wanted seeing as we know how busy she is…coz then it would only take her a few mins. But yay for Kerry sock!

So….Day 8: last day. WAAAA.

We got up fairly early to pack up and get washed and stuff. Left the hostel and headed to the internet café so we could check-in online and things. After this, we went to the park to sit and read…it was nice. I chose to stay in the shade after my sunburnage of the day before. We must have sat there for a couple of hours before we sadly realised it was time to go get a cab. We got one surprisingly easily and sat in ‘bumpada bumpada’ (sorry, couldn’t resist) traffic most of the way to JFK.

When we finally arrived, we dropped our suitcases and headed through security with the guard playing a mean trick on Kim haha. Had some food then spent over an hour in duty free spraying our Abercrombie hoodies with various perfumes. Fun! They were on offer so we ended up buy one each and getting $5 off each too..woop!

And then home. Flight was long and not particularly uncomfortable. I did watch ‘Over her Dead Body’ which was SO funny and kept my entertained for a couple of hours.


So that was New York. Awesomeness itself. I have been missing it since we got back and am just longing to go back! One day….