thanksgiving in nyc

Well, almost. I actually spent Friday up there, but that's close enough. Great time, too, and much easier to do (we took a train from somewhere in NJ) than I would have expected. And as with some other things I've done recently, I really enjoyed something that I didn't expect to see. We walked around for a bit (in my case, trying unsuccessfully to stay warm), wandering up Fifth Avenue mostly, before getting to the Rockefeller Plaza and spending an hour or so there, maybe more. I was really looking forward to doing some ice skating and being fast and crazy enough to suffer some injuries, but the timing didn't work out and I wasn't about to plunk down $25 for a half hour or so on the ice. We did get to see some good spills though. After catching an opera (no, this wasn't intentional; see explanation below)--despite my sidetracking us by not paying enough attention to street signs--and grabbing beers at the base of the Empire State Building, we finally got on the train at about midnight or so.

My highlight of the day's activities was seeing Beowulf. (Spamalot--the Monty Python musical--was our preferred theatre thing but the half-price outlet didn't have tickets for it, and Beowulf and The Phantom of the Opera were next on the list.) When I saw the flyer it brought to mind a musical with Irish music, so I was all for that. But it ended up being more of an opera--not as "dramatic" as I would expect an opera to be but all the lines were sung with some background music and harp playing here and there. It was a very good show though, and true to the story as best I remember it (which isn't very well). The best part was the set, as some of the props were simple but ingenious. It brought back memories of Odyssey of the Mind, in which we had to make our own skit setup with only basic resources. But in this case the props were very creative and were done so well that they added a lot to the presentation. The acting and simple music were also very good, by my unsophisticated and unrefined standards.

Overall a great day; I wish I went up there more often. This theatre stuff is probably something I could really get into if I went to more shows. (Why didn't I figure this stuff out years ago so I'd actually know something about it now? This seems to be a recent trend of sorts for me.) But, alas, I don't see that happening soon for several reasons. But at least another NYC trip before the holidays would be cool.