NYC

umbran and I just came back from a weekend trip to NYC - we usually go away for a weekend at some point in the summer; this year I was too overwhelmed to put together our travel plan so I asked him to make it happen, and he stepped in to assemble a fairly impressive adventure.

Usually our getaways involve wandering around harms and museums and parks in green spaces of New England and then retiring to a B&B; this trip was much more about excellent restaurants and bustling cities, but it was a good change of pace. We got to meet up with friends that we haven't seen in over a decade, go to a Broadway show for the first time in almost as long, and generally explore the city as much as the oppressive heat and humidity would let us.

"Something Rotten" is better than I ever thought it would be (and I had fairly good expectations) - it does to both Shakespeare and Broadway what 'Galaxy Quest' did to Star Trek, with as much love and in-joking as that movie. It's better than 'Spamalot,' and in a class with 'The Drowsy Chaperone' and Forbidden Broadway. Just... with more iambic pentameter and codpiece jokes, and Epic Tap Battles of History.

Dinner at Sardi's was worth every penny. No; it's not the best food I've ever eaten, but it was good, and it was dinner. At Sardi's. It's like a bucket list thing for theater junkies, and now I can say that I did it. I feel all fancy and stuff.

Brunch the next morning at Alice's Teacup was absolutely wonderful. We walked the 2 miles through a mostly-empty Sunday morning city before the heat became too punishing, and then spent the next hour in a quiet, cool oasis of dark wood, mismatched china teacups, delicious food, and perfect tea; thank you mermaidlady for reminding me that I needed to go there!

The only real disappointment (other than the train malfunctions on both legs of the trip that delayed us by multiple hours each way) was Forbidden Planet. I had vague memories from high school of an epic bookstore; unfortunately, whether that was ever true or not, what's there now is mostly a collection of Pop figures and toys, with about a half shelf of actual books. Still, I found a new (to me) DeLint, so even that was a qualified success, and from there we ducked into The Strand and spent the last couple hours before our train wallowing in air conditioning and miles of books.

And now I'm back in the real world, facing some truly challenging crap, but at least for a couple of days I managed to push it away.....