Wintuk

I have wanted to see a live Cirque du Soleil performance for years now.  Their new show, "Wintuk", is showing at Madison Square Garden, which seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally see them! Kristen has seen one show before, but it was the mature (read: naked people) performance, "Zumanity".  Oh, and she saw it with her parents...so it was basically the most awkward experience of her life (though I'd love for us to go together at some point, haha).

Wintuk was awesome!  I cannot believe the stunts some of these people do! Their athleticism is astounding!  Most of the acts start out pretty basic and gradually build to this ridiculously crazy routine...so you start off going, "Okay, that's cool" but by the end you're thinking, "OMG! Is he really gonna do that?!"  Amazing. The show was full up spunk and high energy.  Definitely worth the money and I can't wait to see more Cirque du Soleil performances!!!

Oleanna

Kristen and I went to see "Oleanna" tonight.  Neither of us knew much about it, but I really enjoy both Julia Stiles and Bill Pullman.  Normally I prefer musicals to stage plays, but I hadn't seen any plays on Broadway at all, so I figured- why not?  Overall the experience was ...interesting.  The play was somewhat difficult to follow, particularly in the first act, but as emotions heightened it became much more intriguing.  By the end of the show I was still happy I'd bought the tickets.

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First NYC celeb sighting

Kristen saw Miss J (from America's Next Top Model) walking into the Herald Square Victoria's Secret today! Very exciting.

Phantom of the Opera

When I was a pre-teen, I was lucky enough to travel to Toronto with my Girl Scout troop.  We did a bunch of things, but most notably (for me) was our trip to see "Phantom of the Opera."  It was my first broadway show and I was absolutely mesmerized.  I instantly fell in love with the show and by the time we left the theater, I vowed to learn all the songs. We walked back to the hotel and I sang as much of the music as I could remember.  I was consumed with joy.

Upon moving to NYC, I assumed we'd probably be seeing several shows since Manhattan is so close.  Our first broadway adventure as residents was to the TKTS booth (naturally) where we voted to buy "Phantom" tickets.  Kristen had never seen the show before and I was very excited to see it again.  It was wonderful! I didn't understand the story as much as a child, but in my maturity- I was able to really capture the romance, making the show that much more enjoyable.  It was a lovely evening at the theater.

Strawberry Fields

If you've met either Kristen or myself, you probably know that we're huge Beatles fans.  So its only natural that one of the first things we'd do after moving is visit Strawberry Fields.  John Lennon is my favorite Beatle and we both have great respect for the work he did for world peace.  Lennon and Yoko Ono were both forward thinkers way ahead of their time who weren't afraid to move outside the box and ruffle some feathers in the name of what they believed in.  It was truly an honor to visit the memorial and also to see the Dakota, where Lennon lived in NYC.

Central Park

For all the times I've been to NYC, I've never been to Central Park, but of course have always wanted to visit.  So after the parade ended, we decided to venture uptown for an Autumn stroll.  Its amazing to walk in and be surrounded by beautiful landscaping amidst a city of such chaos.  When you look around, it seems like your average park, but if you look up- you're surrounded by skyscrapers.  Its surreal.  Right now its chock full of trees with multi-colored autumn leaves.  There are plenty of paths to walk, jog, or bike and no shortage of New Yorkers doing so.  The Wollman skating rink is already open and we also stopped into the cafe for a quick lunch.  At this point the Zoo and Carousel are closed, but we'll just have to come back when its warmer! We were able to capture some wonderful photos:

Ticker Tape Parade

Seeing how the Yankees won the World Series (hooray!), NYC threw its infamous ticker tape parade.  Although Kristen is a Mets fan (wtf?) I have always been a Yanks fan so we trudged up to Manhattan at some ungodly hour to secure a good spot on the sidelines.  We were not alone.  When we first stepped onto Wall Street, the crowd wasn't too awful but within a half hour it was filling up fast.  We managed to decide on a location directly across from a Duane Reade (a drugstore).  Normally that would most likely mean nothing, but in the case of this parade, it turned out to be significant....

Since most companies generally do not use actual ticker tape anymore, people have gotten more creative on what they throw out their respective office buildings.  Most shredded up a bunch of paper to create something resembling ticker tape.  I'd guess the majority of pay roll for the day went to employees standing over shredders, filling bins full to the brim to toss out the windows. 

Apparently the spectators on the ground felt a bit jealous of all this fun, so they went into Duane Reade and bought an obnoxious amount of toilet paper.  Needless to say, the entire street was covered in TP within minutes.  Sanitation definitely had their work cut out!! But they were so caught up in celebration, they joined in on the sillyness and threw back stray rolls for the crowd to keep on tossing.  It was a morning filled with lots of giddy New Yorkers :)

And of course we got to see the majority of notable Yank players  (and Jay-Z.  Random.) as they cruised along in their super pimped out floats.  It was awesome.

Where's Thing 2?

Our first adventure as official NYC residents was the annual Halloween Parade.  It's an evening parade full of crazy costumes and floats.  We saw some of the most creative costumes imaginable and the common recognizable ensembles as well.  We even rode the train next to an alarmingly tall "Gumby."  Unfortunately, the majority of our viewing was spent in the rain.  More annoying than the rain, however, was the high amount of irritable New Yorkers huddle under umbrellas, unintentionally (or intentionally) poking and dripping water on each other while desperately trying to weave around said umbrellas to actually SEE the parade.  Luckily we were already in the front so it wasn't as miserable for us as others.

Seeing how we had moved in less than 24 hours before the parade, we hadn't planned on wearing costumes.  But upon unpacking our clothes, we realized we had matching shirts I'd picked up in Universal Studios a few years back.  I purchased a shirt for Kristen that says "Thing 1" and in an attempt to be clever, bought myself one that says "Thing 3."  It worked for the overall effect of being somewhat "in costume" but we spent a large part of the evening listening to random people asking "Where's thing 2?" 
Kristen's side note: I thought we could come up with something really creative and horrible about Thing 2, but alas it was not to be.

Despite everything, it was a pretty fun adventure!