Continuing Through New England

So it is 1 o'clock in the morning and I am sitting at my desk at the Comfort Inn in Flushing, NY. I could be doing something productive like packing or sleeping since we have a 1030AM show but I think I would rather blog since I am so wired and have yet again been neglecting to... so here goes!

So sometime after our lovely trip to Boston ( I am quickly getting to the point where I am losing track of where I have been and where I am going) we were in White River Junction, VT on the border of NH where we were actually performing (in Lebanon to be exact). We were looking for fun things to do and talked to the nice ladies at the counter about their suggestions, we looked into horse back riding but it was finally starting to get cold and for 40 bucks an hour we figured we could find cooler places on our trip to horseback ride. We also looked at hot air ballooning but we wont even DISCUSS how pricey that was. SO we settled on something free! Specifically, Sugarbush Maple and Cheese Farm! They had a maple walk, a sugar house, and free cheese and maple samplings. PERFECT! So off we went (we being Myself, Jonny, Margo, Jeffery, and Dave)

The first thing we saw upon entering the farm was this handsome fellow...

Margo deemed me the horse whisperer since he kept trotting straight up to me and nudging up against me... I think the color of my coat attracted him!

So then we made our way down to the sugarshack where we learned how maple syrup is made. When we walked out it had begun to snow/sleet fairly hard, hard enough that it stuck around on the ground and my hair! So we decided to venture inside to taste cheese and maple and buy fun things like cheese and maple... I knew it was my kinda place when they had this great shrine to maple syrup!


We all bought way too much cheese and syrup products and then proceeded to the Maple Walk, a brisk walk through the woods where you can see how they make maple syrup during the season. It was lovely!


It was overall a very successful trip :D

The past few days we have been around and about New York City and on two separate occasions I have ventured into the city to see shows.


Day 1 in NYC
Kevin, Jonny, Lindsay, and Myself ventured in from Newark Penn Station on the NJ Transit to NYC Penn Station. Lindsay split off for dinner with friends and Kevin, Jonny, and Myself headed to the newly refurbished time square TKTS booth. Kevin wanted to see August: Osage County but Jonny had already seen it and I wasn't all about paying more money than I needed to to see a show (tickets were only 25% off to August and Kevin ended up just buying a full price ticket anyway so he didn't have to sit in the crap seats) so me and Jonny confired and decided we wanted to see either The Seagull, All My Sons, or Equus so we went up the nice lady at the booth and asked what she currently had the best seats for, her answer was Equus so we each set down out 64 dollars and that was that.

August started at 7:30 since it is so damn long so Kevin headed off to the theatre whilst me and Jonny, having a bit more time, headed to my favorite little spot in Time Square...Bella Vita pizza on 43rd between 8 and Broadway. We got a cheese pizza and shared their FANTASTIC moose/cheesecake/strawberry heaven dessert and walked over to the theatre. We had pretty great seats in the third row of the mezzanine and the show was FANTASTIC. We ran into Eric in the bathroom line at intermission, who was sitting in the Orchestra, and this made meeting up to take the train back together all the much easier. We enjoyed the rest of the fantastic production (seriously, the lights, the direction, the acting, the lights, the script, the innovative horses, and did I mention the lighting?) were all just spot on, really delivered the powerful score and made it really ring even in a modern day. At the end of the show it was Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights Aids (it seems to be everytime I go to the theatre) and ontop of the usual donate this much money and get a signed playbill or this much money and get a signed poster they also did an auction... specifically for Daniel Radcliff's Pants! Someone paid 1 grand for the pants he wore in the show signed by him, if only I had a grand to spend on pants! It was great though and we all met up and took the train home.


Day 2 in NYC:
Last night (4 days after the initial NYC trip I think...) Margo, Kevin, and Myself again ventured into the city in search of cheap tickets and good time. We looked at the student rush and decided to go see All My Sons, and even though Kevin didn't have his student ID since they didnt really seem to care (the didn't even look at mine) we all got our happy 26.50 tickets to the show. Alas it was only 430 at this point and the show wasn't until 7 so me and Margo went to find a salon to get our nails done and Kevin went off to Colony and some other shopping trips. We found a place called Classic Salon on 48th between 5th and 6th that had a special 24$ manicure and pedicure between monday and wednesday so we went! The ladies there were very nice but also very pushy and I made the mistake of mentioning I had thought to get some waxing done before my trip to Key West next week and well needless to say 2 hours and around 100$ each later we walked out of there spiffed up and groomed up. We met Kevin and walked to the theatre. This production...well...wasn't quite as fantastic as the first. First off Diane Wiest wasn't on that night, her understudy was, which is always disappointing. Secondly, poor Katie Holmes was obviously given very little coaching as to how to project on stage so she was forcing and yelling quite a bit and you could hear in her voice it was leaving its mark of damage. Thirdly, and most importantly, all these great actors and this great script were simply swimming through soup trying to fight through what is obviously a very poor directing job. The director is some "innovative" director from Europe. The problem being most European theatre is Presentational whilst American Theatre, especially the plays themselves, are Representational so there was a lot of unfounded acting moments and meandering around the stage as if he was uncomfortable letting them just sit and be in the characters. It was awkward to watch at times but overall I am glad I saw it, and glad I only paid 27 dollars for it.

Sadly whilst in my purse over the past week my Camera got impailed by something and has suffered significant damage to its LCD screen. The screen itself is intact but the pixels behind it show where it got hit and the effects. Needless to say, I need a new Camera.

Two days till I am home for Winter Break!

Keeping Up To Date

So in an attempt to keep up to date and maybe encourage myself to write more often I am going to skip over the everything I have left up to this point and just jump straight to Burlington and Boston. SO HERE GOES

Earlier this week we were in BEAUTIFUL Burlington, VT. I drove there and everyone in the car was resting, I had my music playing as I drove up over the hills and mountains with the New England fall leaves and distant farm houses as my scenery. I was officially in love!

In the Car Margo discovered the "Let's Go USA" book that tells you about a bunch of US cities and what to do when you visit, she was elated. So that evening we went to an Italian Restaurant downtown and enjoyed a simply fabulous meal, one of the best we have had on the road so far. The building was designed to look like the inside of a rustic ski lodge and it was just a very calm, nice atmosphere for our supper. Lovely.

The next day, thanks to the unseasonably warm weather in Burlington, Margo, Jonny, Jeffery, Dave, Eric, Rudy and I enjoyed a lovely hike a few miles outside of the city. It was ranked as easy to moderate but I would say it was more along the lines of moderate to intermediate, nothing we all couldn't handle but defiently some make-your-butt-sore-the-next-day uphill climbs.


The trip was well worth the view from the top though. It was a touch hazy that day but you could still see the Adirondack Mountains in the distance as well as the beautiful view of rural VT.


Here is the whole group (minus Eric who took the picture) at the top!



On the drive home we passed by the Vermont Teddy Bear factory and with just a look we all knew it was necessary we stop! We didn't buy anything or take the factory tour we just looked around. There was a whole bin up front of defective teddy bears that were on sale for 20 dollars (VT Teddy's usually cost around 60 to 70) some just had holes in their backs that could easily be stitched but some were missing arms, legs, even heads! HA! sad. But they did have these lovely Biden/Obama bears on display!



Later that afternoon, Margo, Jonny, Jeffery, Kevin and I ventured to downtown burlington for some shopping and eating. I found possibly the most perfect engagement ring ever in a lovely jeweler called grannis, bought some maple sugar candy and other lovely vermont treats as well as turtle fur ear muffs at The Apple Mountain store, and bought myself a new claddagh ring to replace my broken one at a not-so-expensive jeweler. We then ate at Sweetwaters, not my favorite stop on tour thus far, but the company was great!

That night came the announcement of our new President Elect BARACK OBAMA and vice president elect JOE BIDEN! How do you think a bunch of young starving artist feel about that?

AMAZING that's how! ha!

Should have been a great day right? WRONG. Sadly, that day during the show my purple "harlequin verb slut" top untied on stage and I spent the rest of the number doing everything in my power to keep myself from flashing a bunch of elementary schoolers on stage. I DID IT THOUGH! ha
Then the second show I blindly ran with by big red fabric as I always do, however Dave's car wasn't being very friendly that day and had a hard time getting rolling so he was RIGHT behind me when I ran. My foot became the victim of this incident. He is still slightly swollen and blue to this day.

Anyway, Sadly we had to leave Burlington the next day. Onward to Concord, NH where nothing really happened that I recall with any distinction.

Next it was on to New Bedford, NH where Margo, Jonny, Lindsay, and I took a day trip to Boston (about an hour and some change away)
It was a BEAUTIFUL day! Here are Lindsay Margo and Jonny on our walk down Commonwealth Ave



We walked quite a bit that day... through Boston Commons and the public gardens which were both fantastic. Here is a lovely fall picture Jonny took of me!



We walked down and met up with his sister Andrea at work and she showed us the place she started. It is an amazing company called Nexus (http://www.nexusboston.com/) that educated other companies, architects, children, ect about how to build and maintain green buildings and homes. It's an amazing project and it was so cool to tour her place.
After that the group of us walked down Faneuil Hall and just walked around and shopped and observed a bit. Walked to Jonny's favorite waterfront stop and then over to Little Italy for dinner before back to the train. It was a great day, very peaceful and luckily the rain held off for our whole day of walking!

So now here I am in Lebanon, NH with a day off tomorrow when we are going to tour a Maple and Cheese Farm! Should be fun.

Only 11 days till I am home and 18 days till my birthday and trip to Key West. I am very excited!