A Perfect Sunday

Cheap good coffee (Connecticut Muffin). Church (Redeemer). Wandering through Central Park. Stumbling upon Madison Ave street fair.....priceless (and delicious!)

Exhibit A: Authentic lamb gyro cooked by actual Greeks (Natalie!)
Exhibit B: Reliving a 2005 experience with Alana on this actual street at a street fair eating chocolate covered strawberries on a stick outside of Carnegie Hall. Deja vu in the best, most serendipitous since of the word.
Exhibit C: My first New York girly shopping purchase. I love everything from the KT Collection of Handmade Jewelry. Love it. Love it. This is where you can shop for me for Christmas. I got an amazing silver ring.

Then. . . laundry.

CHEAP: A Trip to Washington Heights

Third time's the charm. I stood in line at In the Heights, and Amy stood in line at Avenue Q. Put your name in the hat, wait thirty minutes, and voila! You are normally NOT selected for one of the front row seats at the mere price of 26.50 or so.

But not tonight! I am about the 4th name called...which translates into dead center of the front row. So close in fact, we have a conversation with the conductor and can see craft services below in the hallway to the pit.

The show is amazing. Amazing. Amazing. The tour starts soon, so if you can't make it here to visit me, catch it on the road.

A.Ma.Zing.

CHEAP: Always Save your Student ID

Being a student in New York can get you some really great perks. Namely really cheap theater!

Last Friday, Amy and I got ticket to one of my favorite shows- Shrek! We got amazing seats for less than half of their face value. If you divide the cost of our ticket by the talent of Sutton Foster, Brian d'Arcy James, and Christopher Sieber- it's less than 12 dollars per Tony Award winner/nominee. Now's that's a bargain.

FREE: Federer & Shakespeare

I am very much behind with all the free and cheap frivolity I have been having.

Today, I attended Nike's Game.Set.NYC event at 23rd St and Broadway. Nike set up a tennis court and bleachers in the middle of the Flatiron District. But I saw FEDERER!!!! To anyone out there that has an extra US Open ticket, I would like to buy it from you.

The Nike event gave $10,000 to NYC School Tennis programs of some sort, and a really cute kid got to play tennis against Roger to "win" the money. Oh, and John McEnroe was there.

Also, on this luck of the Irish good day, I won tickets to see the Public Theatre's Shakespeare in the Park. Don't be confused, the show was the Bacchae, which is not by Shakespeare. But it is free and in Central Park. I have been signing up every morning on the "virutal line" on their website for lottery tickets. (You can also wait in line all day at the theatre, but I thought I'd save myself the heat stroke). Thank you Ben Brantley for the bad review in the Times which is why I believe we won tickets. Plus, I was standing behind Mandy Patinkin (My name is Inigo Montoya. You kill my father. Prepare to Die). A good day.

CHEAP: Deep Fried Goodness

There is a magical, magical place in Brooklyn called The Chip Shop. In this magical place (that only takes cash. boo.) there lives fried: cheesecake, twinkies, snickers, reeses, cherry pie, mars bars..... There is also a painting of Hermione eating fish and chips.... but I digress. In fact, the Chip Shop will deep fry anything you bring in- sushi, cupcakes, grapefruit...

I'm kind of full from my deep fried Mars bar sprinkled with powdered sugar and a raspberry reduction sauce, so I'll just leave you with a picture. (to be uploaded in morning)

FREE: Meeting Semi-Celebrities

This is why living in New York can be a giant time-space warp slap in the face.

So I'm hanging out in Williamsburg with Hannah and her roommates. Fashionistas that they are, they wanted to watch the premiere of Project Runway. Poor as they are, they had no cable. Wandering down Graham, they were determined to find a restaurant/bar that would willingly let us watch it. We hit up the nice Italian place. Basic idea: Dear Mr. Italian man, if 6 cute girls come in and order, would you be willing to change the station from the Mets game to Project Runway?

Any logical solution to this would include the nice, big Italian guy laughing at us, but possibly giving us a few drinks and telling us his undying love/hatred for the Mets. Oh no... not in New York giant time-space warp.

Led to the back of the restaurant, we see a table with Kenley Collins. For those less informed, Kenley was a finalist on Project Runway Season 5. The annoying voice/Katy Perry look alike/retro headbands/ girl. Remember? The one who was in the news for throwing her cat at her fiance's face and getting arrested for assault? Click here.

So we were in an Italian restaurant watching Project Runway with a crazy person who was on Project Runway. And charged with assault for throwing a cat....

Only in New York

Cheap Tourist Day

Laura and I had a full day open, so we decided to embrace our poverty and play tourist.

CHEAP books: The Strand in Union Square (www.strandbooks.com) claims to have 18 miles of books and I believe them. You could easily spend half a day trolling the four floors of books that are stacked higher than Yao Ming. The Strand was recently featured in "Julie and Julia" and "Gossip Girl". We both walked away with books. I spent a total of $5.

FREE boat ride: The Staten Island Ferry is a 5-mile, 25 minute boat ride from the southern tip of Manhattan to Staten Island (obviously). It was built to transport Staten Islanders to their jobs in Manhattan, for our tourist purposes (and for the bajillion other tourists today) it gave us a great view of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan (and provided a breeze in the 95 degree heat- bah!).

CHEAP pizza: Starving and sweating, we grabbed lunch at Pranzo (34 Water Street). For less than $5 I got a coke and a delicious eggplant pizza roll and Laura got two slices that were bigger than her head.

FREE shade: Waaaaay uptown (105th and 5th Ave) is the entrance to the Central Park Conservatory Garden. At six-acres, it is the only formal garden in Central Park. We took our books and a blanket and found some shade..... And I found a nap.

This picture is from the South English-style garden. What you can see is the Burnett Fountain: based on characters from The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett the fountain was designed and constructed in 1936 by Bessie Potter Vonnoh. It is surrounded by a reflecting pool upon which float hundreds of water lilies

CHEAPish....boring theater

Hung out with an old friend from college tonight. She's in town performing in the NY Fringe Festival- which I will be attending next week as it is $9 (cheap!).

Alas, tonight, we went to a show called "The Perfect Crime" ($30). It is advertised as the longest-running non-musical blah blah blah. It shares the Snapple Center with The Fantasticks. My spidey sense should have gone off when I read in the playbill that the woman playing the lead had played the role since 1987 missing ONLY 4 PERFORMANCES. (I feel this bears repeating). This actress has played the same role every week for TWENTY-TWO YEARS. That's almost as long as I have been alive. That's like as long as Herenton was mayor of Memphis.. then some. That's longer than Kate Gosselin's grocery list and I don't know WHY you'd play the same role for 22 years.

Anyways, I'd give the show itself a C. I wasn't bored, but I just didn't like it. And I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.