Birthday Trip to Broadway

Since my 21st birthday when my sister and I went to one of the closing performances of Miss Saigon, starring Lea Salonga, Ruthie Henshall, and Will Chase, I have made it a birthday tradition to see a Broadway musical. Sure, there were a couple empty years in there where I couldn't convince anyone to go with me, so I think I settled for a show or two at the Kennedy Center, which is a little closer to home; however the two-year drought ended when I started dating Steve. Our first show together was Curtains, a mystery comedy starring David Hyde Pierce, Debra Monk and Karen Ziemba. While we were in NYC, we ate dinner at a little Belgian restaurant called Petite Abeille (little bee).

As a woman of tradition, now when we return to New York for my birthday show, I enjoy returning to that restaurant. I pour over the menu online weeks beforehand in preparation, trying to decide whether I should enjoy the roasted chicken or the vol au vent with chicken stew. Both are amazing.

The past few years, my birthday show hasn't exactly been around my birthday. Three years ago, my dear husband took me to see Clay Aiken in Spamalot, so we had to go a couple days before Christmas before his run was up. The next year, I wanted to see the revival of Ragtime because I missed it on Broadway the first time around, and I think the show is brilliant (much better than the book), but I didn't want to chance it closing by my birthday--which it did. Last year, I waited until April for my birthday show because Sutton Foster and Joel Grey were starring in Anything Goes.

This year was no exception. I had a few options for birthday shows this year, but when I saw that Audra McDonald would be playing Bess in Porgy and Bess, the choice was easy. I had never seen the show before, and I knew next to nothing about it; however, I figured this would be the version to see. Since we thought we would be moving in January, we figured we should make the trip earlier. Also, we love NYC at Christmastime, so we figured we would go the weekend before Christmas, which happened to be the first performance in previews.

After a major glitch in parking plans, we ended up driving into the city to find free street parking in Manhattan. It does exist. This particular spot worked rather well, considering it was only a handful of blocks away from a subway station. We found our way to the Seton Hotel--one that I would not recommend, especially for the price we paid--dropped off our bags and headed out. Because of the snafu with transportation, we were running a little behind schedule, which meant we put off our trip to the 9/11 Memorial until the following day.

Our first stop was Grand Central Terminal. Several years ago Steve had taken a fantastic picture of Grand Central, but I thought it needed a couple vertical companion pieces to round it out and give it context. He took advantage of this trip to take a few extra shots.

This is similar to Steve's original picture.

From there, we walked to Rockefeller Center, which as you can imagine was particularly swamped at this time of year. We shopped a bit at Godiva and Banana Republic before heading to dinner.

This time we ate at a Petite Abeille that was a little closer to our hotel than the one we usually visit. It was a little hole in the wall, but the atmosphere was warm and cozy and the Tin Tin memorabilia was more prevalent. Antique luggage racks with old suitcases hung on one wall. We learned our server was from Strasbourg, France, so it was fun to say we'd been there and reminisce about Alsace a bit. I finally opted for the vol au vent and chicken stew, and Steve ordered the skirt steak aux echalottes (with shallots). Both were scrumptious. The timing of dinner was perfect because we didn't feel like we needed to rush off to the theatre. (Last time was a bit stressful.)

We made sure to pass through the busyness of Time Square en route to the theatre because a trip to Broadway isn't complete without it. The show was fantastic. Honestly, the story felt a little thin at points, but the music, singing, and acting were phenomenal. While Audra McDonald received most of the credit for the show's success in its run prior to Broadway, I really felt for Norm Lewis's Porgy. Such a great character.

The next morning, we headed off to the World Trade Center and the 9/11 Memorial. It was absolutely freezing outside! We discovered that we needed tickets in order to see the memorial, but fortunately they had some left for the 11:30 time slot. There was no way we could stand outside in the cold any longer, so we went shopping. As soon as we entered the doors, we were greeted by discounted scarves and gloves. What a beautiful sight! After we'd sufficiently warmed up, we walked to the memorial entrance. Once we arrived, we still had to walk a ways, pass through numerous ticket check points, and stop at the security checkpoint. Needless to say, we were not too keen on taking off my coat, gloves and scarf in those temperatures. The memorial was very interesting. It's a large cement park with two gaping holes where the Twin Towers once stood. Water flows over the edges and down into a deeper hole. It's actually rather eery because it looks like a bottomless chasm. 

Below is the reflection of the new World Trade Center that is under construction.

Eager to get out of the cold, we ducked into a pizza shop for a quick lunch. There's nothing quite like a hot, cheesy New York pizza! Before we returned in search of our car, we snapped one last picture at Grand Central. We had a great weekend away!

Scotland--Leaving the Highlands in Pursuit of the Lowlands

Steve went out early to try to take some pictures of the sunrise over Glenfinnan, but the sun didn't cooperate. Therefore, after a wonderful, made-to-order breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon (they eat back bacon in the UK--it's meatier and so tasty), and toast, we returned to Glenfinnan one last time in hopes that we'd see the steam train. It worked! We had only been there maybe five minutes when we heard the engine chugging along. There were two other couples who had the same idea as us, but I'm not sure how long they'd been waiting. We'd really timed it perfectly, which was especially nice since it was beginning to drizzle a bit. Seeing the steam train made it feel a little more like we were watching The Hogwarts' Express.

We drove through Glen Coe on our journey to Edinburgh. It was still pretty rainy--sometimes ridiculously so--but the scenery was still breathtaking.

There were scads of thin waterfalls like this one.

Steve had read about the Drummond Castle Gardens, which Queen Victoria had once declared, "One of the finest formal gardens in Europe," so we decided to check them out for ourselves. Thanks to our trusty GPS, it looked like we could find our way easy enough. Unfortunately, we came upon an accident, so traffic was being rerouted. That meant we had to try to figure out a different route. The GPS ended up taking us out in the middle of nowhere on more two-way, one-lane roads. Finally, it claimed that we'd arrived, yet we were out in the middle of nowhere. We were about to turn around, but I suggested we drive just a little further. Sure enough, out of nowhere, just a few feet ahead, we saw a sign pointing towards Drummond Castle. We followed the road and sure enough, there it was. Scotland truly has castles anywhere and everywhere. It's insane. The gardens were pretty amazing, and fortunately, we arrived just as the rain was subsiding.

These were the vegetable gardens. You can see the greenhouse behind them, and there were several varieties of roses growing beside it.

Unfortunately, the gigantic peacocks (I think we counted at least five or six) were all perching close to the restricted side of the castle, so we could never get a good picture of them. It's okay, though, because from what we could tell, it looked like they were molting anyway. Maybe that's why they were all hiding--their pride had been wounded. They were seriously huge, though, with ridiculously long quills.

You can't really see it in this picture, but off to the left, there were a bunch of sheep grazing in the field. It was perfect.

This will give you a better idea of what the roads were like. Every once in a while, a huge tractor would appear out of nowhere.

When we found the main road, it began to pour again. We also realized that somewhere in our search for the gardens, we'd left the Highlands behind and were now in the Lowlands. It was slightly odd how it just seemed to happen out of nowhere. We pressed on towards Edinburgh, settled into our hotel, and then went out again to explore. It was still rainy, and because we'd decided to take our time on the way there, we arrived after Edinburgh Castle had closed to the public for the day. However, we walked around and took some pictures anyway.

We stopped at a pub called Shakespeare's for a bite to eat before returning to our hotel. Rather tired from all our travels, we are content to relax in our room for a few hours before flying home in the morning. It has been a truly memorable adventure, and we can't wait to return!