Mary Poppins???? Yes, you read it right!

Kimberlee's is in Black
Jared's is in Lavender

Well, besides having our first experience on the subway here in New York, we also managed to get lost....several times.....But, we are safely back in our hotel room. We wandered around Times Square for the entire day, well, what was left of it after our long nap!

So how the heck is one to know which direction to take on the subway? I mean, Brooklyn street numbers are different than Manhattan street numbers and we were coming from Queens to begin with. We only made 2 mistakes that only cost us about 30 minutes, but 30 minutes underground in a muggy, urine drenched subway stop seems longer than 30 minutes....say anywhere else. Oh well, by the end of the night we were seasoned vets at subway riding and we had a little fun watching the ummm, shall I say, variety of people that were riding along with us.

My fabulous husband (We will see if the superlatives like fabulous, wonderful and fantastic keep up after 14 days of me without any distractions. My guess is that about the time we are hitting Venice the the new adjectives od choice might be more like annoying, confused and frustrating) said that I could see ANY show I wanted to see while we were here......unfortunately for me, that was probably the most difficult choice I will have to make on this trip....I love musicals, and there were so many good ones playing, and even more new ones that I haven't seen yet! I decided to eliminate all the shows I have already seen, but I still wanted to go to one that I was fairly familiar with the music! I decided I really wanted to see Mary Poppins. (OK, here is where I get to show a little of my fabulousness that will most certainly dry up by trip's end. You see, I am sitting there at the Marquee looking at all of the 50% off shows available for tonight. There were several that had been on Kim's short list still available. But I told my dear wife that any show she wanted was fine with me and I meant it. So we decided to pay full price for Mary Poppins. MARY POPPINS? A children's show? A Disney movie turned musical show? It seemed like a bad choice to me at the time, but I kept my mouth shut and smiled as we walked the 4 blocks from the Marquee to the box office. When we got there I told my beautiful bride that I didn't want crappy seats like we had at Spamalot in Seattle, so we splurged and got amazing seats, 7th row center. Now, I was still unconvinced, but she was happy and I figured that scoring points early might help me out when I do something stupid in Europe.....say crash into a pedestrian or go wrong way to traffic on the Autobahn.) Now, although I have NEVER actually seen the movie, I do know the music. (I have never seen the movie either, I mean...Mary Poppins, come on.) I have to say, Mary Poppins is up there on my list of favorites now...right next to Wicked! It was such an amazing show. The scenery was out of this world! I could not believe how intricate and huge the set was! WOW! And, the cast was fantastic.....it was absolutely the most amazing show...All the new songs are completely in line with the originals, and the new arrangements of the original songs are even better than before!

Well, Kim was exhausted from our Red eye flight and getting roughly 3 hours of sleep last night, so that's all you get from her tonight, if only you could be so lucky with me. But alas, I go on. You know, I have always been a guy who feels like he is right at least 98% of the time. So it is hard for me to be proven wrong by my wife who has 6 years less experience on this planet than I do. But....Oops she did it again. Mary Poppins was flipping great. A real eye opener for me. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love old Disney stuff, but when there are so many other, bigger and seemingly better options (particularly at half price) why do something you can see on DVD with better actors? Well, I will tell you why, because the chimney sweep was amazing and Mary was captivating in her performance. I don't know diddly squat about Broadway but I know great entertainment when I see it, and I saw it tonight. The children who played the Banks kids were great and Mr. and Mrs. Banks were fantastic as well. Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious is a great word and a great song (although I am pretty sure it would be better by Dream Theater) and that dang Poppins made me long for the Nanny I never had. What a great night in a great theater (which was obviously built when the average height of an American theater goer was about 5'2", the leg room...hah, made a coach class flight look spacious, I love being 5'6"), with a great woman.

As for food, the hotel food was fantastic.....the NY food, well, it wasn't nearly as good. We stopped in what seemed like a great little bakery, serving a variety of food....and nothing we ate tasted very good.....Alas, we will try again tomorrow....and it is Jared's choice on the food....I'll let you know what I think about street vendor gyro's and Gray's Papaya hot dogs.......

Tomorrow will bring a lot of touring and learning from our double decker bus guides what makes NYC so NYC. We will also enjoy a street vendor Gyro and a Gray's Papaya hot dog and I will be giving full food reviews as well. Until then.....We wish you were here....well, some of you....well, actually it is much more romantic without any of you here. So go on your own dang vacation. Blog ya tomorrow.