East Coast Adventure: Part 2

I haven't been sick in a long time and I've been really proud of myself for keeping up that streak, but I woke up this morning with one of those annoying pre-runny nose sniffles, and I am really nervous about it. I don't want to be a sniffly bridesmaid. I have to look pretty for Lauren ALL DAY tomorrow and nobody looks pretty with a red nose.

I'm going to try to happy-thoughts it away - that works, right? I'll mind over matter the crap out of this runny nose. In the mean time, let me tell you about yesterday.

Eia and I woke up kind of late again (don't judge us) and took the NJ Transit to what we thought was going to be Penn Station. Halfway there, however, they informed us that due to a power outage, no NJ lines were going into NYC and that we were going to Hoboken. Um. Okay. Hoboken. Cool. Luckily it was easy enough to transfer to a Path train back into the city, but it set us back at least another half an hour on our journey into the city.

When we finally got to the right station, Eia and I stepped out into the street and did that sort of spin-around-in-awe-now-we're-in-a-giant-city thing, taking in all the people and sights and buildings and smells. Not quite sure where we were exactly, we walked a few blocks before ducking into a little boutique and doing a bit of random shopping. I think clothes are the best souvenir, really, because then every time you wear them, you think about the good time you had there on that particular trip.

Anyway, shopping bags in hand, we continued to wander in the general direction of Time Square. Along the way we stopped in various other stores (including the Strand bookstore and a giant Forever 21) and we ate lunch in a "Goodburger (Home of the Goodburger)", which we couldn't figure out if it was affiliated with the Nickeldeon sketch/movie or not.

We ran into some interesting people as we ventured around too, including a bum on the street who asked me, "Can you help me get to Hawaii?" to which I replied saucily, "Can you help me get to Hawaii?" I quite enjoyed his retort, which was, "I asked you first!" We also saw a really frail old man on the subway who I'm fairly certain was blind singing for tips, and the whole situation was hilarious because he was singing, "If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy..." I can guarantee no one on that subway wanted his body. Haha.

We met up with Robyn a bit later and headed to Time Square (after doing the standard nerdy tourist picture in front of all the flashing lights) because it was time to see "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" ... with Dan Radcliffe! This was one of the things we were most excited to do on this trip, and I'm so glad we were able to get tickets. The show was incredible. The choreography was amazing, the sets were stunning, the costumes were perfect and all the actors were just fabulous. I was so blown away by Dan. He had so much character on that stage, his dancing was flawless, and he just played such a lovable leading man. I'm really happy for him and his broadway career, and I hope I get a chance to see him in more shows.

We went to the stage door after the show (come on, of course we did) and managed to get him to sign both our playbills; Eia got to touch his hand (lucky duck) but I was filming the whole thing, so I'm not too jealous. He was so sweet to his fans, which made me really happy. This was my first time ever meeting a big Potter star (aside from Scarlet and Evanna at Leaky) and it's just really nice to know that they haven't become jaded or anything.

Waiting to meet Dan after the show was pretty fun in itself -- I haven't ever really gotten the chance to wait in line and fangirl over meeting anyone like that before, so Eia and I just soaked the whole thing up. We made friends with another girl who was waiting with a Harry Potter book in hand -- after a few seconds, though, her eyes widened and she asked me if I was Kristina Horner, which was kind of cute. Then another girl behind us recognized me as well and even had ME sign her playbill, which just felt really, really wrong. I'm sure the people who were standing around us were thinking "who the crap is this person?" Embarrassing.

I loved the whole experience, though. The musical, I mean. I had a difficult time convincing my brain that we were actually seeing Dan in person, the guy who played Harry Potter - that he was in the same room as us and playing a different character. But it was so amazing and fun and I'm so glad we could go. :D

After the show, we literally ran into Alex Carpenter on the street. I mean, he knew where we were, so it wasn't that huge of a coincidence, but it still felt pretty funny to be walking around a big foreign city where we know pretty much no-one, and then to just see our good friend standing on the corner. He was with some other friends of ours (Becca, Mary Beth and Nikki) and so we decided to hang out a bit longer in the city, rather than taking the early train back in. It's actually been kind of a long time since I got to hang with Alex, so we had a very fun evening. We ate food at Junior's (I tried a potato pancake! And ate strawberry shortcake cheesecake!) and had an appletini and we ran around and the whole evening was just a nice way to end a really lovely day.

Eia and I made friends with one of the ticket guys on the way back to New Jersey that night, so we spent most of our long train ride being silly with him. He was trying to teach us how to read the complicated pink ticket sheets but we weren't having it. I told him I thought the part that said "CENTS" meant you could add on a scratch-n-sniff option. He laughed at us.

I'm having so much fun here, and the wedding hasn't even started. Lauren and Matt are actually on their way right now to pick us up, so the good times are REALLY about to begin. :D

Flights taken: 23