Love this city

Once again I took advantage of a gap in the schedule to spend a few days catching up with a friend in New Jersey, Jaime, and reacquainting myself with probably my favourite city in the world, New York. Unfortunately this meant flying on one of my least favourite airlines in the world, American Airlines. We were supposed to arrive a bit before 9pm at LaGuardia airport but ended up getting there closer to 11pm, which was about an hour and a half before our bags arrived (on the next flight). It was pretty frustrating but Jaime was all smiles and driving through the city quickly picked me up again. Three highlights of the week stand out...

Yankees

I slept in on Monday morning and awoke to find a text message from Connie on my phone informing me they were going to a Yankees (baseball) game at 1:05pm that day. I've gone to a number of baseball games in America over the years, but none at Yankee Stadium, so I was keen to head along. By the time I caught the train from New Jersey into New York City and the subway to Yankee Stadium though, it was already about 2:30pm, so I decided I would just take the first ticket a scalper offered me. As it turned out, the first ticket was a Field Box seat with a face value of $200. I had my usual doubts about buying a ticket from a scalper but with Hunt and Connie in the upper level bleachers for $80, I figured the asking price of $50 for a much better seat was worth the risk. It paid off - not only did the ticket scan fine but as I walked down to my seat I was pleasantly surprised to be four rows back from third base. A slight catch was that it was already the end of the sixth inning, but the score was 0-0 and judging by the look on other people's faces I had done well to avoid an hour and a half in the scorching summer sun (it was seriously hot that day!).

I had no sooner finished introducing myself to the people around me when the Royals hit a two-run homer to open up the scoring. Granted, it was the wrong team, but I was pretty stoked to see a bit of action. In the bottom of the 7th A-Rod hit a two-run homer for the Yankees and the mood really picked up. Then a funny thing happened. I caught a foul ball. Yep, I did what any self-respecting American dreams about as a kid (and an adult)... I caught a foul ball in Yankee Stadium. I should point out that it may have been tossed into the crowd by an umpire rather than coming straight off the bat, and when I say I caught a foul ball it's probably more accurate to say that a foul ball hit me and then I grabbed it, but however it happened the undeniable truth is that a baseball that was hit by a Yankees player in Yankee Stadium ended up in my hand. I was in such a state of shock, having only entered the ground 15 minutes beforehand, once the "give it to the kid" cries bombarded my ears I did what I figured every self-respecting adult would do in that situation... and gave it to the kid sitting in front of me. When everyone around me stood up and clapped, and people came up to me to shake my hand and say "that's amazing", I started to think maybe there aren't as many self-respecting adults around as I thought. When I later found out from a friend that the player who hit the ball, Bobby Abreu, is a guaranteed Hall-of-Famer, and that this is the last season to be played in the current Yankee Stadium, which together mean that the ball could have been worth up to $1,000, I started to wish I wasn't a self-respecting adult either. Anyway, that's one to tell the grandkids about (who, lets be honest, unless they're American won't care at all).

Sailing

A couple of nights later I found myself in one of those "I don't know how I got here, but I'm stoked" moments, as I knocked back a few cold drinks while watching sailing boats race in front of the New York skyline. The only night I could catch up with a friend of mine, Natalie, just happened to be the night she had planned to head out on the water with a friend of hers who is a member of a sailing club. Initially I thought we would actually be sailing ourselves but as it turned out we were doing one better - we sat out on a floating bar watching other people sail around us. The view was just spectacular on a perfect summers day and I had a great time with Natalie and Lisa, who ensured some very entertaining conversation. Definitely a night to savour.

Broadway

Having seen a musical at the West End in London in May, I wanted to do the double and see a Broadway show in New York. Jaime really wanted to see Wicked but it had been sold out for months, which meant that the only options were to pay five times the normal price for a ticket or to try our luck at the ticket lottery (the ticket lottery is where at 5:30pm each day people can put their name in the draw for about 20 front-row tickets for that night's performance - the slight catch is that a few hundred people give it a go each night). Unfortunately neither option worked out so I randomly selected Avenue Q and bought some tickets for that. I met Jaime outside the theatre and we headed in...

I had heard and read many good things about Avenue Q but nowhere in that did anyone feel the need to point out that all the main characters are puppets. Seriously, it was like Sesame Street on Broadway. That's not to say it was bad - it was actually really good - but it wasn't quite what I was expecting, or after. I was in the mood for an epic - Les Miserables, A Chorus Line, that kind of thing - and this was more of an Off-Broadway show... on Broadway. It definitely had its funny moments: I am ashamed to say that I laughed every time a puppet swore (it's not my fault, there's just something very funny about puppet's swearing!), there was some pretty clever social commentary, and the performances were genuinely awesome. It also featured what I'm sure is the most graphic sex scene ever to grace a Broadway stage, which still made me blush even though it was puppets doing it. In the end, once our expectations were adjusted, Jaime and I could appreciate it for what it was and enjoyed the show.

The train ride home was made a little awkward/entertaining by a guy who took it upon himself to tell the whole carriage a romantic story about an Australian guy (me) and a Jersey girl (Jaime) finding love in New York City. People were amused so we played along, before spoiling the story with the truth (i.e. we're just friends) before we got off. There's definitely something about New York that brings out the romantic in people, which is kind of cool really.

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