I Don't ♥ New York (1.59)

Original Air Date: 12.10.2005
Theme Song: "Not While I'm Around" - Angela Lansbury (from Sweeney Todd)

Sean and I wake up at the buttcrack of dawn this morning in order to catch the bus to New york for our FYS field trip to see Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on Broadway at 2PM. So, I grab a handful of Nutter Butters and a swig of water, take my shower, and I'm out the door. On the bus they serve us cold bagels and orange juice. No cold bread for me, Thank You.

Five hours later when we finally get to New York, we have less than an hour before the show starts (which means not a lot of shopping time, arrgh!). I walk with Kelly, Melissa, and the herd (Jen, Jess, Erica, Meghan) and out of the fafillion pizza places in New York, they just have to pick the most generic sounding one, Pasta and Pizza. That doesn't sound authentic to me. The pizza there is pretty good--huge but lacking in the crust department. Sean (the NY native) and Bill manage to eat at Chipotle and take a cab to the Coach department store and then to the theater. Clever. After that, the girls and I go to the Wig Store (don't look at me) and Kelly, Melissa, and I break off and hit up a bakery for some cookies. Mmmm.


Sweeney Todd on Broadway is AWESOME! Creepy but totally awesome. I've only seen it as a play previously (since AA County schools do it every year) so before this, I'd never seen it so upbeat with musical numbers and such. The songs are full of dark, twisted humor: "Priest Pie--only available on Sundays!" "General pie. Would you like him with or without the privates?" I totally order the soundtrack during Intermission, as I do with every professional play I go to see. It's extremely impressive how the actors onstage also play instruments during the musical numbers... that's just awesome. The character Sweeney Todd reminds me of a mixture between Dr. Evil and that dude from the Smashing Pumpkins, and Mrs. Lovett reminds me of Jai all grown up.

Oh and now the reason why I don't heart New York: We almost died there! Really, our 90-year-old bus driver's just messin' traffic up. I've never heard people honk their horns so casually as they do in New York. But then again, our driver sucks! I'd assumed he was gonna kill us before we even got to New York. I mean, he just has to drive on the very edge of the street whenever we cross a bridge, drive over every piece of debris possible, and seriously almost take out a NY couple (Final Destination-style). That last incident was just ridiculous: he's driving perfectly straight one minute when he suddenly changes his mind and swerves to the right with two people standing in the middle of the crosswalk. Crazy.


Once I get home, I received a call from Gitendra about our latenight study session for Chinese Culture through Film and I realize something--I'm not meant to have a musical ringtone. My new ringtone is Britney Spears's "I'm A Slave 4 U" and every time it comes on I just start dancing until I realize two things: 1) it's playing on an endless loop and 2) it's coming from my phone! I spend the rest of the night (til 2AM) at the library with Gitendra, Brian, and Chen Li studying for the oral exam. I'm sure we'll do just fine.