Last morning here in in New York City. And the shortest narrative too. Today, we finished a little souvenier shopping, checked out of our hotel, took a cab to the airport, and then…I wrote. Allllll of this journaling for the past 9 days.

The entire trip was phenomenal. So many amazing memories and fantastic experiences. I’m so blessed to have had the chance to do this with Audrey.

Our last full day here in the city. So sad. We’ve had such a phenomenal time, done so many things and enjoyed so much of this trip. After getting tickets for tonight’s performance, we headed all the way south one last time for our Dialog in the Dark experience.  Dialog in the Dark is basically about getting people to experience parts of New York as if they were blind. It’s all about touch, hearing, spell, and texture of the world around you. We “visited” Central Park, took a ride on a “subway,” “shopped” at a supermarket, and crossed a “busy street.” Along the way, we learned to use our canes and to be more aware of all the cues that we miss all the time in our normal experience of the world around us. All of the guides at the exhibit are blind or severely visually impaired so they can take you through “their” New York. It’s a really interesting concept and was a unique “tour” of New York City that was different from anything else that we’d experienced this week.

Columbia University was next on our agenda. Audrey’s dad went to school there so we thought it’d be cool to take a look around and check out the area. Lots of old, beautiful buildings, giant libraries, stuff like that. For lunch, we went to a local Ethiopian restaurant where you eat with your hands and, apparently, the food is pretty legit, partially judging by the number of people there speaking unrecognizable African languages. I wasn’t a fan of the food, but the experience as a whole was very interesting- I’m glad we did it.

Around Columbia

Taking pictures around Columbia

How I spent a lot of the trip

Ethiopian food

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is located just a couple of blocks from Columbia. It’s the largest cathedral in the world, and could easily fit the entire Statue of Liberty under it’s main dome. I’ve visited a lot of Cathedrals while traveling but none quite like this. The size alone was overwhelming (it’s as long as two football fields). While we were wandering through, there was a choir concert going on. The way the voices just floated up in that space gave it such an ethereal quality, echoing off the hundreds of panels of intricate stained glass. Around the outside wall of the cathedral are tens of smaller chapels, each with their own style and feel. Audrey especially loved wandering through all of the art and things that were hung on the walls. The whole church was really quite something.

St. John's

Glass in St. John's

More food: the Momofuku Milk Bar. So much sweet, so much delicious. It took us a while to find, but it was so worth it. We got Candy Bar pie (carmel, chocolate, peanut butter, and pretzel), Crack pie (buttery custard on an oat crust), and a pile of cookies for later including the Compost cookie (chocolate chips, butter scotch, potato chips, oat, pretzels, coffee grounds). Yummmmmm.

We took the long way back to our next show, stopping by the Lincoln Center, the New York Apple Store, FAO Schwartz (the coolest toy store ever), and walking down Fifth Avenue, not understanding how anyone could ever spend that much money on anything ever.

Other things Audrey loves? The Muppets

Lego Captain Jack Sparrow

The Big Piano at FAO Schwarz

Tonight’s show, and our last show for the week was How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. Again, we had amazing seats (7^th row, orchestra) to watch the show. It’s a “jazz hands show,” full of big flashy dance numbers, “ba-dum-chh” jokes, and everything else that makes a classic cheesy stereotypical musical. Nick Jonas was playing the lead- not particularly impressive, but fun overall. I loved the set, the “big” songs, and the atmosphere of the show. It’s all about this kid climbing the ladder in the business world, but through a series of strategies and good fortune rather than relevant skills. Cheesy and a lot of fun.

We decided that our last night in the city would be our fancy dinner night. We went to Sardi’s, a famous restaurant in the theater world. Its walls are covered with caracatures of years of famous Broadway stars, about 1400 in total. “You know you’ve made it when they put your picture up at Sardi’s.” Besides the food being amazing, it was a lot of fun to look around and see who we could pick out.

Delicious dessert at Sardi's

Audrey snuck pictures of the Sardi's walls

We were sitting next to a table with a husband and wife and we had caught bits of their conversation that clued us in that at least one of them was a pretty big deal in the theater world. In their conversation with their friend, we’d been able to catch their first names, but couldn’t figure out who they were. While we were ordering dessert, Paige, the woman at the table, turned around and commented on something I’d said and we chatted for a just a moment before going back to our own conversations. I said bye to them when we left, wished them a good night, and left still wondering who we’d just been talking to. When we got back to the room, Audrey googled the bits of information we’d been able to collect. The wife was Paige Davis, former host of TLC’s Trading Spaces (a show I used to watch a lot). She’s also made a couple of Broadway appearances. Her husband was Patrick Page, one of the top American classically trained actors and a big deal on Broadway- the Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the original Scar in The Lion King, and currently the Green Goblin in Spiderman.

Our time at Sardi’s was mostly spent doing our own version of the Tony awards, thinking through the shows that we saw this week and coming up with our favorites and least favorites in lots of made up categories. We saw 7 Broadway shows: Porgy & Bess, Godspell, Anything Goes, Once, Seminar, Other Desert Cities, and How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. Here the notes that we made on our own awards. Where there were ties, we didn’t try too hard to resolve them so there are plenty of categories with 2 or 3 winners. Oh well.

Too bad nobody actually cares about our opinion. Hahaha.

Today was another day where Audrey and I each went our own way for a while. Audrey went to take a tour of Lincoln Center and to see the Musuem of Modern Art (MoMA).

Audrey's view in the lobby of the Lincoln Center

I headed to a new part of Manhattan called Washington Heights. Ever since Audrey took me to see my first real musical, In the Heights, last December, I’ve been really excited about visiting the part of New York where it’s set. There’s a part in the opening song where the narrator gives directions of how to get there:

“You must take the “A” train/ Even farther than Harlem and maintain/ Get off at 181^st and take the escalator”

(I promise it sounds cooler when Lin Manuel Miranda is rapping it.) Anyway, Washington Heights is a largely immigrant community, predominantly Spanish-speaking. I wanted to go, soak in the culture, enjoy the food, speak a little Spanish, and get to see where the musical that I’ve enjoyed so much is set. Even following the directions from the song, it took me a little longer than I anticipated to find the area that I was looking for, but when I did, I plopped myself down inn a little diner and ordered myself a plate of maduro(fried ripe plantains). As they cooked, I listened to the old men chattering in Spanish at the counter, the waitresses fending off their playful flirtations, the old guy crooning along to the Spanish song playing on the jukebox, and just enjoyed so many of the memories and good times that I’ve experienced in the time that I’ve been fortunate enough to be abroad. Such great memories.

A different view from Washington Heights

For lunch, I’d arranged to meet up with another friend, Luis, who was involved in Agape and graduated in May, like Jon. We went to eat at an Ecuadorian restaurant, pretty close to his office. It was so nice to catch up, just enjoying sharing what’s been happening in our lives, future plans, what we like about where we each are right now and doing a little reminiscing about things that have happened in the past couple of years as well.

After leaving Luis back in his office with the mountains of maduro that I had left over from Washington Heights, I made my way to the Empire State Building, hoping to catch a good view of the city during the day. Unfortunately, the drizzly cold from a couple days ago still hasn’t cleared up and I didn’t get to see anything because of the lack of visibility. I did, however, get to check out the New York Skyride, a hyper cheesy movie-crossed-with-motion experience flying around the city narrated by the one and only Kevin Bacon. Don’t ask.

One of many colorful walls of M&Ms in M&M World which we also visited

The lobby of the Empire State Building

I met Audrey at MoMA and we found our way down to the South Seaport area again, this time to get tickets for Dialog in the Dark to see tomorrow. We tried to lotto to see Wicked, but again the odds weren’t in our favor. We ended up getting tickets to see Other Desert Cities for tonight just a couple of minutes before it started. If Seminar last night didn’t convince me that theater could be amazing, ODCdefinitely got the job done. This one was about the conflict emerging in a family when the daughter announces that she’s planning on publishing a book about the things they’ve been through. I wish I could put into words the excellence of this experience. The writing was terrific. The set was great. The actors were incredible. A really really realllllly exceptional show.

Not sure what face to make for ODC

Since it was one of our last nights in NYC and our last night with our New York Passes, we decided to use our free game of bowling at a fancy bowling alley on Times Square. When we got there though, they told us that they can’t use our NY Passes on Thursday because of another special deal they have going on. Since we didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg to bowl, we thanked them and turned to go. But the people behind the desk started asking us where we were from and how long we were here, etc. When they found out that we were from out of town and that this was the last night we would come, they felt sooo bad (a lot worse than we did, for sure). They found us a free lane, gave us shoes, and invited us to stay. So instead of the one free game we were hoping for, we ended up getting to play six!! We had a great time (I might have enjoyed myself more than Audrey) hangin gout, refining our “technique” and laughing at each other and ourselves when we did just as poorly as usual. A fun “bonus” on our adventure. (Just for the fun of it, we totaled up our costs and expenditures on the NY Pass- we paid $130 for $258 worth of activities. Go us.) We got back to our hotel tonight a little after one and crashed.

Bowling night!