So I've been very lazy with my journal as of late. I went on a wonderful trip to New York City for a week and totally got my fill of Theodore Roosevelt. I am a huge admirer of the former president (just to give an example, on the tour of his birthplace, there were eleven of us and I knew far and away the most about him. They were all American and I was about as knowledgeable as the tour guide).
So I arrived in the city on Monday morning of February 4th and was already seeing my first show by the evening (I saw Rent for the first time and it was good). The next day I did a little shopping at Virgin picking up some good film deals, the NBC store to get that probably collector's item of a Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip cap and L&O mug for Todd and a great theatre book store. In the evening on Tuesday I went to see a rare Tennessee William's play called A Bar In A Tokyo Hotel with my friend and host, Owen. The play was great and the first time in thirty years it has been played there.
On Wednesday, I took part in my favourite part of the trip, my day at Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay. For those who don't know, this was the summer house of Theodore Roosevelt. I took the train from Penn Station out to Oyster Bay, this great little town that lives for the man with signs and statues all over. Instead of getting a cab, I hiked out to the house, a good two mile walk mostly on the side of the road on a very beautiful day. When I go there and looked up the hill at the house, my heart just fell. In its day, it would looked over the bay itself, but it was so majestic, I could barely take the picture. When I got to catch on to the tour, there was only one person (because apparently it was freezing for tourists hehehe, I walked there with just a cao and gloves). The other person, it turned out, was a lady named Joanne who was very knowledgeable of the Theodore as well, so our tour guide, Leslie, who rather than take us on the standard tour of 45 minutes, gave us an extended tour of two hours. She loved the fact that I knew so much. :) At the end of the tour, Joanne and myself went to a second museum and watched a few informational videos. When we finished, I ran through the gift store and bought a sad $81.00 worth of memorabilia. Joanne was even so nice that she gave me a ride back to the train where I sailed back into the city.
On Thursday, Owen and I toured the gay area near Christopher Street and ventured into a few shops, including a British shop where I had my first Flakey bar and a shop where a lady does pet portraits where I got a card that looks like Sebastian. In the evening, I saw The Apple Tree with Owen, starring Kristin Chenowith. It was absolutely amazing!!! The crowd just loved her. One of the actors tripped during a scene and she flubbed the entire song. The great part was that everyone still loved her and she totally had the audience.
On Friday, I took off on my own to see the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace (I was a junkie with this being the third TR thing of the trip, I also took pictures with Todd of his inaugaral site in Buffalo where I flew out of). It wasn't as fun, but it was a great treasure of artifacts and another $28.00 dollars of gear. In the evening, we had supper with a friend of Owen's, A, and then while they saw a production of Follies, I went to see a show called The Little Dog Laughed. It was a very good play.
On Saturday, I mostly took it easy with some brunch and s trip to get a bear shirt and some movies. I flew back to Buffalo on Sunday and Todd picked me up.