Countdown: 3 Weeks To Go

This week, I: -

• am going to London with Rob later on today for Tara's 30th birthday party;
  
  
• am going shopping with Rebecca, my youngest bridesmaid, on Monday to buy sparkly things to put in her hair on the wedding day;
  
  
• need to confirm appointments for nails, hair and make-up for me and the girls on the Friday before and morning of the wedding;
  
  
• have an appointment to see the events co-ordinator at the hotel on Wednesday, to confirm final numbers, pay them the money we owe (sharp intake of breath) and go over last-minute details;
  
  
• am going shopping with Jill on Wednesday afternoon to find an outfit for her to wear at the wedding. We made a start on this yesterday but we only saw about half the dresses Southampton has to offer, so we'll look at the other half then make a decision;
  
  
• am meeting Paul, our photographer, on Thursday, to look round the church and the hotel for good photo locations;
  
  
• need to print out the orders of service, although I might not get this done until I speak to Simon who's organising the band for the service, as I want to make sure I have all the details correct before printing 100 copies :) ;
  
  
• need to tidy the house, for two reasons: first, because I haven't cleaned it properly for weeks and it's filthy, and second, because we have visitors this weekend - Rob's Dad and James, the best man, are going with Rob and the boys on his 'local' stag do (the main one having been Vegas a few weeks ago), and Sam is coming out with me and the girls for a hen party that Clare is organising.
  

I'm so glad I don't work right now :).

The Most Expensive Item in my Wardrobe...

... is finally in my possession! Jen and I picked up my wedding dress this morning. It had been taken up a little since I tried it on a month ago, and when I put it on today, it looked great. Want to see? OK, here it is.

You didn't seriously think I'd actually post a picture before the day, did you?? Don't worry, there'll be plenty of pictures in a month...

Too Old For This

I went out for drinks last night with some friends. It was my first night out in Southampton since we moved here almost two years ago, and apart from Catherine's hen night in Manchester a few weeks ago, the first time I'd been clubbing for at least four years, probably longer.

The good news is that 14 and a half years after I became legally old enough to drink, I got asked for ID at one of the clubs. The bad news is I don't think I'm cut out for clubbing any more. Here's why: -

1. I was significantly older than most of the girls I saw. Not the men - there were lots of aging divorcees trying to remember how to look cool - but I felt a decade older than most of the girls. Which was probably true.

2. I only recognised about 10% of the songs we danced to. And the ones I did know, I remembered from the time they were originally released in the early 80s, before they got remixed into dance tracks in the last couple of years.

3. I kept getting more and more astounded by the length of the belts skirts the girls were wearing, and thinking things like "She'll catch her death of cold in that!"

4. Someone pinched my bum at one point and I was so mortified I nearly cried.

5. I asked "HOW MUCH???" when the barmaid told me what my round of drinks cost.

6. When the dancefloor is busy, I tend to keep my feet still and move from my knees. Well, I'm clearly too old for that these days - my knees are creaking something awful this morning.

7. I kept thinking to myself "Why does the music have to be so loud? And why aren't there more places to sit down???"

Ah, the joys of growing up.

New York: Monday

Again, not a great weather day today. Dad phoned while were were getting showered, dressed and packed to say that he was looking at a street-level webcam of Times Square, so we arranged to call him to let him know we were about to walk past it and wave to him. How cool is that? We were waving to someone who's 3,000 miles away and he could see us in real time! He called us back to let us know he had seen us, then we went on our way for the now traditional pancake breakfast. Before that, though, I resolved that I would not end the day with my hair in the state it was yesterday, which was a blonde version of the 'Monica in Barbados' picture on the right. So I spent the best $3 of the weekend on a Yankees baseball hat and tied my hair back into a pony tail. After breakfast, the next stop was NBC Studios for a studio tour, which was OK but probably would have been better if we'd actually known who Brian Williams was, given that we toured his studio :).

I had left my ring at Tiffany's yesterday to be cleaned, so we went back to pick it up, and boy, it was shiny! Then we had some lunch before going on a tour of Carnegie Hall, which was excellent. The Minnesota State Orchestra was rehearsing for a performance this evening, and they sounded fantastic in the acoustically close-to-perfect hall.

We came out of Carnegie Hall at about 15:00 and the original plan was to go for a carriage ride round Central Park before going back to the hotel to pick up our bags, but the rain was unrelenting and we decided a ride in an open top carriage probably wouldn't be much fun, so we opted for a couple of hot chocolates and a review of our photographs before heading back to the hotel to pick up our bags. One thing I didn't know about my Mum before this trip is that she loves riding on public transport in foreign countries - trams, buses, subways, trains, you name it - so seeing as we had plenty of time and not very much cash left, we took the bus from Port Authority back to the airport.

In conclusion, a great trip. The weather could have been kinder, but despite that, we all enjoyed ourselves and are looking forward to the next visit... :).

New York: Sunday

We knew that Sunday was going to be pretty much wall-to-wall rain all day (typical; last weekend in New York it was 80˚and sunny) so we planned some indoor stuff for Sunday - and Monday...

First we took the subway down to South Ferry. Actually, first we went back for $3 pancakes, then we took the subway down to South Ferry. Another day, another event going on in New York - yesterday it was the Revlon 5k, today it was the Five Borough Bike Tour. Rather them than me in the pouring rain...

The boat that leaves Battery Park goes first to the Statue of Liberty and then to Ellis Island, then returns to Battery Park. We decided not to get off the boat at the Statue, because once you're that close, you can't see it any more. And they won't let you go up the statue at the moment, so we stayed on the boat and went straight to the Immigration Museum at Ellis Island. I found it really interesting - I guess it would have been even more interesting if I had actually had relatives who'd landed there; I could have looked them up. But I find 3D representations of statistics fascinating (no, seriously, I do - remember the world cities exhibition at Tate Modern?), so I was in my element looking at all the different ways of representing immigration, language growth and decline, population change etc. Fine, laugh all you want; I liked it.

It was pouring down while we were on the boat back to Battery Park and the rain was bouncing off the ground while we walked from there to the Winter Garden at Ground Zero, so we were pleased to get inside and dry off for a while. We had a look round Banana Republic (there was a sale on!) then went to a Chinese restaurant for a late lunch. Then we caught the subway up to Bloomingdales and used our New York Pass discount on some Little Brown Bags and a necklace for Jen (but there really wasn't much else worth spending our money on), then we had a quick look inside St Patrick's Cathedral on the way down to Grand Central Terminal, which was beautiful, as ever. Jen's poor feet were killing her by then, though, so we walked back to the hotel for a quick lie down.

We all fell asleep and Jen and I had real difficulty getting up again at 21:00, but we finally managed to drag ourselves out of bed and walk over to 30 Rockefeller Plaza to the 'Top of the Rock' observation deck on floor 67 for a view of Manhattan at night. It was raining - still - so we couldn't see all that far, but the views were still pretty spectacular - and well worth getting out of bed for!

The Little Mermaid

On Saturday night, after our early dinner, we went to see The Little Mermaid. We picked this show because, like 9 to 5, it was something we couldn't see in the West End.

We thoroughly enjoyed this show too, although slightly less so than 9 to 5, but possibly only because jet lag had begun to set in by half-way through the first act and we had trouble keeping our eyes open.

The story wasn't very sophisticated - it's a Disney film at the end of the day - but I'd read the book and seen the film and I wasn't expecting anything elaborate. What was elaborate, though, was the set - they used very cool effects to differentiate between underwater scenes and land scenes. They also put the mermaids and fish on roller blades (or maybe even Heelys?), so they would glide across the stage, looking much more like they were swimming than walking.

Another really good show. Plus we got a third off the face value of our tickets by buying them via nytix.com - a good website to be aware of if you're going to New York in the future. Beats queuing in the rain at the ticket office in Times Square...

New York: Saturday

I never sleep past 05:00 the first morning after I fly west. This trip was no exception - actually I woke up at 03:00, then 04:00, then 05:00... but I managed to go back to sleep until 07:30 when we were woken up by a marching band. You know, as you do.

It was the Revlon-sponsored Run/Walk for charity this morning, starting at Times Square at 09:00 and finishing in Central Park. All the streets surrounding Times Square were closed off to traffic, but it was still crazy full of people as we walked through it to find somewhere for breakfast just after 09:00. We found a great place that does three pancakes for $3 - no wonder Americans say it's cheaper to eat out than in.

We headed straight for the Empire State Building after breakfast, hoping to make the most of the better weather forecast for today, as opposed to the wall-to-wall rain forecast for tomorrow and Monday. We didn't quite manage to dodge the rain entirely and had to go inside for a few minutes while we were on the observation deck, but we didn't do too badly.


Next we walked over to the Circle Line Pier to go on a boat tour. We took the 3-hour tour all the way round Manhattan Island, which was awesome. The weather cleared up (we knew it would, which is why we chose to do the boat tour this afternoon and do indoor stuff tomorrow and Monday) so our pictures look nice and sunny. Here's my favourite - although I didn't take it. I figured all three of us taking pictures of the same things was a bit excessive so I left it to Mum and Jen. Think this is one of Jen's: -


The boat docked at 17:00, then we walked back Times Square and went for an early dinner (particularly as we only had half a pretzel each for lunch, but those $3 pancakes were really filling!) before popping back to the hotel to get changed for the theatre.

New York: Friday

I flew up to Manchester on Thursday night and spent a lovely evening with Nikki and Clare, then stayed over at Nikki's house and she gave me a lift back to Manchester Airport this morning where I met Mum and Jen for our flight to New York. The flight was fairly uneventful, just the way I like them. I watched Benjamin Button (very good, if a bit long - 2hrs 45mins) and Marley & Me (liked it better than I thought I would - and for a non-dog lover I still cried at the end), and our plane landed on time at 14:30.

Typically, we managed to pick the immigration line with the slowest immigration officer in the world, but we finally made it out of the airport and got our taxi into the city. Trying to get to Times Square at 16:00 on a Friday is not the easiest of tasks, but our driver made it in the end - just as the rain turned from a light drizzle into a heavy shower, and we got fairly soaked just getting from the taxi to the door of the hotel. The hotel was lovely; I had paid for a room on the 11th to 30th floors, but the lady behind the desk had us down for a room on the 31st to 50th floors. We didn't complain - the higher up we were, the less noisy it would be. In the end we were on the 50th floor of 57, but even so the noise from Times Square was still audible, so I was glad we weren't any lower down.


We just had enough time for a quick nap (although none of us slept; just rested our eyes for an hour) before going out for something to eat then going to see 9 to 5: The Musical. When we were looking at shows to see, we decided we should see things that we couldn't see in the West End - it seemed pointless going to see Jersey Boys or Billy Elliot when we can see them any time up the road (figuratively, at least) and it costs less to see them here. 9 to 5 has been showing previews for most of April but it only had its official Broadway premiere yesterday, so if we had come a day earlier we would have seen Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda etc. But we didn't, so we didn't.

Despite the absence of Dolly et al, the evening was fantastic. I'd never seen the film (although I recorded it off the TV a couple of weeks ago; haven't had chance to watch it yet), and in my opinion the storyline was a bit weak - I wanted the girls to be plotting a bit more and playing catch-up a bit less, more Home Alone-style, but I suppose there's not much to be done there when the show is based on a film which is based on a book. Still, what it lacked in that area it more than made up for in others, in particular the songs and the staging.

Dolly Parton wrote another dozen or so songs for the musical - the theme tune was the first song - and they were all really, really good. Surprisingly good. Judy and Doralee (Jane Fonda and Dolly in the film) were played by Stephanie J Block and Megan Hilty, who've recently played Elphaba and Glinda respectively in Wicked on Broadway, and they were superb. Violet, the main character (Lily Tomlin's part in the film), was played by Allison Janney, and she was the reason we chose to see this show over the others, because Jen and I loved her in The West Wing. It was clear that she didn't have the voice training that the other two girls did, but even so, her singing voice was not too shabby at all. And man, she was funny.

The staging was really something - they had a hole in the middle of the stage and all sorts of things came out of it (beds, photocopiers, desks etc) - and every scene change was so slick, really well done.

So if you're in New York with $100 and a few hours to spare, you could do worse than to see this show. Seriously, worth a look.