Brewerton, NY (New York City)

The second part of our time docked in Brewerton was a car trip to New York City.  We had tickets for two Broadway shows, Springsteen on Broadway on Tuesday night and The Band’s Visit on Wednesday night.  Originally we thought we would have to take Georgio with us so Lynn had found a nice Air B&B in Bloomfield, NJ that allowed pets and was supposedly a 30 minute bus ride into Manhattan.  We discovered that the marina owner’s wife was only too happy to check in on Georgio while we were gone for two nights,  so we decided to spare him the long car ride which he hates.  The other advantage of staying in NJ was that we could avoid the exorbitant parking fees in the city.

We had an uneventful car ride to Bloomfield where we were delighted with the spacious one bedroom apartment in the raised basement of a nice house in pleasant Bloomfield.  The owners were very accommodating and they encouraged us to take the train instead of the more unreliable bus into the city.  We did so and easily found free parking at the train station since it was late in the day.  

We arrived in the city and walked through Times Square which is always a trip.

Arriving in plenty of time for dinner, we found a great restaurant just a block from the theatre.  La Masseria catered to the theatre crowd and was very prompt in their service.  But more importantly, the place was charming, cozy - though deceivingly spacious,  and the food was excellent!  Lynn had been saving herself for this trip and had a wonderful dish of spaghetti with clam sauce and Jonny was thrilled with his grilled octopus and cuttlefish.  

Then it was on to the show.  It’s important to note that getting tickets to Springsteen on Broadway is not an easy task.  Several months ago Jonny entered a lottery three different times just to have a chance to purchase the tickets.  The third time was the charm and he had to pick a date that he thought we might be somewhere near NY and go for it.

We had good seats, not the best, but Broadway theatres are so small that no seat is bad.  The show was absolutely fabulous.  Springsteen was on stage for two and a half hours without a break.  He spoke from the heart with stories about his upbringing, coming of age, and career.  He interspersed the stories with his songs played either on the piano or acoustic guitar  and harmonica.  It’s no wonder that he was awarded a special Emmy this year.  His wife, Patty Scialfa came on to do two numbers with him but the rest he did on his own.  What a show!

Returning to our B&B was not so easy.  The train we planned to take was cancelled and we had to wait another hour for the next one.  We arrived tired but happy at 1:30 a.m. and fell into bed.

The next day we got up early to take the train once again into the city.  This time, parking proved to be a bigger problem and we missed the first train we were planning to take due to the lack of it.  Our host guided us to nearby street parking a few blocks from the train station in front of her sister’s home so we ignored the parking limits sign and parked there and made the next train.  Our plan for Wednesday was to tour Lincoln Center, have a nice lunch and catch our 7:00 show.  

We made it to Lincoln Center with time to spare and participated in an excellent two hour tour of several of its theaters.  Jonny was particularly interested because he volunteers as a docent at The Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami.  During this tour we were able to visit the various theatres that  held performances by the Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, the ballet and Broadway performances. It was most impressive.  And we hadn’t realized that you can buy same day discounted tickets at Lincoln Center for all the big shows in town.

We were dealing with some excitement related to our return to Miami.  We had decided to rent a condo for six months to see if we liked condo living before actually buying one and Lynn had been looking online for furnished rentals.  She was also getting daily reports on condos for sale from Realtor.com.  The day before she saw a listing for a condo that met most of our criteria and was priced at 25% less than anything else she had seen.  She called our realtor who was as surprised as she was and he immediately made an appointment to go see it.  This was the first day of its listing.  Tom then face-timed us to look at it and we all agreed that it was an exceptional value and worth pursuing.  So we bid on it and the seller accepted our offer (less than the asking price).  Now we were on the phone regularly with Tom to work out the details of the contract, sign it and arrange travel to Miami the following week to actually look at it and have the inspection before the sale is finalized!  We also need to move Zendo off of the Erie Canal by October 10 because it closes to boat traffic then.  Luckily we were able to juggle all these balls and we made the necessary arrangements.  Just a little excitement to keep us on our toes!

Fortunately, we were able to relax over one of our best meals ever at Bar Boulud.  This lovely restaurant, one of several of Daniel Boulud’s, had a fixed price luncheon that was quite reasonable.  We both had the the most exquisite and simply prepared pan seared daurade preceded  by a luscious chicken liver mousse terrine and autumn squash soup.  We split a sacher torte for dessert.  What an incredible treat to eat like this in a such a stylish and comfortable setting.

We strolled down to Times Square to catch our show but arrived early enough to have a drink at the bar directly across the street from the theatre.  As is everything in Manhattan, it was bustling with activity and a buzz of people, in this case, the after work crowd.

Our show that evening, The Band’s Visit, was also excellent.  We had seen the female lead  performing her signature number on the Emmys and were transfixed by her passionate performance.  So much so that when we were in NY on our way north on this trip, we went to the Barrymore theatre where it is performed to see if we could get tickets the day after our Springsteen show.  Lynn didn’t think it was feasible because it had just won best musical on the Emmys the night before.  But lo and behold there were good tickets available at a much lower price than if we had bought them through Ticketron.  Score!!  The show was wonderful; a unique storyline, great acting and a mesmerizing score.  We were very happy!

Our trains were right on time for our return trip to our comfortable little apartment.  We planned to leave first thing the next morning to drive the four hours back to Zendo and continue our cruise which due to recent events had a heightened sense of urgency.