Sabbatical Day 6 (evening) 7: Tired Feet

Picking up on last night, we headed over to Hirschfield Theater for Moulin Rouge! We stopped off at Smith’s Bar (around the corner for the theater) and had drinks and light food.

We got there, and the wheelchair caused a panic. Apparently, the website I bought the tickets had not covered the 40+ manual stairs to our seats. I had ordered them as I thought they were easy to get to. Nope.

We had all the Vax cards ready. No admittance to anything anywhere anyhow in NYC without a Vax card (not even the hotel lobby). Masks are required unless eating or drinking in your seat. There is a nice bar in the Hirshfield and drinks may be carried with you to your seat.

We had to walk Susie up three flights of stairs. And then, after a bit more panic, they put two chairs in the aisle, and we were okay. Mariah went to the original seats as only two of us could be in the aisle.

The show was explosive with glitter and scantily clad gals and men in top hats. The Diamond did descend by a swing onto the stage (twice). The songs and music had hints back to the movie, but the sound was updated to a collage of recent tunes. Lady Gaga, Lord, and Katy Perry were covered, as were other songs in part or whole of contemporary make. Some old favs are still there but pop in without much warning.

The singing, dancing, staging, and the sets coming apart and moving off and on the stage were fantastic. The leads hit every note and danced and moved the slightly revised story with speed. You believed they were real and that in some way you were in the Moulin Rouge! I was worried that the second act would be dark, like the movie, but instead, the first song is the best dance and singing of most of the cast. It got cheers from the audience.

Despite the crying at the intense ending, Susie actually whimpered, and the sad last song of the story, the audience was cheering as they brought all the dancers and leads back on to sing more and performed even more. Much like Mama Mia!, the show steals a happy close with the whole cast returning to bring down the house and everyone, including the audience, dancing and singing together. The show finally closing with an explosion of glitter and streamers.

The staff helped Susie and us get her down the stairs and then held the shop open for us to buy some coffee cups and a sparkling shirt for Susie.

Broadway is back, and this show won ten Tony’s last week. It was packed.

We got back to our room and fell asleep almost as our heads hit the pillow. The alarm at 6 was going to be hard.

And Friday started out too early in this different time zone. We managed to get to the breakfast supplied too early and opened it. They recheck Vax cards. We had ours.

Breakfast was over, and Mariah was still missing. The timezone change got her. We managed to meet her and then met in the lobby after Mariah was ready.

We walked 3.2 miles according to various sources to the Met-Art in Central Park. It was about a 75-minute walk with Mariah pushed Susie’s wheelchair. I lifted the wheelchair over high curbs. It was good that we belted Susie into the chair!

The walk was busy, and we got to see the cement canyons of NYC to reuse an old description of Gotham. We then reached Central Park and had to cross about 1/2 of its length. A long walk! We used Apple maps to keep on track.

Central Park is always hard to describe. It is just heaven in NYC with squirrels and baby carts. We saw a pair of kids playing with Tonka Truck toys under a tree (the toys are in a bin under the strollers. Everyone, on a Friday morning, was enjoying the park.

We then reached the Metropolitan Art Museum; I was shocked by how huge. We spent five hours standing a looking. We did take a break at The Eatery in the basement for an early lunch.

It is hard to describe how overwhelming the place is. There is a room for just Picasso. Monet had multiple rooms! A small Egyptian temple was rescued from the floods and brought to the Met and reconstructed. Ancient pottery and sculptures are everywhere.

The Book of the Dead. We did not read it aloud.

We looked for, and after getting help, found Toulouse-Lautrec. He is a character in Moulin Rouge! and so we wanted to see his works. They remind you of the staging and looks of the show.

At 3ish, we said goodbye to the Met. The facility is not fantastic for wheelchairs as you have to return to the ground floor to avoid stairs by using the ramps on the first level to get to a lift to take you to the other side of the stairs. We saw this a bit a few years ago in Amsterdam, but they had a particular map for us for that (I remember they only had one in German, but we could make it work). The Met needs to do better.

It was clear you had to plan your day. So, we did Egypt, modern, and European (impressionists), and Mariah did China without us (stairs issues). We started at ancient Roman Sculptures as that was the entrance with prepurchased tickets. Also, we saw that just showing up puts you in a long and slow line to buy access for the day.

We called an Uber for the trip back, $45, to get back to our hotel. The Friday traffic headed into the Lincoln Tunnel block our driver, he was frustrated, for twenty minutes.

Mariah headed out again after cleaning up a bit. Susie took a nap, and I fell asleep. I awoke and called Mariah. She was in a roof bar, the AC roof bar on the 21st floor, and I joined her there and had a Gotham Manhattan. The view was stunning.

Our waiter was from Chicago and only had been in NYC for a year (what a year to pick). She knew only of Portland from the TV show. She even quoted it to us. We showed PDX politeness.

We then tried to connect with a Jazz place–Birdhouse, but they did not have an open slot until 8:30. So we went to a Celtic place. More stairs, my legs are not interested in stairs anymore. We got to the second floor (the roof was apparently full), and we had dinner (steak for me and salad for Mariah). More drinks, Irish Mule for me, and Blueberry Mule for Mariah.