What happened in NYC stayed in NYC (coz I forgot my camera)

My lovely hubby took me to Manhattan over July Fourth for a mini vacay. He had business meeting on Tuesday, and since Savor closed on Monday for the holiday, I arm-wrestled the staff to cover my shift on Tuesday and off we Jetblue-d to NYC for a few days.

As soon as we parked the car at RIC, I realized I forgot my camera. D'oh!
As it turns out, with the heat wave on 3 of our 4 days in NYC, camera wouldn't capture anything pretty. After the first cool afternoon on Sunday, our New York galavanting was walking a few blocks in the heat, then dodged into a building to cool off, walked around - if we're lucky - an indoor mall, then out into the heat again for a few more blocks and dodged into another building again, repeated until we reached our destinations.

We managed to do plenty, though: hang out at Bryant Park eating delicious 'wichCraft pastrami sandwich and gulping down cream soda, watched a couple Broadway shows (more on that below), watched the fireworks, rang the closing bell at Nasdaq with hubby's clients, and explored a few NYC's public buildings for cooling down purposes.

On Broadway, we lined up at TKTS for a Sunday matinee. We had wanted to see Stomp, but was told the theater was in the Greenwich Village and we only had 30 minutes to get there. We asked the next show we could think of (South Pacific) and was told that one played at the Lincoln Center (Upper West Side) - also tight on schedule. The impatient ticket seller was obviously pissed off by a row of tourists not knowing this kind of stuff before going up to his window. Four people ahead of us had asked for tickets not offered for discount sale that day, and here we were testing his patience. So I rattled off the next one I remembered: Lend me a Tenor. We got our tickets and the ticket guy didn't blow up. All was good.

The farce was really funny, but I was expecting more than cheap jokes from Stanley Tucci (directing) and Tony Shalhoub (starring). I've always enjoyed their works and collaboration, and they impressed me as smart and complex actors. Maybe they do their job too well in a farce, too, that I think the play was merely amusing and predictable.

The other show we managed to see was American Idiot. Highly recommend it. I am not really familiar with Green Day songs, but I thought the whole musical was amazing. I was at the edge of my seat for the 90 non-stop minutes. The rhythm, stage setting, performers - they literally ROCKED!

Another highlight of the trip was accompanying hubby's client from China ringing the closing bell at Nasdaq. There we were, sweltering in suit and tie (blouse, for me), got our faces plastered on Nasdaq's giant LCD panels overlooking Times Square. If you happened to flip channel past MSNBC and thought you saw me clapping and grinning next to a bunch of Chinese businessmen, you were not hallucinating. This was my second time in Nasdaq studio, a pretty cool experience, indeed.

As much fun a vacation is, home is always the most welcoming. We had hoped to leave the heat wave in NY, but who did we kid? Richmond greeted us with her hot, humid open arms last night.

Well, at least we have central a/c in the South.