The day started slow, which was perhaps not a bad idea after Monday’s extensive and exhausting walk, and so I awoke late, showered, ate, drank water, and stuck around after Jyoti left to meet Zeke for an afternoon chat or talk or drinks. Non-alcoholic, of course. Date two. Jyoti forwarded Ana’s email to me and mine to her, but we didn’t correspond, and so after chatting with Andrew I went out on the town on my own.
I stopped by the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, half a block away, and by many accounts the second largest cathedral in the world. It goes like this: the one in the Ivory coast surpassed St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome back in 1989 or so, at least in square-footage. But St. Peter’s doesn’t count as a “cathedral” since it’s a basilica … or something like that. But Saint John the Divine is not a catholic institution. And there’s the matter of what belongs to the building/institution proper, to the grounds, etc.
Let’s put it this way, this might be one of the largest churches in the world, and I don’t doubt it, but from the inside — and it did suffer fire damage in 2001 that has caused a good deal of it to be closed off to the public and thus also look smaller — it doesn’t seem as spacious as St. Peter’s (sublimely massive), the Duomo in Milan, or the cathedral in Seville … the three other “big” churches I’ve visited.
It’s still impressive, though. And after walking around the limited facilities (excused because of the fire damage) I went outside and a bit south to this little “garden” that had a nice, probably allegorical, sculpture-fountain in the middle; it was surrounded by plaques containing the names and words of some famous freedom and/or peace oriented individuals … Gandhi, Mark Twain, John Lennon … and I took many a snap shot. The Hungarian Pastry Shop is across the way.
And after finishing my touristy excursion I made my way down Broadway as far as about 90th or 94th; I was looking for reasonably priced apples. I found granny smiths for $1.79/lb. and fujis for $1.29 … I probably got too many of the former and too few of the latter, but a pie is better with those green, tart fruits, and I got them at a corner store known as “Hans’ Market” or such. Being who I am, I first read “Hans'” as the German name Hans, but when I was checking out I quickly realized it was the Asian (Chinese?) family name Han.
Back up Broadway I walked and then “home,” where I was met by Jyoti, who told me briefly the tale of how she and Zeke missed each other for half an hour and almost gave up; there are, evidently, two cafes/restaurants near each other with the same name (at least in Tamil; slightly different in English) one block apart from one another, between 6th and 7th Avenues somewhere south of here, and she ended up at one, and he at the other. She had worried about taking him to Romeo and Juliet, but the idea of star-crossed lovers now seems more appropriate.
Let me skip ahead.
For the sake of brevity.
Jyoti discovered that we could get “cheap” tickets to Spamalot — balcony seats for $36.25, so we went for it. We took the subway downtown, walked back up from Times Square to 44th between 8th and Broadway, and got two tickets at the Shubert theater.
In short: very entertaining. People laughed at/during the parts taken straight from the movie, but I found them the least satisfying; they were just copies of something I’d seen before … but the musical numbers … marvelous. Worth the nearly $40 … at least for one Broadway musical while I’m here.
Spamalot roughly follows the outline of the movie but cuts bits and pieces, adds extended musical numbers, changes the ending, and is highly self-referential, both referring to itself and New York and musicals in general.
After the performance we headed north a few blocks — only after moseying through Times Square at night (gorgeously lit up!) — and ended up at a little “deli” of sorts for drinks and cheesecake … over-priced, though.
Perhaps that’s why I love the Hungarian Pastry Shop — its prices would be at home in Madison.
While I was in the bathroom Jyoti heard on the radio that taxis were being held up by some blond guy, about 6’3″ … as we left the deli I got strange looks from some of the customers … I wonder why. Anyway: subway home, post this. Go to bed, and see Merryl tomorrow at noon at the Met.
