So where was I… oh right – CoSM.
So we left there Sunday morning to head to the city, which was another hour and a half train ride south. We arrive at Penn Station and go outside to catch a cab to our hotel, and let me tell you, it was cold. Now, it gets pretty damn cold here in Montana as well, but the cold in NYC was a damp and penetrating cold. We shook it off as we were in a bit of a rush as we wanted time to decompress, clean up, dress up, and prepare for the main event and primary reason for our trip – the Phantom of the Opera: Masquerade immersive Broadway performance for my wife’s birthday.
I’m not into musicals, so prior to meeting my wife if someone would reference Phantom of the Opera, I’d just recall the Iron Maiden song (or occasionally think of Pink Floyd’s Echoes). I did see the musical early on in our relationship but don’t really know the story details. None of that mattered. I still don’t really “get” the full story but the experience was pretty amazing. I’ve always been a fan of themed and immersive entertainment experiences and this seems like it will be the future of plays and musicals.
While in the city, we also visited some bookstores, and I learned that one of my favorite antiquarian book dealers from the UK, Peter Harrington, had recently opened a location there. We checked it out, along with a few others, and handled books that cost more than many make in a year or more. We visited other non-antiquarian bookstores as well, and managed to find a few gems.
We also got one of those “on-off” tour bus packages and rode around (or more accurately, sat in traffic) the city to see some sites and be tourists. We pretty much lived off street food the entire time, and tried “the best pizza in the city” – at least according to a couple we ran into at one of our bookstore stops. New York is definitely a city that you need more than two days to fully explore and take everything in. We are hoping to plan another trip someday (preferably over warmer months) to visit both CoSM and the city again.
On our return trip we had another long layover in Chicago, but since this was in the middle of the day, we chose to leave the station to get lunch (we needed an authentic Chicago hot dog) and hit another bookstore. The dog was pretty good (though I’d opt for less or no hot peppers next time) though the bookstore was a bit disappointing.
That’s it – that’s the trip in a nutshell. We missed the storm and snow that happened at home, and are still looking for some things the wind carried off our porch (I may need to buy a new cover for my Traeger smoker).
Anyhow, off to look for things the wind took…
Song of the day: Phantom of the Opera by Iron Maiden
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