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New York City, NY

I awoke today to the pitter patter of rain on my window pane. I was so relieved it wasn’t a mouse chewing on my new clothes that it barely registered as a negative (I had no particular reason to think it was a mouse beyond a general paranoia). In fact, the weather made my choice of what to do today simple – The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

I got dressed in my new not-nibbled threads and made my way to MOMA to discover everyone else had had the exact same thought as me judging by the queue. Luckily it moved quickly and it wasn’t long before I was dry and warm with 6 floors of some of the most impressive modern art in the world for company. I headed up to top and wound my way down. The collections are impressive of course and I had a moment of realisation at the extraordinary privilege I’ve enjoyed in my years of travel when I saw crowds of people jostling for position in front of Van Gogh’s Starry, Starry Night and I thought ‘No need to push, I’ve seen that painting in at least 3 other countries already’. I laughed at my own pretension and sought to cure it by joining the throng to get a happy snap.

Several hours later, I was exhausted and in need of a pick me up so headed to Lindy’s Diner est. 1921 where I ordered a slice of New York Cheesecake and a bottomless cup of coffee that was barely palatable for the first cup, much less any subsequent refills.

Then it was onto Broadway’s Eugene O’Neill Theatre to try and win tickets to The Book of Mormon in the ticket lottery. It’s a musical by Matt Parker and Trey Stone, creators of South Park, which opened fairly recently and is sold out for the foreseeable future. Even if you could afford the price tag of up to $400 per ticket, the lottery really is the only chance of getting tickets. For the unacquainted, this is a system that many of the big shows use whereby they reserve the first row or two of seats for sale on the day of the show (in this case, 20 tickets) at greatly reduced price (in this case $32) via a lottery. You put your name down two and half hours before the performance and they draw it half an hour later. I put my name down and chatted with a few of my 200+ fellow theatre-going-hopefuls.

The first time I went in one of these lotteries was way back in 2000 during our first visit to New York for Rent, I believe it was that show that started the lottery system. On that occasion, Rach and I got tickets while Matthew and Marlon went to the movies. On subsequent trips, we pretty much got tickets to anything we entered but that was usually off season and for shows no longer at their peak of popularity – this one really was a lottery though – and I’m afraid to say, one I didn’t win. Perhaps I’ll try again tomorrow.

Disappointed, I headed to Times Square for a wander before deciding to call it a day – a cold and damp day at that. I headed back to Brooklyn stopping briefly at one of the many hipster bars for a warming glass of wine and slice of pizza to take back to my apartment. I was sure to eat it all up lest I attract the pitter patter of something other than rain tomorrow morning!

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