The City That Never Sleeps

Friday we thought we should venture out of Manhattan and head over to Brooklyn. We jumped on the Subway to get to Brooklyn and jumped off just after the bridge to have a wander around. We headed towards town and found a Texas BBQ on the outskirts to have lunch. It was a meat market where you can order it cooked by the pound. We got a combo, which was 2 meets and 2 sides with cornbread. We got the moist brisket and pulled pork which was amazing. Slow cooked for 24 hours on a Texan BBQ, then wraped in greaseproof paper for service! Then sides of mac n cheese and collard greens which were also super yum.
From there we had a wander through the main street of Brooklyn (noting we were pretty much the only pale faces on the street) and oddly got asked twice for directions with people mistaking us for locals!
Logan needed some smokes so we stopped at a smoke shop. He went in and jumped in line. I initially went into the shop but it was pretty small, and when the girl at the front of the line asked the attendant for a knife I stepped out!
She then went on to pull a nail out of the wall and moved to the corner of the store to do her last line of crack or whatever she was on.
After that we made our way back to the bridge to do the walk over the bridge and back to Manhattan. They have done a really got job of making it pedestrian/cyclist friendly by building an elevated walkway through the centre of the bridge. It was absolutely freezing!!! We both had chattering teeth by the end of it as it was pretty exposed to the wind and only a couple of degrees.
From there we had a wander down through City Hall Park and then went on a hunt for the coffee shop Happy Bones in Lower Manhattan that was founded by New Zealanders and sells flat whites!! It was the best coffee we have had since being here and was absolutely packed!
We jumped back on the subway and headed back to Broadway to try our luck again for the Book of Mormon lottery.....which we lost out on again 😕
After that we decided to see Les
Mis as it was the 'New Production'. We didn't think much of it, they seem to have made changes based more on the movie, and the music just sounded like the cast couldn't sing in time. Tenadier and Madame T were a bit of a disappointment and the cast did the whole show in American accents!
Saturday we had a biking tour of Central Park booked, and a forecast for snow!
We made our way to the bike shop and turned out it was just the 2 of us as no one else turned up! We had a French lady as our tour guide who has been in New York since 2001, and won a Greencard through a lottery. It was a 2 hour tour so we ended up biking the whole of Central Park along with a bit of a private history lesson which was pretty cool. It was 4°c out and started raining in the last half hour or so. Once we had returned the bikes and were looking for somewhere warm to have lunch the show started. It was what they call wet snow where it is mixed with rain, so doesn't stick to any surfaces.
We had entered a few online lotteries for the evening shows, none of which we won. We had been trying for the Hamilton Lottery. It's not a show we as familiar with but the in person lotteries got so out of control they had to move them online. They used to get police in the area to close off the road by the theatre during the lottery each night for people's safety. The first night it was online 60000 people applied and it crashed the internet!
All of the online lotteries are drawn at 4pm, so we still had plenty of time to try for the 6pm lottery for Book of Mormon.
We still didn't win 😕 We had been hoping the cold weather and snow forecast would deter people , but still the same numbers as every other night.
After a bit of disappointment we decided to do an Off-Broadway show and see Avenue Q. That turned out pretty good. We went to World Stages where they have 3 theatre's in the one venue and they are all 2 levels underground (theatre height levels). Once you are on the bottom level there is a bar in the middle and all of the theatres open off that. Avenue Q was pretty cool, very funny but a far from a full theatre which was a shame.
Sunday as our last day in the Big Apple. We booked our shuttle to the airport which was meant to pick us up at 4.45pm. So we pondered what to do with the rest of our day. Not wanting to waste a moment we settled on trying for Book of Mormon one last time and shoot for the matinee lottery. This meant if we won we would be cutting it pretty fine to get back to the hotel for our shuttle pickup.
The lottery was at midday, so after having a nice sleep-in and checking out at 11.30am we headed straight for the theatre, not particularly fast as Logan has a bung knee after the cycling tour yesterday. The numbers were similar to every other day and it was just as cold, but amazingly Logan's name got called as one of be last ones!!! We assumed we wouldnt be able to sit together because we were called so late but we got tickets together in the box... $32 each!
We scoffed some lunch and then enjoyed the matinee performance.....keeping an eye on the time. Once it was done we raced back to the hotel and met the shuttle as we were walking down the hall!
After a five and a half hour flight we landed in LA! We at back with Wyndham so a full apartment overlooking the pool, and the temperatures are certainly a lot nicer here!
We have had a nice blob day today and gearing up for our last full day tomorrow at Disneyland 😁