A Day in the City

Ben's Christmas (/Valentine's) Day gift to me was a day in New York City, complete with a matinee Broadway performance, dinner, and time to peruse the city for used book stores (particularly those with a science-fiction/fantasy bent).

So on February 10th, we trotted down to the nearby train station and hopped on a train bound for Penn Station. (It's hard to believe that it was 3 weeks ago!)

Our first line of business (aside from visiting one of the many Starbucks that pepper the streets of NYC for a hot beverage to stave off the cold) was to make our way to Times Square to wait in line for Broadway Tickets courtesy of TKTS. I got to pick, since it was my day. :-) The first two shows I wanted to see either were too expensive or had obstructed views, so I settled on The Producers with none other than Tony Danza starring as Broadway producer Max Bialystock. Actually, he was better in it than you might think!

While in line for the tickets, we took a flyer from an elderly woman advertising a French restaurant named Pergola des Artistes on 252 West 46th. They had a Matinée Special - for $11.95 you could get an entrée, vegetable, bread and butter and a glass of wine (add $5.50 for soup or salad and desert). Everything was superb. Absolutely delicious, and it was so nice to sit down and have a luxurious lunch over an hour and a half. This is my new favorite restaurant.

After that we went to the show, which was very well done. I'm glad I got to see it when I did; apparently it's going off Broadway soon! We sat next to another couple and chatted with them before the show and during intermission; actually, there was quite a lot of chatting going on in our section before the show started!

Next on our agenda was hitting up the Used Book Stores, which unfortunately was a disappointment. One supposed "sci-fi" place was just the back of a record store, another was more about comic books and anime than any fantasy. Strand turned out to be more discounted new books (and the used section wasn't anything spectacular, at least in the sci-fi/fantasy section). Even though the used book store hunting wasn't successful, it was all worth it for the show, the food, and spending the day with my darling fiancé. :-)