another day in the city =)

it's been fun yet again... today was just me and the two daves... from all our walking yesterday, we're all extremely sore, so today was much slower.

mostly we wandered around times square for a bit, hitting up the toys r us and the hershey store because they were amused and not quite sure what to do in a world's largest toy store and i said that hershey smelled better than being out on the street ;-P got lunch at the sbarro on broadway there, and then saw aida.

aida was amazingly good -- elton john music, tim rice lyrics, and extremely well staged too! e.g. one scene has a swimming pool, but they put a vertical screen of looking down on the swimming pool on the back of the stage and then people on invisible strings "swam" up through it... etc.... the storyline is that aida is the princess of nubia, but egypt is attacking and wiping out her country and she gets captured and made into a slave... a head egyptian army captain falls in love with her, only it's a problem b/c he's engaged to be married to the princess of egypt and b/c she's a slave... the captain makes arrangements for aida to escape the country during his wedding, but she decides she must help her father, the king of nubia, flee the country first... in the delay of getting him out as well, she and the captain are caught red-handed and sentenced to die by being buried alive.... the princess, i.e. the guy's wife, actually has mercy on them and sentences them to die in the same grave... then the play ends with them rediscovering each other (i.e. reincarnated) in a modern museum looking at an exhibit of artifacts from their previous life... the music, the staging, and the storyline were all fantastic -- i enjoyed it a lot =)

after aida, we headed down to the empire state building... last time i was there it was night and we just visited the 86th floor observatory... this time, the daves were game for the cheesy NY skyride... it was a similuation of a helicopter ride over the city narrated by kevin bacon... in seats that pick up and move around... cheesy to the umpteenth degree, but worth doing at least once... then something like 2 hours after we first got in line outside, we got to the top... it was still daylight, like an hour before sunset... got nice clear pictures all around.... =)

finally, caught the 8:14 train back to jersey and got some thai food for dinner...

i must say, i'm talented at making people do weird things... case in point: earlier in the day i spent intermission at the play convincing dave beagley he should sing songs on command... when i asked him if dave (his HS friend) sang, they both vehemently insisted no, not even 'happy birthday' (note, dave beagley is fairly quiet and as he likes to say, "low key"... dave, his HS friend, makes *him* seem outgoing!... both nice guys, but both very quiet and not (especially the not-beagley dave) easy to read a lot of the time)... however, on the train ride back, i said to dave beagley "and then dave sang a song about riding on the train -- go!" and he sang something to the effect of "we rode on the train oh yay"... when he was done, i turned to the other dave and said "and then you sang verse two -- go!" and he burst out in "hi ho the derio, we're riding on the train"... when beagley and i started laughing and reminded him that he said he never sings, he insisted i wouldn't see it happen again, and then later in the train trip he started singing a line on his own again... conclusion: i have power over making people do crazy things -- the end. =P

church tomorrow -- i'm really excited... i enjoyed valpo and roommate's church and heather's church, but i really missed good shepherd too... and that's a wrap ;-P later dudes =P