Another Wicked Day

The first thing we did today after heading out into the city was to pick up our tickets for Wicked from the box office. These were pre-booked so that we didn’t miss out, which was a good idea as the theatre was full!

From there we headed up to Central Park. We were planning to walk around to the Museum of Natural History but instead we jumped into a pedicab which took us all around the park, pointing out the sights and stopping for photo opportunities. The guy then dropped us off right by the museum which was 30 blocks down the park, so I’m going to call that a success.

The Museum of Natural History is great, and is so big that we didn’t manage to get through it all. The museum itself is quite old but despite this the older exhibits were still in excellent condition and many of the areas had been developed and updated. It did still seem to be very much in the vein of read and look, unlike the interactions of Te Papa, but if you can get Liam Neeson to voice your space exhibit then you’re doing something right.

The MNH also has comprehensive dinosaur exhibits with skeletons and fossils far beyond anything I’ve ever seen before, as well as an interesting exhibit on meteorites (I’m basically still a child). Kathryn quite enjoyed the gen exhibit because it was full of sparkly things, but I’m still not convinced they’re worth the price we pay for them.

Because the day outside was shaping up pretty well for a New York winter we decided to make the most of it and go and check out the Statue of Liberty. The MNH has a subway station built into the lower floor so we jumped on a train and headed all the way downtown to the Staten Island ferry. Because of the ways our other days had panned out we would have had to pay to get on a dedicated cruise to the island (which is closed post Sandy anyway), so we instead got on the free Staten Island Ferry and saw pretty much the same thing for free. The statue is iconic and for good reason, it is very impressive standing high over the water. It was a weird feeling actually seeing it first hand, having seen it in some much media previously.

We took the ferry out to Staten Island and back, so we were able to just jump back on the subway and head up town to our hotel, to get ready for Wicked. We popped into the Italian restaurant next door which turned out to be a great surprise, a fantastic little place virtually underneath us. The fettuccine and ravioli went down a treat in what looked like a Sopranos mob meeting set.

With dinner still on our taste buds we headed a couple of blocks uptown to the Gershwin Theatre for Wicked. The place was packed with people waiting to get in but luckily our travel agent had got us tickets in the 7^th row, which meant a speedy entry and a fantastic view. The show itself is amazing, we mainly went because Kathryn had read the book but I enjoyed it immensely (and have since read the book!). The show is very funny as well as being dramatic, and I even knew a couple of the songs which I wasn’t expecting. The Gershwin Theatre has been hosting Wicked for nine years and while this isn’t the original cast they clearly have the show down to an art. I would highly recommend the show, as much for the interesting tie ins to the original Wizard of Oz as well as for the show itself.