A Weekend with Cousin Tom - Part 1

40 Days in Brooklyn: Day 32 

Friday, Oct 21. Tom and I got up early and were walking by around 6:15 am. It was relatively warm outside, high fifties, so it was a nice morning for a walk. Since Tom's an avid photographer, the goal was to catch sunrise from the Brooklyn Bridge. (Yes, again. Because everyone wants to go there.)

It was dark when we started walking and when we arrived 50 minutes later, the sky was overcast. So instead of sunrise, we got cool, moody images. I think they're my favorite photos of the bridge so far.

Notice the fog covering part of Freedom Tower in the distance.

Tom hates to be photographed so I have to try to sneak up on him. 

Not exactly looking our best. Don't judge; it was early.

We walked farther into the city and found the kind of place we'd been looking for, serving the thing I've been trying to avoid.

Bagels! Oh sweet Baby Jesus how I love them.

I got an Everything Bagel with chive & bacon cream cheese. It was the size of a dinner plate, with cream cheese an inch thick and it violated every tenet of the diet I'm on. OMG it was good. I only planned to eat half but I just couldn't stop. Still, I have no regrets.

oh yeah.

I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

After that, we had to walk some more. I'd just eaten a six pound bagel and had some making up to do. So we went back down to the water and followed the promenade around to the west side. Here are a couple things we saw…

Black Squirrel!

Then it started raining. I'd brought raincoats in my backpack so we put them on. But then it started really raining and I'd inadvertently left the umbrellas back at the apartment. So we stopped into the terminal for the Staten Island Ferry, where I got a hot cup of coffee and Tom got umbrellas for us both.

Now here's where NYC surprised me. The total cost of that transaction was under $13. Tom and I both expected those umbrellas to cost a fortune but they were only $5 a piece. That was a pleasant surprise. And with our new umbrellas, we continued down the waterfront into Battery Park, then on to Rockefeller Park sculpture garden and the 9/11 Memorial.

Even rain can't ruin this day.

Battery Park Garden where they're growing Swiss Chard. 

Fall has arrived.

Amazing sculptures at Rockefeller Park

It's not as big as it looks in this photo. That's a perspective trick.

Inside the Oculus. Sadly, it's nothing but a shopping mall and subway station.

And if you don't recall, here's the outside of the Oculus. I took this when my cousin Eric was here.

After that, we went back to the apartment to dry off and have lunch. Tom is a big fan of pizza so we went to Franny’s, which I discovered is one of the top ten pizza spots in Brooklyn and happens to be just around the corner from the apartment.

Franny's was a cute restaurant.

And the Neopolitan pizza was great but I forgot to take a pic.

After walking all morning in the rain and having a warm lunch, it was back to the apartment for a little down time. I did some emailing, some blogging, some investigating/planning for the evening and even managed to get in a little nap.

That night for dinner, we went to another legendary pizza place (we're doing our own little mini pizza tour) John's on Times Square, chosen for its proximity to our event for the evening on Broadway, which I'll describe later.

Not my photo. I forgot to take one of the front of the place.

Now when Chris and Lawrence and I were waiting in line for the Something Rotten matinee, we were starving because it was 2 pm and none of us had eaten lunch. So I ran over to a pizza place hoping to buy a couple slices. But before I could get into the takeout section of the place, Lawrence came in and told me the theater line was moving really fast and we needed to go. So instead, we had to settle for snacks in the theater. We bought two bags of sweet potato chips, one bag of plantains, one cookie, one bag of m&ms and 3 waters—for $55 (??!!).

But I didn't realize until Tom and I arrived that John's was that pizza place. What's more, they pride themselves on not selling slices; whole pizzas only. It's inside an old church and still has the stained glass ceiling.  It also has an interesting mural of Manhattan on the wall. I took some photos but they were too dark so I stole some off the internet so you could see how pretty it is.

Not my photo. But the place was at least this crowded when we were there.

My photo and proof that I need an Iphone 7 with the awesome camera that performs much better in low light.

My photo. I almost forgot to take it before the pizza was gone.
Turns out I'm not so good at documenting.

After dinner, we went to the Golden Theater to see Encounter starring Simon McBurney, a character actor you may or may not recognize from parts in Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation, The Theory of Everything, The Borgias, The Last King of Scotland and others. Sadly, his most famous part may be that as the voice of Kreacher in the Harry Potter series.

Outside the theater

Simon McBurney

Inside the theater before the play began

This play tells the true story of National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre lost in the Amazon jungle in 1969 and his encounter with the aboriginal people of the area. But what was really interesting was the play's use of sound. Each seat was equipped with headphones that had to be worn throughout the performance and the sound was affected in a number of ways to help tell the story. 

Whether it was the direction of the sound—it traveled so at some points, the sound came from behind you or beside your ear or from inside your head. And sometimes McBurney sampled sounds from on stage—he smacked his chest a couple times and that became the first track in a series of tracks that were combined to create the sound of rain in the jungle. It was a fascinating tactic that I've never seen (or heard) before. 

Unfortunately, we'd been up and out for most of the day and although the show was amazing, the intimacy of the sound and the dark theater conspired to make me nod off once or twice. And Tom later admitted that he did too. Please don't take it as commentary on the show so much as a statement on our exhaustion.  I now want to read the book the show is based on, Amazon Beaming by Petru Popescu.

My next read