Manhattan Monday

Monday morning we were up bright and early and ready to get a jump on the crowds at American Girl Place. We walked up Park Avenue to 49th Street and over, stopping at a street vendor for bagels and Starbucks for coffee and hot chocolate. We arrived at the store with a few minutes to spare before opening, so Annabelle posed with the rodents:



Annabelle had a plan of attack, and we moved swiftly through the store with Fred and Mike tagging along. Mike was a remarkably good sport and even carried Annabelle's packages for her. The highlight of his morning was when a total stranger took a picture of him with all "his" American Girl merchandise. Here they are with the booty:



Annabelle's American Girl morning culminated in a cover shoot with her new doll Jess:



From American Girl Place, we headed back towards Rockefeller Center and Nintendo World. Mike was excited to finally have a chance to try out the new Wii gaming system:



Fred and I sent the kids ahead to the hotel while we picked up lunch for all of us from Pret a Manger, a sandwich shop that we had fallen in love with in London last year. It was OK, but we weren't as taken with it as we had been in England. After lunch in the hotel room, we took the subway down to see the Statue of Liberty:



We walked from Battery Park to Ground Zero and then on to Canal Street. Mike was hoping to relive the glory days of bootleg CDs such as he had had in Russia, but there was nary a counterfeit CD to be had. Watches? Check. Purses? Check. DVDs? Check. Live turtles? Check. No CDs though.

We took the metro back to the hotel to get ready for supper and the theater. We ate at Ollie's Noodle Shop in Times Square. I liked it a lot, and Annabelle really liked her miso soup. Beyond that, nobody raved about it, but I thought it was a good value for the money.

Our show for Monday night was "Les Miserables." Annabelle had sewn a Javert costume for Pellet:



He was ready at a moment's notice to spring into action should the actual Javert suddenly come down with laryngitis:



"Les Miz" is always an emotional experience, and the Broadway production was no exception. The consensus, however, was that it wasn't quite as good as it had been in London. Annabelle and I found the actress who played Fantine to be kind of on the whiney side, and Mike was bugged by the fact that Eponine was an Asian child but Caucasian adult. Race, as he explained, is not something one outgrows like asthma. Good point.

After the show, we were exhausted and freezing and our feet hurt. We decided to "splurge" on a taxi, but the taxi ride came in at $6, whereas subway fare for the 4 of us would have been $8. The cabbie was chatty and friendly, and Fred tipped him generously, and we all considered it money well spent.