:: The 451 Family ::

:: Saturday, March 23, 2002 ::

Time to blog about the NYC trip....like all things, this will be SUPER long. I apologize but it's for me to remember too.
Tuesday: Left MWC at about 1PM for the roughly 7 hour bus trip to NYC. Jules and I sat next to each other and the "cool" peeps took over the back of the bus. We saw 2 movies on the way, L.A. Confidential (I fell asleep bc I had gotten up at 7AM so I missed most of it) and The Family Man which is super cheesy but quite entertaining:) Anyway, the trip up is not as exciting as the rest of the trip so I'll skip the boring details. We got to the Polish restaurant in Brooklyn at about 8 which was earlier than expected. Me, Jules and Meaghan tried to learn a Polish phrase from a billboard but when we tried to say it for Maestro he was a bit confused so I think we messed up the pronunciation. The food at the restaurant was tres bien, we had soup, chicken, pierogies (sp?) and potatoes. Yum! Maestro visited us a few times and we learned some Polish from him which we would use each time he came back. He loved us..hehe;) He's awesome and a lot of fun. We were definitely the "fun bunch" as the Free Lance Star guy called us. We noticed that the "directors" table had a bottle of unidentified liquor and we signaled the maestro to bring us some but apparently Dr. Baker said no or something. So like 10 minutes later Maestro walks towards us holding 3 empty soup boawls and a glass......sets down the boawls on a random table and brings us the glass which he tells us has "very good Polish strawberry vodka" YUM! So we all taste it and then me and Jules add the rest to our drinks, muhah! Maestro's a sneaky one, using dirty dishes as decoys. We also learned a drinking song from him to use when we went out and some more Polish words. Jan (the rich guy who is a bit scary but made the whole trip happen so he's Aok in my book!) also hooked us up with some vodka and I had a VERY strong drink bc we ran out of coke.
We ended up getting pretty wild (not extremely, just more than the other boring folks) so I think people thought we were durnk, especially when we'd sing our newly learned drinking song, haha! I'd rate the night a 9.9999 out of 10 (the only thing that could have made it better would have been if we'd done karaoke on the stage).
Then it took us awhile to get to our hotel but that was ok bc the scenery was exciting. We ended up getting to our hotel at about 10:30 (whew) and after we all go settled and changed (and Jules and I blogged, we're such dorks;) we met at 11:30 to head out on the town. We're badasses who break curfew, haha. Whatever.
Have I ever mentioned that decisions with a group suck!? I hate it, thats why I usually keep my opinion quiet. But it all worked out and even after having the incorrect address our 3 cabs got to the same place, whoa. We had wanted to go to the Village Vangard which is a famous jazz place but those losers werne't night people I guess, hehe. So we headed to Arthur's which was a tiny little place with a jazzy group playing. Then we went to CLub Nikkta which had some techno/Latin music on, that was more upscaleish and was fun. Especially watching the guy outside golf. Then we went to another Irish pub but that's when I was getting super tired and just wanted to head back. So head back we did! Just me Julianne and Andrew though. But our stupid cab driver dropped us off at the wrong place and we got totally turned around. We didn't realize where in relation to things (like HUGE buildings) our hotel was. At one point we were like, "uhh, is that the Empire State Building?" duh. hehe. Our hotel was on the other side of the E S Building but we didn't realize that. So it was a little scary to be lost at 2:30 AM but we made it home all right:)
Wednesday:6AM I say "Julianne. Do you want to get up and go to the Today Show?"
Julianne *says* "mmdgrgrmasdfsjal"
We got up at 9:30. Definitely did not go to the Today Show, I dont even care that they got on tv, I would have died if I had gotten only 3 hours of sleep. That wouldn't have been fair for the Carnegie Performance.
So after checking out we headed to Carnegie Hall and chilled there for awhile waiting for the boys, arghhh! Then we finalllllllllly got free time and me, Meaghan Jules and Kristin sped off for Dean & Deluca at Rockefeller Center...with a pitstop to check in at our new hotel where me, Megs and Kristin would stay the next two nites. Oh yes, did I mention it was POURING rain? Did I mention that we had no raincoats? Did I mention we had no umbrellas? Oh, but did I mention the Free Lance Star guys went to lunch with us:) Who wouldn't want to dine with the "fun bunch" haha! YAY! We took a ton of pictures which I shall scan one day. ONE DAY!
Got back to Carnegie at 2:30 for rehearsal...
Walking onto the stage at Carnegie Hall is one of the coolest things I have ever done in my life. It is GORGEOUS and to think of all of the amazing people who have played there, it's almost overwhelming. We had a good rehearsal except for Angelus when Jan freaked out and we didn't have a clean run thru EVER so I don't know about anyone else but I was a bit nervous about that. He must like the fun bunch though bc he pointed to us and said "You know Polish, no?" and we all yelled "PRUSHEM PEVO ZA DARMO!" (free beer please!) which made the choir laugh, haha! And also excited was when Julianne and I "conducted" in Carnegie Hall....unfortunately the picture of me conducting didnt' come out but I am taking it as a sing that I will have another chance, muahha!
We had some more free time after that but I just vegged in teh room, I didn't want to get wet and I was tired. besides, doing nothing in CARNEGIE HALL is different than doing nothing say, in my room. Stage call was at 7:30 and at just about 8 we walked on the stage to thunderous applause....ok...not so much thunderous but the mom's came thru for us. I wasn't nervous for the concert, except I was a little scared my A clarinet would freak out but it didn't, phew. The concert was really good if you ask me! The famous acoustics are awesome! It made Othello sound soooooo neat. The hour long synphony was a bit rough bc I got really dizzy during it, I think it was because I was trying to sit still and rigid and I hadn't eaten. And I kept watching the maestro (hubada) and the lights behind him were doing weird things to my head/eyes. But I made it thru and even Angelus (after intermission and the piano guys recital part) went well:)
More to follow ( I need a typing break AND it would suck to lose this!)

:: Miss Scarlet 7:15 PM [+] ::
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