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Winning the Book of Mormon ticket lottery on Broadway

When I went to New York in April 2013, finally getting to see Book of Mormon on Broadway was a highlight. My friend and I bought our tickets in December and spent five months celebrating our good fortune for getting pretty good seats and learning the words to all of the songs. On the glorious Sunday night when we finally saw the show, it was everything I hoped it would be, and I spent a lot of time in the days after my trip telling everyone to see it through any means necessary.

An unexpected trip back to New York in May 2013 (after I got tickets to Saturday Night Live through their lottery), meant another weekend in New York with lots of time to fill up with activities. Since my friend and I were travelling last-minute, we were trying to keep things as frugal as possible. It took zero minutes of conversation for us to decide to let fate intervene and try to get tickets to Book of Mormon in their lottery.

The week before I returned to New York, I did everything I could to put myself in a winning position.* This mostly involved being helpful to others, singing all of the songs as often as possible and being incredibly unlucky in my home country. With my Book of Mormon karma out in the universe, I headed to New York to take my chances. Continue reading →

April in New York Highlights, Part 2

One of the best things about returning to a favourite city is revisiting your favourite places and activities. While it’s easy to go to New York over and over again and never do the same thing twice, there is something wonderful and comforting about finding the familiar in a strange place. My recent trip to New York was a blend of old favourites and new discoveries.

Get caught up on Part 1 of my adventures, as well as New York’s beautiful cherry blossoms, celebrated this past weekend (April 27-28) at Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Sakura Matsuri.

Cherry blossom Brooklyn Botanic Garden New York

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Favourite photos: DUMBO’s water towers

In a city full of stunning sights, one of my favourite visual elements in New York is the city’s ubiquitous water towers. In Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighbourhood, on top of a building on Jay St, is a water tower that outshines the rest.

Sculptor Tom Fruin‘s Watertower is a gorgeous site to behold. The colourful structure, sitting on top of 20 Jay St, brightens up the view of the Manhattan Bridge from Brooklyn Bridge Park. If you have the time, try and check it out at different times of the day, and to see it dramatically lit at night.

Tom Fruin Water Tower DUMBO Brooklyn New York

Whatever you do, hurry. Watertower will only be in place until June 2013. If you can’t get to Brooklyn before June, check out the artist’s site, where there’s a set of images from the last 48 hours, showing Watertower at different times of the day and night, rain or shine.

Pop culture travel: Friends and Seinfeld’s “New York”

I’ve spent some time talking about pop culture and how it has influenced my travels and there were some pretty glaring omissions. For example, my previous trips to New York managed to overlook two of the New York-iest sitcoms in modern television: Seinfeld and Friends.

Unlike Sex and the City and 30 Rock, tv shows that are intimately connected to the city and filmed locally, New York’s role in Seinfeld and Friends is, in fact, complete fiction. Both were filmed on studio lots in California, and yet, both feature images of the city that have made their way to the itineraries of many travelers, myself included. Eventually.

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April in New York highlights, Part 1

April in New York is a special time. Winter is over, the sun is out, the cherry trees are in bloom and the city is alive with activity. That’s not unique to April, but the longer and warmer days make it much more appealing to be outside of a tiny apartment – or an even tinier hotel room.

Whenever anyone asks me about going to New York, I always say something along the lines of: “I waited too long to go the first time and I’ll never stop going back.” No two trips have ever been close to the same and I always discover something about the city that makes me fall in love with it a little more.

Brooklyn New York Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket
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