Surprise Trip to New York

For Chad’s 30th birthday, I surprised him with a trip to New York City for the weekend.  We left Thursday morning, and he had no idea where we were headed.  At first he thought we would be flying out of National, then when we got into the car and headed north, he thought we might be heading to BWI.  It wasn’t until we were almost out of Baltimore when the sign for I-95 north read New York did he figure it out. But at this point, he didn’t know what the two planned evening activities would be for the weekend.

On the way there we stopped at a diner in Bordentown, NJ called Mastoris. There was just too much lunch for us to eat, but it was pretty good. While we were there, I showed him the tickets for the evening – to a taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Chad and I are fans of Jon’s show and interview style, so I made sure to get tickets back in February.

It took a little winding around New York traffic to make it to our hotel. I got a really good rate for The Muse Hotel right outside of Times Square, and the hotel was very nice as well as perfectly located. After check in we headed straight to wait on line for the show. We were there for about two hours before they let us in, and while it was pouring down sheets of rain, we stood under the awning and stayed dry.

Once we got into the studio (after going through the metal detectors), Chad and I lucked out and got front row seats by the side of the studio where the guests walk in from. The warm up comedian was pretty funny, and a lot of people in the audience that day seemed to be local. Then Jon came out and answered a few questions from the crowd, including Chad’s question. Chad wanted to know if there had ever been a news story that got them so angry they couldn’t make fun of it. Jon called Chad “dude,” then told him that a lot of stories make him angry, but making light of these serious situations was cathartic, and comedy.

The show that night featured segments from Wyatt Cenac and Larry Wilmore, both were funny. Then there was a 20 minute conversation between Jon and Mike Huckabee about abortion. To be honest, it was a little bit draining, and Chad and I came out of the show a bit dazed by it. All in all, we enjoyed ourselves. If you want to watch the show, you can do so here, just keep in mind that they had to edit the Huckabee conversation due to time constraints, though I don’t know why it’s broken into 3 parts:
The Full Episode
Huckabee Interview Part 1
Huckabee Interview Part 2
Huckabee Interview Part 3

Dinner that night was at a place called Hummus Kitchen, and it was awesome. We got two sampler platters and an awesome drink with mint, lemon and arak. The dessert was the best though. Their knaffe was amazing, I’ve never had better. The filo was perfectly crispy and the cheese was perfectly soft.

We did a lot of walking in New York, my feet hurt for days afterwords. That night we walked down 6th ave and over to Broadway, which they have partially closed off as a pedestrian thoroughfare. The next day we headed up to central park and walked around for a while, then back down madison and to our hotel, where, while getting dressed for dinner, Chad correctly guessed what we would be doing as our after dinner activity. We were going to see the Coraline musical. If you want to read more about the musical, you can read the article about it published in Variety. Otherwise, just know that the story is from an author we both like (Neil Gaiman), and the music is by one of Chad’s favorite musicians (Stephin Merritt). The show is only playing in New York, and Chad thought he’d never get a chance to see it. That’s why I bought our second row tickets the day they were available for sale. Also, I am very good at keeping secrets. Coraline was Chad’s favorite part of the trip, and mine too.

On our way out of New York we stopped to have breakfast at Charlie’s Family’s Hole in the Wall. I will only say this (because my wrists are aching): our breakfast was excellent.

It rained on our way out of New York, mainly because it had rained the entire week before. We had a good time, and Chad had a happy birthday, but though New York is a fun place to visit, we were happy to get home.