New York – Day Two

When we woke up on Sunday, the sky was grey and rain was falling on the fire escape. I put on my giant orange coat to explore. We got the Subway to Times Square and wandered around, wasting time before our matinee show, To Kill A Mockingbird.

While debating whether we were hungry, we wandered into an old-style diner called Juniors to get coffee and maybe a slice of cake. After looking through the menu I found myself ordering a half-pounder hot dog and fries to go with my coffee.
I discovered that half a pound is approximately the same dimensions as my forearm. I filled the hot dog with sauerkraut and salsa and cut it across the middle so I could at least hold it in two hands. Jaz had a turkey sandwich with fries.

We followed this up by sharing a slice of the richest strawberry cheesecake I have ever tasted.

We went to the Shubert Theatre and collected our tickets for the show. We were surrounded by old Jewish couples who were debating the merits of the show without apparently having given much foresight to seeing it in the first place. I was excited. Mockingbird was one of the first books to really hit me as a teenager and show me what literature could do. Atticus Finch is the reason I studied law for fucks sake, it’s got a lot to answer for.

Without giving too much away (as I have since learnt that the same stage play is moving to the West End with Rhys Ifans in the lead), I was absolutely won over by the production. Ed Harris was a compelling and homely Atticus Finch and the narration from young Scout, Dill and Jem was beautiful. It was unflinching and Aaron Sorkin’s script allows for some moments of comedy in the midst of the morality and drama.

After the show, we trekked up a couple of blocks to meet my friend Ben, and his wife Audra, for a drink. I hadn’t seen Ben since, (we think) 2012, when he left London to move to Grenada. I have Ben to thank for starting this blog.
In Grenada, he met Audra and the pair moved to California, where her family are from. Earlier this year they upped sticks again and live on the Upper East Side. It was great to see Ben again and to meet Audra. They very sweetly invited us to Thanksgiving dinner, which was a plus as we assumed we would be scrapping around Chinatown in search of food.

We left them and walked back to Times Square before getting greasy pizza slices which were bigger than our heads. We scoffed them on the street while listening to a trumpet player before getting the Subway back to our ends.
We hacked into our host’s Netflix account and watched Friends until we fell asleep.