NYC blog-day two

Day two.
This was the day we were going to see Rent!
Kari and I decked out in our Rent shirts and we all headed out to see Central Park. I was particularly interested in seeing the Belvidere Castle. It's not a "real" castle, and I think they used it as a weather station at one point. It is also referenced in the book Valiant, tho not by name.
We decided to give our feet a little rest and rode the subway to the park. We went down to the subway terminal and were trying to figure out how to buy metro cards, etc. the lady working in there gave us this exasperated look and opened a gate and forced us through. Great. now we have no metro card, what were we supposed to do?
We found another place to get them went through another gate where the lady was standing and asked how to get to central park. She told us and the other lady said, in a NY accent "Put your card back in your pocket and go back through that door we just let you through like two minutes ago. You are not paying today."
Wow, I thought they were being hateful at first and they were actually being nice to us!

We got to the park and walked and walked and walked. and took lots of pictures. We almost got lost because we came out at a different spot than we came in and couldnt find the subway entrance.

For lunch we ate at Heartland Brewery. I had eaten there before and knew mark would love it. Then we went and got in line to get into see Rent. The line was AROUND THE BUILDING! I was so excited bc 1 I love Rent and 2 I was finally getting to see it in NYC!

I will say- this cast didnt have the energy that the touring casts I've seen has. Dont get me wrong, it was great! (Especially the actors playing Collins, Angel, Maureen and Joanne) Tamyra Gray -from American Idol- was Mimi and she really didnt impress me much. The actor I saw in Nashville was better.

After seeing Rent we ventured on to the East Village. This is where a scene in Rent is set and the Life Cafe is where Jonathan Larson wrote a lot of the play. Some of the subway lines were shut down and we ended up getting off at a different place than intended. It was ok though. We walked from Canal street through Little Italy. It is really cool and if we had had more time we would have eaten somewhere there. I bought a purse from a street vendor there. I'll try to get a pic of it later.

We walked on to Ferrara bakery for cheesecake since it was on the way. OMG. If you are in the area go get cheesecake there! It's better than mine- and that's saying something :)

We then took the subway to the Life Cafe in the East Village. The Life Cafe is a MUST for any Rent fan. Our server was really slow but everything else was great-the food, the atmosphere. The owners got a box of tshirts in that were not going to be for sale yet but they sold them to us anyway. We were the first people to buy these shirts! Super nice people. We signed the Renthead registry, took lots of pictures and then walked back to the subway station. It was a tiny bit scary walking back in the dark. Our poor feet and legs were killing us by this point and we were glad to get back in the hotel.

Day three coming up. :)