Imagine -- Adventure in NYC on NYE

Just a preface to tell you that I'm going to post about my first week of classes, but I'm saving that for next week. I've been a bad blogger this week, but I promised you a telling of my mini-vaca to NYC, and keeping THAT promise is the least I can do. I apologize for the lack of photos in this post. I didn't take many. I spent most of my time crammed like a sardine into a crowd that I wouldn't dream of taking a camera into.

To start our New Year's Eve day, we footed it to Central Park for the requisite carriage ride
and lunch at Tavern on the Green. The real treat came afterward in the form of SNOW, Kids! Yes, this Florida Gal got to see some huge-assed snow flakes.

This did throw a wrench into my plan to take many pictures, but it really was worth it to walk around NYC with my tongue sticking out. Snow flakes still taste good.

After some shopping, we caught the subway back to 46th Street and TRIED earnestly to get back to our hotel to change for our show. Okay -- so nobody told me that every street is shut down seven hours prior to the big ball drop. It was madness I tell you. You'd think flashing a hotel key would get you across Broadway, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. It took some fancy footwork and some fancier talking to get through, but NYC cops are the best in the world, and though we were only two blocks from our hotel, it took two hours to get there, and that was WITH an escort from block to block.

We did make it to our show -- a little number called Tony and Tina's Wedding. This was our second time seeing it, but not much was playing on NYE, so we grabbed tickets for the VIP table and enjoyed some great interactive dinner theater. At 9pm we made it as far as 46th and Broadway before we hit the baracade. No one was getting through to Times Square. NO ONE. Again, I love NYC cops, but when they say, "Who you fuckin' kiddin?", you kind of just settle into the crowd and make the best of it.

I had pretty much decided that NYE was NOT the time to visit the Big Apple, when it happened.

We'd already been forced into a sing-along with Regis. It was after that.

About five minutes before midnight, "Imagine" piped through the speakers and into the crowd. With the first strains, I felt all my tension and stress dissipate. I closed my eyes and started singing. So did the guy next to me. So did the gal behind me. So did 1.5 million other people. I opened my eyes and the entire crowd was swaying in unison, singing,

Imagine there's no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

People who didn't speak english five minutes ago, are singing about world peace, and I think they knew that.

Tears ran down my face and a stranger grabbed my hand. She was crying too.

And I came to the conclusion that all we reall need is love, Lennon, and liquour, and the world will be as one. It happened. I felt it.

It was the most magnificent thing I've ever experienced, and it actually sparked hope in this jaded heart of mine.

This is Funky, and that is all.