NYC or Bust!

Tomorrow morning I will pack my car and head up to New York/New Jersey to visit two of my Stu/Stewarts. For those of you not in the know, three of my best friends growing up were Stuart Nelson, Stewart Welch, and Stuart Hipp. And my youth minister in middle/high school was Stuart Stogner. Weird, right? Just the other night my girlfriends told me I need to set up a flow chart so that they know who is who. Ha! As if that could cover the vast complexity of their personalities and the intricacies of 13+ years of friendship!

Anyway, as luck would have it, Stewart and his wife Elizabeth are stationed with the Air Force in Trenton, NJ which is not far from Stuart Nelson who works in NYC. I LOVE New York City. It's one of those love affairs where I am completely enthralled with the idea of the city. Glamour, sophistication, hustle & bustle, nationally known landmarks, celebrity spotting possibilities-not exactly what you find everyday in Durham. Whenever I watch "Someone Like You" or "When Harry Met Sally" or "An Affair To Remember", I wonder what it would be like to live in the city. Of course, after about 3 minutes of real thought, I realize that living in the city the way those characters do would require a large amount of money and a more fabulous wardrobe than I currently own.

So, I'll content myself with this little visit. Three days in the city-just long enough to soak in the glamour, celebrity and culture of the city but not so long that I start to feel like a country bumpkin. I plan on spending an entire day in the Metropolitan Museum of Art with copious amounts of time spent in the new Chanel exhibit. Also, the Egyptian and Mesopotamian exhibits because, yes, I am a fourth grade teacher who is now intent on actually seeing what I teach. And having just read "From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" to my class, I will look for all the places that Claudia and Jamie used in their grand adventure in the city.

Seeing the musical "Wicked" at the Gershwin Theatre, people-watching at Rockefeller Center, wandering around Central Park...ooh, I can hardly wait! More later from New York City...