Promises Promises in NYC

Giving up the Ice Skating as one of those things that just wasn't meant to be, we instead embraced our love of plastic interconnecting toys and headed into the Lego shop to buy a couple of Lego themed souvenirs. NornGirl bought a brick and I bought a Toy Story 3 Lego Alien keyring. It was then a quick dash across town to get in line at the TKTS booth in Times Square for some discount show tickets, our first choice would have been Avenue Q but as we saw the sign and got in line it became apparent that it wasn't on that day. D'oh! Instead we looked around and desired to give one we'd never heard of before a try. 'Promises Promises', caught our eye and so that's what we bought tickets to.

We had a wrap and beer at a Chipotle on the way back to the hotel where We dolled ourselves up and headed out for our anniversary night out.

First came the show which was at The Broadway Theatre. The musical of Promises Promises is set in New York and it's the same plot as the film 'The Apartment', a comedy with a romantic plot that plays with themes of affairs and attempted suicide. Set to the music of Burt Bacharach, we're led through the story by the lead character Chuck who is a quite junior employee working in the corporate world of a 1960s insurance company whose life takes a few twists involving his love interest and his apartment.

When we were there, the character of Chuck was played by Sean Hayes (aka Jack from Will and Grace). His comic acting as you'd expect was brilliant and really made the show.
Both he and the female lead of Fran who was played by Kristin Chenoweth (of West Wing, Pushing Daisies and Glee fame) did a great job and it was great fun, Kristin's voice is quite something.
Apart from one or two rather unbelievable moments in the plot around the Fran character, there wasn't really a downside and although not our first choice it was a great substitute.
As far as an American cultural experience goes, it really was very American, which you'd hope for really being on Broadway! However this did leave us ending up laughing at somewhat inappropriate moments that most of the room didn't seem to get - ah well!

Leaving the theatre with the glow of having had a good laugh we made our way out into the rain for the grey blanket was still snuggling the tallest of the city's skyscrapers. Our next destination was the Marriott Marquis View Lounge for some drinks and deserts.
The viewing lounge is on the 47/48th floors of the hotel and rotates around a central column giving a view of the city and the Hudson river. We had a lovely desert and some nice drinks and enjoyed a little us time chatting as couples on their anniversaries do (in our own 'special' way). The view was largely of clouds and rain but beyond the raindrop painted glass we could still make out a fair few of the NYC Skyline's well known features.

Sadly, apart from the guy who served us who couldn't have been more helpful; our experience did end up a little tainted. This was because a rude member of staff commandeered the rare sighting of a lift that a group (of about 8) of us had been waiting on for a good 5 minutes or more. It wasn't like the member of staff had some urgent repair work to do, he just had a trolley of supplies and the place was closing for the night. We were not amused, especially as it took the best part of another 5-10 minutes for another lift to reach us. We were even less amused though when the hotel never released their hold on a reservation of money they had placed. Norn Girl even emailed them weeks after the event and they said they were in touch with their accountants to release the hold. It never happened. In the end - a month later, it was our bank who by default broke their hold on the money in our account - sure $48 to some of their clientèle might not be much but to us that is a fair old chunk of money. It has to be said that this was all 4 months ago now so I wouldn't worry if you're heading there soon, they could have been one off's. Thankfully we didn't have to worry about too much on the actual day and another good thing about the Marriott was that the lift to the rotating restaurant is quite a ride - it moves through a massive space inside the building. If you stand facing towards the glass and just look out it's like a theme-park ride. It was awesome!

Overall, my personal opinion on the rotating viewing lounge is that if you have a bit of money to burn, the place is worth a one off trip, but given the cost of it (over $120 after you count the cover charge, the desert buffet, two drinks each and the service charge, the bill came to over $120) it won't be on our to do list if we're lucky enough to return to NYC again.

We ventured out happily into Times Square, a period of very heavy rain had left what was usually one of the very busiest parts of New York almost empty, an odd sight indeed.

My head at this point was filled with fond memories of our wedding the year before, I was also happy as always (when not in the dog house) at being present in the company of my wife Norn Girl which was made more special by being surrounded by one of the biggest urban rainforests in the world. We merrily meandered back to our hotel. The day hadn't gone completely to plan but we'd enjoyed ourselves nevertheless – as Norn Girl wrote; “the whole holiday was really a celebration of our anniversary anyway and we were really looking forward to what we had planned the next day... “ and that day was 'AWESOME DAY!'

[Back to Part 1 of this 2 part post]

Kiss Me Kate at the Strand and Bennets on Belmont

Better late than never, this is a recap of the last of this year's Belfast Film Festival events that we managed to make it to in April. On this occasion it was a trip to the Strand Cinema on the 24th April, the Strand being the only other independent cinema in Belfast other than the Queens Film Theatre. On show was a 2D showing of the 1953 film Kiss Me Kate.

We had made our way to East Belfast and met up outside the Strand then headed over to the row of shops on the Belmont Road to find somewhere to eat. We had just finished work and the movie wasn't due to start for a couple of hours so were eager to get some grub in us. We were torn between the Gourmet Burger restaurant and Bennetts on Belmont. In the end, after some expert decision making using a game of chance, we headed into Bennetts and were seated in a booth by the window. Not one of us had ever been here before so we didn't know what to expect. We ordered from what was quite a varied menu and got chatting. It wasn't long until the food arrived and it was an amazingly pleasant surprise because the setting seems a little understated for the presentation and quality of food we were presented with. The portions were quite big, the chips were delicious and the spiced chicken naan bread sandwich type thing I ordered was delicious too! Everyone really enjoyed their meals and I think the general consensus was we'd be back there if ever we find ourselves out that way again. Though we were eyeing up the desserts we held off in favour of sweets for during the film. We weren't hurried out of the cafe/restaurant and sat there a fair while. After we'd finished some hot drinks we made our way over to the old cinema.

Inside the foyer is relatively small but all nicely laid out, one refreshment counter and one ticket booth. We headed to the latter and were instead directed to the screen. Once we had our refreshments we made our way into the room and paid the lady our money. The room was, how to put this... ermm, quaint.
Its hard to describe but I'll give it a go. The room sloped, both down towards the screen but also about a meter sideways over the width of the room meaning you were sat slanted to the screen slightly. This was a little odd but it kind of added to the experience. The other issue with the room was the ceiling which was coming apart in places but it didn't flake on us so we can't really complain - who looks at a roof anyway?

About 15 people joined us and the movie began. There was a slight technical hitch at first; to begin with the screen wasn't sized properly, we were watching wide-screen stretched people, then it was out of focus but before long it was corrected and we got on with enjoying the show.

I'd never seen the movie before so I wasn't sure what to expect other than being told it was a musical about a musical. I found it very funny but maybe for the wrong reasons. On-stage spanking tipped me over the edge and don't even get me started about the lady being thrown over a donkey. If you fancy seeing the main reason why we all ended up in fits of suppressed and not so suppressed laughter though, fast forward to about 2:06 of this youtube clip...

There was something of a plot, though it tailed out towards the end and was replaced by tap dancing and jazz, which was probably more apt than a meaningful conclusion. It was light-hearted and a 'frolic' throughout though, a post-war happy-go-lucky number worth seeing, even if its not at a cinema. I guess that's what the festival was supposed to be about, getting out there and watching some examples of the films you maybe would not have chance to enjoy on the big screen any other time. So all in all it was a success and left us giggling all the way home like the big kids we are.

Madness in March

There is just too much going on at once for a dedicated post of each event that March has thrown my way so far, its madness, madness I tells ye! Thankfully, possibly related to the quantity of hours being put in at work, there has been a silver lining (or in my specific case, a giant glowing hourglass in the sky!) to all the rushing about. Though there have been far too many early mornings and late nights. A busy schedule has led to some nice photo opportunities, photos of things I would perhaps have missed had I not been moving around at funny times of the day, and here are a few of them:

It all kicked off on the 1st March with Crusaders first game live on Sky Sports and first game under our new floodlights at Seaview. The game was the kick start for a run of good results getting our season back on track with a guaranteed top 6 finish due to the league split after 33 games. Leeds sadly haven't got their act together and didn't look great this Monday just gone. In fairness though injuries aren't helping either team but there is still plenty of season to go though and its never dull when it comes to Leeds or the Crues.

Next up was part of Norn Girls birthday weekend and a trip to Dundonald and more specifically a Sunday afternoon trip to the Pirates Adventure crazy golf by the Ice Bowl. It's great fun and we've been a few times now. We prefer the course to the right because of the wet musical hole (that sounds wrong), but both are great. None of us won a free game token at the last hole but it is possible!


We also made it to two restaurants, one occasion was a trip to Gingerroot on Great Victoria Street and the other a trip to the Bellevue Arms on the Antrim road up near the zoo. 2 completely different types of food but both very, very nice. Gingeroot is the best place I know of in Belfast for a curry, though for any big heat in your curry be sure to ask for it. The flavours are yummy though and the set meal was huge! The Bellevue was great even though they were out of pineapple juice last thing on a Sunday which was disappointing as we were eager for a cocktail or two. The food itself more than made up for it though. I had the roast beef and it was perfectly cooked for a joint. Delicious and only to be equaled by the all you can eat carvery we headed to for mothers day at the Clarion hotel, the only shame there is that you have to go easy on the first 3 courses to be able to manage to sample the vast array of sugar loaded deserts.

The all you can eat was a bit like the mad hatters tea party but with cups that hold fluid and another outing we went on was a trip to the Yorkgate Moviehouse cinema to see Alice in Wonderland 3D. I hadn't made it to see Avatar whilst it was out so this was the first 3D movie I'd seen with real actors included on screen and I really quite liked the mix. I think the enjoyment was aided by the familiar voices of the computer generated characters, many of whom I didn't realize had actually been in it until the very atmospheric credits were growing and rolling.


As with the story in the movie whereby Alice finds herself at an engagement party, I found myself at my first ever engagement party. Not my own mind you (we couldn't nor really wanted one), we were invited to one of Norn Girl's friend's celebrations. The celebration was a nice evening out in the end. It was held at the Malone Rugby Union social club and the happy couple were eager to show everyone a great time. That was echoed by the performers of the live entertainment. They had a lead singer who was very eager to get audience participation. The crowd was quite young (or at least young at heart) and the tactic of joining the audience if they didn't come to you seemed to work well. I managed to escape the dance floor but had a really nice time never the less. It reminded me of a wedding reception which confused me a little but if that's the warm up, who knows what their wedding reception might be. Good luck to them in their build up to their wedding.

We had turned up a little later than we had hoped to the party that night. We had gone into town to change buses, but instead of the 6A we found David Coulthard being interviewed. He then proceeded to jump into a Red Bull F1 car and drove up and down in front of Belfast City Hall making an awful lot of noise in the process. As our bus stop was now part of a mock up race track for a one man piece of exhibition driving with hundreds of people swamping it. We realised we had to head on somewhere downstream of the event going on to some place where we might happen to find our bus. We eventually found the one of it's later stops on the bus route and the bus, thankfully, wasn't long. We sat down in seats that looked a lot more comfortable than the multi-million pound technological play thing that was wearing down its tires performing spins just down the road. One car traffic jams, whatever next.

After that, I invented a new form of sandwich or wrap, taking 2 slices of 50/50 bread and using them as a condensed wrap... any ideas of a name for this delicacy?