Daytrippin' to NYC

There's something really wonderful about trains. When you're on them they become a little safe haven-- clean, comfortable, quiet, away from the hustle-bustle of the station and the city outside. I almost feel sorry to the leave the train when I arrive at my destination, though there's something nice about Union Station in D.C., too. It feels very European and when you step out into the wide open plaza you sense that this city is powerful and, for lack of a better word, controlled. There's very little nice about Penn Station in NYC, but the city outside has a vibe to it unlike anywhere else. It's dirty and noisy and energetic and angry and happy all at once. That is, anything but under control.

My mom and I took the train up to New York yesterday to meet up with my friend Kiki and to see Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. We arrived in the city shortly before lunch, checked in at the hotel, and walked up to Rockefeller Center. Just as we got there, they started shooting a scene for 30 Rock right outside of, you guessed it, 30 Rockefeller Center. It was SO cool. We got to see Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey (from sort of afar, but still!). After watching them do a few takes, we wandered over to J.Crew for a looksie, then I realized my friend Macs was in NYC, so we met up beside the ice rink to say a brief hello. Then Mom and I went to Alfredo's for lunch. The afternoon was spent looking around a few more shops, then off to John's Pizza to secure a table. Kiki met us there, we had John's AMAZING pizza, then off the show!

Arcadia was good-- really good. It stars Billy Crudup as Bernard, but really it's an ensemble piece. It's still in previews and didn't get a standing O the night we saw it, though it may have deserved it. It might still need a touch of polishing, however. They needed to teach their Thomasina to project instead of shriek. Still, if you haven't read/seen this play, I highly recommend it. I read it a few weeks ago (thanks to Kay!), right before I found out it was playing, actually. It's about science, mathematics, literature, sex, history, and misconceptions. Seriously, how can you go wrong there? It's about the quest for knowledge and self-knowledge; one of my favorite lines is, "It's the wanting to know that matters." It's not that everything we do in life is necessarily important to the course of humanity, but that it fulfills us. That's the point of being human, I suppose. Learning, enjoying learning. And not just learning things in a school either, but learning things in life. The best time to be alive, as Valentine says in the play, is when we realize we know nothing; "When we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be alone, on an empty shore."

Back home now, safe and sound with a cup of tea after a drizzly train ride back to D.C. and an even more drizzly drive through the rain.