Week 4: A New Hope

Here I am, week four of my travels. I hope you guys enjoy these blogs – I enjoy crankin’ em out. This week I’m going to try to get myself caught up to the present day – to give you an idea of what I mean, it is July 2nd as of this writing, but this blog will cover June 17-24th.

Speaking of June 17th, that was another of our New York days.


This was our day to meet with Beth Kleiggerman (sp?), the talent coordinator for the Second City. Beth is an absolutely amazing woman; amazingly personable and friendly, and with an astonishing memory for all things Second City. Namely, the people working for the Second City. She oversees, keeps track of, and has a hand in hiring pretty much everyone working for the Second City (at their half-dozen theatres, touring companies, and cruise ship casts all over North America). Back in May when I was worrying over whether to take this job or not, she was unbelievably helpful and patient with me, and I remain quite in her debt.


(Note that this picture was taken in black and white, because it seemed like a very pretentious “Manhattan” thing to do).

We all met up at the cruise ship dock (she was in New York, having just spent a week on a cruise with another cast) and went out for coffee. She asked all about how we were doing on the ship, we told her all about our adventures and shows, and basically answered any questions that we had. She also helped us see that some of the small annoyances we faced on the boat were not, in fact, the worst things in the world (it’s common when these boats are your entire world to blow small things out of proportion).

After a delicious lunch, we all wished Beth a good flight and went our separate ways. Marco and Amanda went to visit the Tenement Museum in the Village (which sounds really cool, it’s basically a recreated 1870’s style New York tenement building). Derek and the girls went shopping, and I went to hang out in Central Park.


I wandered through the park, past the Carousel and a couple of baseball games. I really enjoyed taking pictures of the horse-drawn carriages (especially with the skyscrapers in the background). For me, this is my quintessential “New York” image:


I had planned to do some quick blog writing, so I sat down in a field where there were dozens of people sunbathing. It was here that I made one of my coolest discoveries thus far: that Central Park has completely free, completely FAST wireless internet. It was here that I got a ton of writing and picture uploading done:


That night we did a one-night cruise out of New York harbor (with only one improv show). The next day we headed back out into New York. Once again I went off on my own (that kind of seems to be my thing). I slept in a bit that day, and got out around noon. I only had a couple of hours in the city, but thankfully I had a very specific stop to make. Carly (one of the previous Second City performers, and a friend from Toronto) had told me about certain other places in Manhattan to get free internet, namely the public libraries. I never did get that to quite work, but it did lead me to the Mid-Manhattan library, or as Carly had also gotten excited about, the library from “Ghostbusters”:


“Heh. ‘Get her’.”

They even have the lions out front and everything. Anyone who knows me well knows how much I love this movie, so this was a bit of a pilgrimage for me.

After exploring that, I quickly made my way down Broadway Ave. to Midtown Comics, to pick up my newest comic books (my next recommendation, “Avengers Initiative” by Dan Slott). Along the way I stopped to get some better pictures of the Letterman Studio:


And, naturally, Rupert G’s Deli around the corner:


So that night we shipped off for another 6-day cruise, once again to Florida, Nassau, and the private island. This cruise was frankly a bit uneventful, though we did go to the mall in Cape Canaveral and all got to the movie theater to see “Knocked Up”. I really dug it, especially Paul Rudd, and Kristen Wiig’s hilarious cameo (I did, however, prefer “The 40 Year Old Virgin”). They also had this kick-ass display of the Silver Surfer for “Fantastic Four 2”, which I unfortunately hear is not very kick-ass:


That night we did another of our “Best Of” shows, which was well-received (though we once again only got to do one show that week, as opposed to two). I know it sounds strange to complain that we don’t get to do more work in a week, but bear in mind that if I was still in Toronto I would likely be doing about 4 shows a week and not getting paid anything. It’s actually kind of weird for me to be out here, performing so little. But rest is welcome, and it’s best not to look things like this in the mouth I suppose.

Also, free waffles.

After that night’s show we went to the lounge upstairs, “The Galaxy of the Stars”. Seriously, that’s the name. There we hung out with some new friends, which was a blast.


This is Rusty and Andreea, a very cute couple from Alabama and Romania, respectively. Rusty is the technical director for ours and all the other shows on the boat. He is also a very friendly and goofy dude, who does magic. Andreea is one of the Embarkation Clearance Officers on the boat (I have no real idea what that means), but she is also very cool. She hails specifically from the part of Romania that was once Transylvania. Random Etiquette Tip: Do NOT talk to people from Romania about vampires. Not even if you are kidding. They will NOT appreciate it.

Still, very cool chick.


And this is Amanda and Marco hanging out with Lisa, a very cool Australian who works in Guest Services. She’s very sweet, and has a great sense of humour.

The next day we went to Nassau, in the Bahamas. We took a cab over to the beach, which was the first time we got to try out our new snorkel gear. Derek and I immediately started hunting for treasure, while the rest got drinks on the beach. This is Double T, one of the kids who came up to offer us rum drinks from the bar on the beach.


The beach was pretty nice, though the sand was really coarse and got stuck in everything (I know, “bitch bitch bitch...”).


Pretty soon it started raining, though it was still pretty warm and great for swimming.


Everyone wanted to head home though, so we took off pretty quickly. Still, very nice beach.

So that’s another week in the can. I’ll try to get some more stuff up this week, and finally get this blog caught up. Till then, hope everyone’s doing well back in Canada. Cheers!