NYC: Whatever Floats Your Boat

After our manicures yesterday morning, Maman and I decided to do a little Brooklyn. We caught the subway to Williamsburg and had a little wander, visiting some familiar places (Momofuku Milk Bar, Catbird and the nice indie book store on Bedford Avenue) and discovering some new ones, such as the lovely book store on Franklin Street, called Word, which had an excellent selection of Moleskines and cards, as well as books.

We had lunch at Five Leaves, sitting at one of the pavement tables in the sunshine. While we waited for our food (a burger for me—my first this trip), we were entertained by the girl at the next table who seemed to be some kind of (amateur?) singer and who talked very loudly about her Twitter followers, how plane travel was crap for short peeps and other exciting details from her life.

We also stumbled upon a shoot for the movie Gods Behaving Badly, which, it turns out, stars Alicia Silverstone, Sharon Stone and Christopher Walken. It was lunchtime so I didn't see anyone I recognised, although I did ask a guy standing on the set who was in it. He didn't tell me, possibly because he wasn't allowed to, possibly because he was trying to eat and possibly because he may have been Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who was also in the film.

Later, we caught the exciting new East River Ferry, which shuttles you from 34th Street in Manhattan to Wall Street, via various Brooklyn stops for the princely sum of $4. We went down to Wall Street and it was great fun—a fast ride and brilliant views of the Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, the Empire State Building and the skyline in general.

In the evening, we ate at the Union Square Café, where I had some delicious chicken and a good, peachy cocktail, before it was time to head to the Barrow Street Theater for a production of Cymbeline (AKA Shakespeare was having an off day). The production was pretty good with some fine performances from some of the very small cast (most of whom played at least three characters); two of them (Emily Young and Ben Steinfeld) were also in the excellent production of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson that we saw last year. There were a few good songs, although not enough of them, and in general, I was expecting more humour and irony, based on the review, whereas most of the laughs came in the last scene where about 20 different plot twists are revealed one after the other. Still, the intellectual crowd seemed very appreciative and I'd give them an award for best use of a crate in a Shakespeare play and best Milford Haven references...