Carnegie, Canal, Lion King and Darcypants

The latter part of the week was pretty good. We went to a performance at Carnegie Hall, visited Soho and Canal St., and saw Lion King on Broadway.

Carnegie Hall
We saw the BYU Chamber Orchestra perform at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday, which was amazing. The building was beautiful and the Orchestra played splendidly. It really was good. It was a 'good relations' PR stunt for the Church, actually. There were more than 100 ambassadors and dignitaries from more than 30 countries, and then the rest of us were members and other people that came. BYU has about 650 music students, with 400 performing in orchestras. There are five in total, and the BYU Chamber Orchestra has the best 49 students. They were pretty good. They performed Copland, Dayley, Rossini and Beethoven.



Canal St. and Soho
Canal St. is an area at the southern end of Manhattan infested with little shops with tons of stuff. When I say tons of stuff, I mean tons of the same stuff. Every shop is about 5 x 15 feet, with each shop owner selling perfume, purses, watches and shirts. I'm not sure if the merchandise is fake. Or if its stolen. Or if its fake, stolen merchandise, but it was cheap. Kathryn bought a few purses, we both bought some smellgood stuff, and I got a shirt. It was kind of fun because you get to bargain with everyone. They want your business so bad, that you tell them what you are willing to pay, and they will agree to sell it to you or not. If you can't agree, you just walk away. Kinda fun. Soho is one of the swankiest places in NYC (probably second to Fifth Ave.). The Tommy Hilfiger store had about ten racks of clothing and a live DJ spinning Usher. Naturally we went in to go check it out. Soho is filled with little shops and restaurants and I think we walked past Jay-Z and Beyonce. Not 100 percent sure on that, though.

Lion King
We saw Lion King on Saturday night. It was the one Broadway play that I wanted to see when we were planning what we wanted to do here (Kathryn's was Wicked). It is kinda different because the play is designed with muppet-like puppets and people. You have to use your imagination a bit to imagine the people aren't there, but its still pretty interesting to watch from an artistic point of view. Much of it is the same from the movie, with a few added songs. One of those songs is "He lives in you," which Kathryn and I saw performed by the BYU Young Ambassadors on our first date. It's originally about Mufasa, but BYU performs it and then sings "I am a child of God," focusing the message more on your relationship with Heavenly Father. It's cool.

We decided this week we will be leaving NYC. We want to go live where we can establish residency and pay in-state tuition for when we begin graduate school. We are still debating the pros and cons of going to Texas or California.

P.S. I watched 'Pride & Prejudice' (2007) for the first time ever tonight (I promise). To be honest, it was not that bad. I thought it was worth my time to understand why women go crazy about this book/movie/whatever else. And as an added bonus, once we start earning some money, I have a new idea for my new wardrobe. You can't be wrong if you can find a million ways to annoy a million women in such a short time, still end up with the girl in the end, and look this good doin' it.