New York, NY- Days 1, 2, and 3 (briefly)

As you see from the previous post I arrived in New York on Friday night. My days have been exciting (we spotted 3 dancers!) and I’ll tell you briefly about each.

Saturday, Dec. 15 - Early breakfast with the family on 96th street at a dingy little cafe that serves enormous sausages. We shopped at Macy’s for furniture, and finding nothing hopped in a cab and stopped in front of ABT studios. I turned to Dione and said “Wouldn’t it be cool to see a dancer?” and she shook her head, “I doubt it.” As soon as I turned to look back, I saw Daniel Manti a member of the ABT corps, with two other girls from the corps. It was 9:30 a.m., so we guessed they were heading to morning class.

We spent some time cruising 14th street and Union Square, finally heading to the West Side via subway. We bought an entire living room set from a shop on Broadway (which I adore, my apartment will be themed in crisp white, silver and blue after Tiffany and Co.) and We closed our day with dinner at Pick Up Stix Chinese restaurant on the East side. I reminded the table that former Mobile Ballet dancer  Kathryn Morgan (who used to dance with my sister and I at Mobile Ballet) was making her debut as the “Sugarplum” and asked everyone to send her their good vibes. Dione refrained from my new-age request and sent her a text-message instead.

Sunday, Dec. 17 - For Dione and I this day was an adventure. We began by lugging our computers to a Starbucks on 95th and Madison in hopes of using their wi-fi. We took a cab and slushed through the drizzle and clumped snow on the sidewalks of the East Side. We couldn’t use the wi-fi without T-Mobile, so we settled ourselves with warm drinks and humorus conversation (dance gossip). Blogger and my best friend in New York, Tonya Plank called around 11 a.m., and we arranged for lunch at Cafe Mozart.After a brief trip to the west side to an internet cafe, we went to the apartment and back in enough time to reach Cafe Mozart at 1:30 p.m.

Broadway was crowded and the weather unfriendly. While walking I spotted camouflage-clad NYCB principal dancer Albert Evans on his way to New York State theatre.

“Albert!” Dione screamed down the street. He turned, looked at us both, and raced to give us hugs.

“What are you two doing?” he asked. “You look so stylish!” We spoke for a long while and told him good luck.

“Pinkies,” I said holding up a pinky. He held up his pinky back.

“Break both legs right?” He laughed. We parted in disbelief that we’d seen Albert Evans!

At 1:30 we met Tonya on the corner and squeezed in a table by the window of Cafe Mozart. The walls were gold, the waiters carrying European accents, and the patrons noisy. We discussed criticism and ballet. I ate a wrap and Dione and Tonya had vanilla french toast.

We told Tonya that we had “good luck meeting dancers” and joked that she should hang out with us for the rest of the day, but unfortunately was on deadline. We waved good bye to her and headed up and down the streets stopping in whatever store we fancied. On our second stop at Urban Outfitters I noticed ABT’s Maria Riccetto shopping. We’d met her when she came as a guest artist for Mobile Ballet’s “The Nutcracker.”

“Isn’t that…” I started to say and Dione smiled.

“Maria?” she said. Maria looked up and opened her arms.

“Hey!” she gave us each a hug. “Sorry I’m all wet.” We told her we’d seen many dancers that day.

“All the dancers live around here,” she said. “We call this area the Dance Belt!” She pointed to her building through the store windows. Then we waved good-bye, and hailed a cab back home especially happy with all our sightings.

Monday, Dec. 17 - More shopping today in midtown. We braved the tourists on 34th street, and returned home for our first in-apartment cooked meal. No dancer sightings today…but hopefully a few tomorrow.