April Analogue

May 2005
A big hello to everyone,
It’s hard to believe that I’ve now been here almost two months. The time seems to have gone very quickly, yet looking back it seems like such a long time since I was in New Zealand; which kinda doesn’t make a lot of sense! I’ve done quite a bit over the past month, so I hope you enjoy reading about it.
One of the most interesting museums that I have been to is Madame Tussauds. If you don’t know what it is, it is a collection of life size wax models of sports stars, singers, actors, politicians and a whole lot more. It’s really great as you are able to take photos of everything. Here are a few ‘people’ that I saw. Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Travolta, Hugh Grant, Billy Graham, Rosa Parks, Christopher Reeves, Matin Luther King, George W Bush, and Jennifer Anniston!
I had my first weekend off over the 16th and 17th April. On the Saturday I went into the city and met up with two other New Zealanders; Jess and Greta. We went to the Museum of Contemporary Art and were all very glad that we got in free as we were 18 or under; it would have been disappointing if we had to pay!
Then we went up to Times Square to see if we could get cheap tickets to a Broadway show. For certain shows on certain days you can get tickets through a lottery and this is what we did. We went to the actual theater of the show that we wanted to see two hours before the show started. You write your name down on a piece of paper and if you want one or two seats. Then all the names are put into a barrel and a specific number of seats are called out. If your name is called out then you get tickets for $25 instead of $50+. All three of us got tickets so we saw the Broadway Show Hairspray. Hairspray is set in Baltimore, Maryland during the 1960's and is about a large girl who want to be on a TV show and how she gets on to it. (For a better synopsis, photo’s and snippets of songs they sang go to www.HairsprayOnBroaway.com) Everything about it was amazing, the sets, costumes, songs, choreography, etc. I loved it and am really looking forward to going to another show.
On Sunday afternoon, I met up with Jess in the city and we did a bit of shopping before going to Central Park; where we spent a couple of hours just lying in the sun. We had tickets to go to a New York Knicks Basketball game that evening so after dinner we went to Madison Square Garden where the game was being played. The last quarter was the most exciting and at the end of that quarter the score was tied at 118 so there was five minutes of extra time. During that time there must have been at least 10 time outs called. After the five minutes the score was 135 to the New York Knicks and 139 to the Atlanta Hawks. So even though the Knicks lost it was still exciting to see the game.
The weather here has warmed up quite a bit. When I first got here there was snow a couple of inched think on everything. Now all the snow has melted and the days are getting very warm. Everything is starting to look alive and the city looks far more welcoming than it did when I first got here! One of our favourite things to do on a Sunday is going to Central Park and just lying in the sun. When you get far enough into the park you can forget that you are in the city as you can’t hear the traffic and the trees block out most of the buildings. On really nice days it seems as if the whole city is in the park as it is pretty much there back yard and there are literally thousands of people there.
The Jewish holiday of Passover started on the 23rd April and went for eight nights. For the Sedar dinner we were up in Connecticut. The dinner was at Suzie’s Aunty’s house and for me it was a very interesting experience. We followed through a book, but because the family is not a ‘religious’ Jewish family we skipped out pages at a time. There were about 25-30 people there and everyone sits round one big table. The adults take turns reading out of the book, so I got tot as well. Dinner was really nice; first course was Matzah Ball soup, then the main course was Turkey, Salmon, Potato Fritters, this apple dish, and broccoli, for dessert we had Chocolate moose, strawberries, chocolate covered Matzah (bread made without yeast, it’s kind of like a cross between bread and crackers but tastes ok), sponge-cake and chocolates. If you keep Passover you do not eat any foods containing yeast or any foods used to make bread or bread products; including bread, bagels, waffles, pizza, noodles, pasta, and corn!
The week of Passover was also the week of spring break. Emily went to Washington DC with her Grandma for the week and Suzie and I did fun things with Alison and Bradley. One of the things we did was go to the Cradle of Aviation which is a kids museum about Aviation History on Long Island. I found it very interesting and would love to go back there someday without the kids so I can spend more time looking at each exhibit.
Well I hope you really enjoyed reading all of this.
Lots of Love and God Bless
Anna