Travels to Philly by way of Jersey

Day One with the Grand Caravan

Still unnamed, our minivan served us well. We drove through New England in the most beautiful season. Bridgeport, CT [seen here, and the location of PT Barnum's Clockwork factory. He later founded New Bridgeport on a swamp.] is stunning as the foliage hangs over the interstate. Our travels also took us through the north end of the isle of Manhattan. Holy kielbasa, I didn't realize there even was a north part of the island, let alone how it looked. North of Washington Heights is a beautiful park and nice area near the GW Bridge. As we got into Jersey, however, things changed as the landscape failed to impress. A totally industrialized state, Jersey seemed like a dirty, flat, boring, lazy, awful place, save for the mansion I spent the night in.

Question: why are motorists in the Garden State [and why on EARTH would anyone name it that?] not permitted to fill up their own tanks? Instead, we are required to wait in lengthy lines at the pump while the attendants take their sweet time. Alas.

Blood on the Tracks...
Rode the PATCO "highspeed" line tonight from Cherry Hill, NJ into Philly. Not at all like the NYC subway, that's for sure. The "regular" train took 30 minutes to leave the NJ station, sticking me in the middle of downtown Philly at T-30 minutes until curtain time with no tickets. The conductor stopped the train at one point and started honking. What?! Turned out to be construction on the tracks. A woman sitting in the front seat on her cell phone: "The first hour I'm home is theirs ... yeah, I wouldn't want to shit on top of my shit either" [ah! must be the cats].

Beauty and the Bad Actor
Now, I don't want to make waves, but the current Philadelphia production of B&B is not exactly excellent. Belle was fantastic, but the Beast wasn't qualifying anything, his choices and instincts were not giving the character any depth, not that it needed much, but come on! She was brilliant though - making excellent musical choices. Lumiere was very good, but channeling Nathan Lane in voice and physicality. "Be Our Guest" was terribly anticlimactic. The choreography was sloppy, the backstage noises numerous, the audience feisty. All the important moments were rushed, and the throwaway information slowed down. Are you kidding me? If I wanted to read the lines, I could have done it myself instead of paying, well, only $10 for a ticket.

Then, nothing was open after the show, only 10:30pm. On a Saturday night? Wow. But, I did find a cheese steak joint. It was fine - could have used more steak and more cheese. That's that, I guess.