Back From New York

I made it home this morning from New York City. All the remarks I heard about New York being even kinder, gentler and better are true. What a great city that has become. It may be one of the safest as well as most interesting big cities to see.
Do you know the music of ABBA? That was an 80's group with a string of big hits. Well, the play 'Mama Mia' (taken from the title of one of their songs) was sensational. the best musical I have seen in many years. I saw it while in NYC this trip. But I expected it to be as well done as it was. It has been a long running sell-out with mostly sterling praise from critics and audiences who have seen it. Another play I attended, 'Hairspray' (that was the one in which John Travolta dressed in drag for the film version of the play) was not nearly as entertaining. I will give Momma Mia a grade of 'A' and Hairspray a 'C-'. The cast in the second was not particularly proficient, the music bland and the singing proficiency more on the likes of me at karaoke than a Broadway performer. (OK, I admit they sing better than I. But everyone else does too.).
So much for my theater review career. Haha. I enjoyed other things in NYC too. The two New York Yankee baseball games were action packed and close, decided in the last innings. I wanted to see the famed Yankee stadium before it is torn down next year, and not only was that done but the two games were outstanding and the Yankees, my boyhood team of choice, won both.
I saw Ground Zero, what there is to see. It's a hole in the ground still being prepared for the replacement of the twin towers that were destroyed 6 years ago. The fact that after six years the city has not finished the site debris removal and preparation should give you an idea of how big those towers were. I remember being in them before the terrorists attack years ago and they seemed more like two self-contained cities than mere buildings.
I saw the usual tourist sites; The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, The United Nations, Chinatown, Little Italy, Central Park, Grand Central Station etc.... The food was good, the weather not too hot and New Yorkers very friendly.
Interestingly. When flying to New York a passenger seated next to me from Connecticut told me she was considering relocating to New Orleans next fall. She knows the city from visits before and after that hurricane that destroyed most of New Orleans. I found it odd anyone would want to move to it now, and told her just that.
But wait! After boarding the airport/hotel shuttle a gentleman traveling with his family asked me my home city. When I told him 'New Orleans', he told me that he worked with some reconstruction programs in New Orleans and Baton Rouge (an hour from New Orleans) after the storm. and was planning on relocating his family to New Orleans. But after researching the exorbitant insurance costs decided better of it and will stay in his city of Cincinnati. I told him he made a wise decision in not moving.
That's it for my trip report, the mostly good, nothing bad, and a little weird (those people wanting to move here).