Last week, my friend Lauren informed me that she was driving home (which happens to be 20 minutes from my “home,” aka where my parents live), and asked if I wanted to go with her so she wasn’t sitting in her car alone for 6 hours. After checking with my mom to make sure my parents were going to be home and not off running some half marathon somewhere, which happens more often than you would think, and learning that  my parents were actually going to visit  my sister in NYC for her birthday, I happily agreed to go.

Friday, we embarked on our journey from Boston to the Philadelphia adjacent area (Note: neither of us live in Pennsylvania. The East Coast is weird.) The ride down was fun and pretty normal, except for us spotting the first of many personalized license plates, which read “STOPAIDS”. (“I think that’s the weirdest way you could choose to show your activism.) We did get stuck on the New Jersey turnpike for over 2 hours, but as far as traffic goes, it was pretty par for the course. 

Saturday, my parents informed me that we were leaving at 7:00 to drive to Newark and take the train into Penn Station. Thus, I hurled myself out of bed at 5:45 (!!!) after not falling asleep until after midnight, since my body clock doesn’t usually allow me to sleep until 1AM, only to learn while I was drying my hair at 6:30 that we probably weren’t leaving until 8. (I learned this from my half asleep mom who stumbled downstairs at 6:30 having just woken up.) Thanks, parents! 

After driving and training into NYC, we ended up on Bleeker Street, where I immediately found a shoe store where numerous salesmen quickly learned how easy it is to sell me things. I ended up  buying some adorable new flats to replace the ones I wear all the time to the point that they have developed some attractive holes in the bottom. Stephanie met us there and bought some boots for herself. (I was very close to buying the last pair in the store, but out of sisterly love, I let her have them as birthday present.) We then got some delicious Indian food for lunch, as Steph was appalled my mom and I had never had Indian food. My mom and I decided that while it was good, all Indian food, from the soup to the curry to the rice pudding we got free for dessert, all kind of looks the same.

We then headed out the main attraction, Alter Boyz! The show is an off-broadway musical about a Christian boy band. It was HILARIOUS. Basically the boys – Matthew, Mark, Luke, Juan, and Abraham (who’s Jewish) are on the last leg of their tour, during which they try to save the souls of everyone in the audience through the power of (amazingly catchy) pop music. I’d heard the music before, but the guys who were in it were all adorable and made it seem like new. They also made it seem like a legitimate boy band concert. (I should know, having been to FAR too many boy band concerts.) My favorite had to be Mark, who sings my favorite song, “Epiphany,” a lovely piece about being a Catholic that is actually about Mark’s poorly hidden homosexuality. Fabulous. Some guy (Neil…some, SYTYCD fans are going to yell at me for not appreciating this…) from “So You Think You Can Dance,” who Stephanie and I speculated may have been the only straight guy in the cast (proven by his shout out to his girlfriend in the Playbill) was Luke. I always love a TV tie-in. Anyway, I’d recommend it to anyone. Even my dad liked it. 

After that, we walked around Central Park and got a bite to eat at a diner until we had to head back. It was a fun little jaunt into the city, but like every time I head into New York, I became more convinced that it’s just a place I like to visit and not somewhere I could actually live. I am, however, looking forward to when I’m going back with my friends to see “Title of Show”‘s closing performance in October! 

This morning, I got up at a more reasonable hour and met Lauren to drive back to Boston. We managed to see many MANY more amazing license plates: BRIZZ, I-80, T COACH, T JAY 1, OMSAI (which we didn’t quite understand) JTDC (which Lauren is convinced stands for “Jesus Tap Dancing Christ”), and our personal favorite, a Massachusetts license plate which proudly proclaimed “FROM NJ,” which we we almost took a picture of in a rest area parking lot, but then people came back to their car, and I didn’t want to look crazy. This, of course, prompted us, not to stop trying to take the photo, but to run back to our car, jump in, and FOLLOW THE PEOPLE ONTO THE HIGHWAY. We are actually insane. I did get a picture though…of all of the plates listed above. I might have looked crazy and stalkerish, but these are going to make an amazing facebook album. 

Now I’m back in my apartment, waiting to watch the next episode of Mad Men and dreading the busy week I have ahead. I am happy, though, that I finally got to take advantage of the fact that my parents now live within driving distance of Boston.