Talent Round-Up

My high school friends were in for a visit a couple of weeks ago - it was a great weekend!  Jessica arrived a couple of nights before the rest of the crew and we had a fun couple of days together.  Oddly, our plans were based around talent competitions. 

-- We spent Wednesday evening in Harlem. We ate dinner at Amy Ruth's...yummy soul food. After dinner, we went to Amateur Night at the Apollo. This is something that I've wanted to do for couple of years and while it was entertaining and fun, I don't think I'm going to become a weekly regular. For some reason, I thought Amateur Night was just singers, but it's all kind of entertainers. The show started with a comedian and we saw dancers, singers, and other musicians. You got to boo or cheer depending on if you liked the act or not and that is ultimately how the winners were chosen. Not all the acts were great, but we did see some pretty good talent that night.

-- After a morning at work on Thursday, I met Jessica and we went to walk in Riverside Park to see the cherry blossom trees and have lunch at the Boat Basin Cafe.

Pretty Cherry Blossom Tree

I love the Boat Basin! It was the perfect day, too. Sunny, blue skies and warm. As we walked, Jessica shed her top layer. We sat at the cafe in the sun and ordered our lunch. It was heaven! Except that before our food even arrived, the sky quickly grew dark and the wind picked up, we felt a couple of drops of rain, but were hopeful it would blow over. Within 15 minutes, we went from being warm and basking in the sun to freezing and being rained on. We moved under the covered patio area, but were still quite cold. Jessica had to put on the layer she took off as well as add another. It was SO crazy. By the time we left, it was no longer raining and the sky was turning blue again, but it was still a bit chilly. So strange.
-- Jessica wanted to shop at H&M so that's where we went next. Maggie was already in town visiting her college friend, Anne.  Since they were near H&M, they stopped by to say hello. I don't think Jessica had enough time in H&M, but we were on to other things!

-- Thursday evening, we had tickets to America's Got Talent. I have never watched this show on television, but will admit that I was mostly lured in by the fact that I would get to see Sharon Osborne there. I kind of expected her to do something crazy...she didn't, but she was a good judge as I tended to agree with most of her critiques. Once the show started, I realized how hilarious it was that we were basically at the same kind of show two nights in a row. A talent competition where the audience boos or cheers according to their liking.

The judges, Howie Mandel,

Sharon Osborne, and that British dude.

We had high hopes for this group...the Squeeze Box

Orchestra.  A group of accordian players!

I'll sum the evening up by a text conversation I had with Maggie later that evening:

Maggie: So, does America have talent?
Me: Apparently not.

The acts were HORRIBLE. The only act that was truly outstanding was a yo-yo act...it really was pretty cool. After each act, the judges would spend some time discussing and it would go on and on and on. I assume they were trying to get enough footage so they could edit it well. I was bored out of my mind. We ended up leaving early.

-- After AGT, we went to Popover Cafe for some dinner. Even though it is a quick walk from my apartment, I had only been here for brunch before. I loved it for dinner, too! I got a salad that was soooo good and, of course, the popover really hit the spot.

On Friday, the rest of the girls arrived...those adventures to follow in the next blog!