The Globetrotting Geek

Shabbat/Sunday – 153/154

January 1, 2013

Shabbat was super relaxed and gave me the opportunity to get through a whole stack of books! I consumed four over the weekend of various qualities. All thrillers. For some reason I didn’t quite have it in me to tackle anything more serious.

Sunday on the other hand was pretty exciting for me because I got to hang out with Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston, a good friend from home. First stop of the day was to MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art in midtown Manhattan. We spent a good few hours there, and though it wasn’t the cheapest gallery on offer, it was well worth it in my opinion.

Of particular note in the gallery was ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch, around which a thick crowd gathered to take photos. Amongst the pieces I enjoyed most were those of Rousseau and Monet. However, aside from the large collection of paintings, the museum also had varied displays on contemporary art.

From there we went to eat lunch, some yummy Sushi, and then to the Eugene O’Neil Theatre to see if we could get Ariel in for the evening’s production of ‘The Book of Mormon’. Unfortunately we didn’t win the ticket lottery, however, we did manage to secure tickets to a performance of another show, ‘Bare’. The show followed the story of two young gay men in a Catholic high school. One who wanted to ‘come out of the closet’ and the other who was ashamed of his sexuality and feared the repercussions of making his identity public. Overall the show was excellently written barring a few clichés that ultimately spoiled it for me. The music was upbeat and pop-py in the first act, with a number of good tunes, however in the second darker act, the music tended a little to the melodramatic.

Overall, worth going to see, especially with tickets priced at the $30 mark.

After that, did the usual and headed home on the subway for a good nights rest.

Shabbat/Sunday/Sukkot – Day 64/65/66

October 3, 2012

I’ll keep this post brief in an attempt to try and catch back up to date! The major event in these few days was the Newman shopping trip which essentially involved a full day’s worth of shopping. Locations visited included Macy’s, the Salvos, the ‘Coat Depot’, Florsheims and Reading Terminal Market.

My purchases were as follows:

Two pairs of dress shoes (one black, one brown, same style) – $140

One black suit – $170

One blue suit jacket – $40

Thee shirts – $60

One tie – $4

One reversible belt – $20

This took a good full day and plenty of walking about!

Late Sunday afternoon was a rehearsal of my big scene in Legally Blonde, set in Harvard Law School, where my character is an admissions counselor deigning to refuse entry to Elle Woods, the protagonist. Thankfully Anil had helped me learn my lines so all was well in that department.

Other than that, of note is the large number of sukkot that have sprung up around campus as part of a sukkah-thon in which students from Penn vote on their favorite sukkah and the winners are presented with some sort of prize.

Shul on sukkot was nice, nothing special of mention there, meals fine too. However, the best thing about being a Penn on sukkot was that many of the Jews weren’t there which meant I had a little time to get to know some of the others a bit better.

Rehearsals never seem to end for me! Monday night, as well as being Sukkot, was a two hour PGC rehearsal, followed by a two hour University Choral Society rehearsal. The policy for the most part being that missing for Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur is all cool, with other festivals less so.

Tomorrow hopefully I’ll post some photos of the sukkot, if it stops raining!

Kunsthaus Zurich – Day 3

July 22, 2012

This morning as per usual was spent waking up at a leisurely hour, followed by a delicious swiss breakfast. Today I took the ferry into the city, a forty-five minute trip on the lake, with the flag billowing in the wind behind me.  Following that, it was another morning in Zurich! For me, this meant the opportunity to visit the renowned ‘Kunsthaus Zurich’ (art-house), a gallery with many famous and wonderful works. Below I have included a selection of my favorites, famous pieces. Amongst them are works by Dali, Picasso and Chagall.

After lunch I briefly wandered the streets again, stopping to chat with a waitress at ‘Outback’, an Australian themed restaurant. She wanted me to come in and appease the patrons searching for a true blue Aussie experience. Next was a quick stop at Sprungli to buy a thing or two (see later post).

Returning to the Empting family, my afternoon continued in Lucerne/Luzern and the surrounding countryside…