The Great Outdoors

July has been a great month for free outdoor concerts and movies. We wimped out of a couple events because of the heat, but we were able to see the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, and Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D!

The usual crowd forming for a free NYC event. It's getting so new.

The New York Philharmonic in Central Park. It was worth the wait and the crowd.

The Metropolitan Opera performed at the Brooklyn Bridge Park, where we also watched Monsters vs. Aliens on a different night. The views from the park are so incredible.

Not only are the views amazing, but we developed a pretty good plan for pre-movie food needs - pizza from nearby Grimaldi's and a treat from the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory! We can't do that too often, but it was a fun dinner date.

There's another park that offers free outdoor movies plus free popcorn. As you probably guessed, we can't wait to check it out and share it with you!

The Beach

It has been extraordinarily hot in NYC and we constantly hear about the heat wave which, at this point, is not a wave - it's just always hot. The news continues to advertise "cooling centers" throughout the city which, from the footage we've seen, look like glorified senior centers. Bryan wants to go for the high stakes cribbage but since we have window air conditioning, we have no excuse. Instead, to escape the heat, we went to Rockaway Beach in Queens. Since there are a few beach options, we had to narrow it down somehow. Alyssa read about a fish taco stand called Rockaway Tacos and our decision was made.







After a satisfying lunch, we walked down to the beach to join what seemed like most of New York.



Gnarly waves, dude. Hang 10.



The ocean breeze felt amazing and if this heat continues, we'll definitely be back.

We're Mad

THANK YOU to our friend Andrea for the great tip about the Mad Men premiere in Times Square on Sunday. We had so much fun!

The steps in Times Square were filled with fellow Mad Men fans - all of us anticipating the first episode of the new season.



To add to the festivities, there was a Mad Men costume contest before the show started. It gave us some great ideas for Halloween!



The highlight of the premiere was the appearance of January Jones (Betty) and Elisabeth Moss (Peggy). We think this was their reaction to seeing Bryan and me in the crowd.

We celebrated Elisabeth Moss's birthday with her. I'm sure she had always dreamed of spending her birthday with thousands of gawking strangers in Times Square.

After they showed the first episode, January and Elisabeth stood by the stage and took pictures of the audience. Maybe they were taking pictures for their blog just like someone you may know.

Finally, the after-party. Needless to say, we didn't get past this point.

And so ends our celebrity sightings #21 and 22. We loved the first episode. It's just too bad we don't have cable and will have to wait almost a year for the season to come out on DVD! We'll be counting down the days....

Celebrity Extravaganza

When it comes to celebrity sightings, we have been on an unbelievably lucky streak lately. Here's our show and tell!

Denzel Washington outside of the Cort Theater, where he starred in a Broadway show called "Fences."





Jenna Krakowski (who plays Jenna Maroney on 30 Rock) outside of Barnes and Noble.



Al Pacino outside of the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. He played Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, one of two Shakespeare in the Park plays this summer. He was friendly to the fans and even signed my Playbill!





Jesse Tyler Ferguson (who plays Mitchell on Modern Family) outside of the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. He was also in The Merchant of Venice. As you can tell by my completely crazed face, I was only a little excited to meet him.



The biggest surprise was at the Dinner for Schmucks movie premiere. We read that the Red Carpet activity would start around 6:30. We ended up getting there around 7:00 and sure enough, lots of celebrities were already on the Red Carpet. Unfortunately, there was rain in the forecast so a plastic covering was set up around the Red Carpet. Oh well, we immediately started taking photos.

Bill Hader from SNL.



Steve Carell, the star!



Ron Livingston from Office Space.



Zach Galifianakis from The Hangover.



Seeing all of these stars was great, but believe it or not, it gets better! Our picture-taking was starting to wind down when all of a sudden, someone behind us announced that he had extra tickets to the premiere!!! I've never run so fast in my whole life! I grabbed a pair of tickets and before we knew it, we were in the theater - even with Bryan in his gym shorts and t-shirt (not exactly movie premiere apparel)! As though the free movie - with the STARS IN THE SAME THEATER - was not enough, there was free popcorn, soda and water!!! This combination was almost too much for me to handle.



As we suspected, the movie was hilarious. Our seats were fantastic and it was so surreal thinking about watching the movie with the stars of the film in the same theater! After the movie finished, we were able to snap a few photos in the theater of some of the stars.

Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords.



One of our favorites - Paul Rudd!



This puts our celebrity count at 20!

LD! Celebrity Sightings #9 and 10

One of our favorite TV shows, Curb Your Enthusiasm, has been filming in New York for the past couple weeks. Lucky for us, some of the filming has taken place near our work so over lunch we go and check out the set. The other day they were filming near Soho and we walked within 2 feet of our guy, Larry David (or LD, as he's affectionately known as on the show). Unfortunately, we only had our cell phone camera so these photos are terrible, but we had to prove it somehow! (The arrow points at Larry.)





Larry's trailer door.



We also saw Jeff Garlin, who plays Larry's agent on the show. Today Curb was filming inside a restaurant a couple blocks away from work, so we couldn't see anything, but we'll keep our fingers crossed for next time. We couldn't imagine a better way to spend our lunch!

Boston, Hahvad, and Lagahs

We went to Boston over the Fourth of July, which turned out to be a great place to celebrate our country's independence! Paul Revere, ever heard of him? One if by land, two if by sea, sound familiar? A bunch of tea in the water? All happened in Boston.

For some unknown reason, we didn't know that President John F. Kennedy was born in a suburb of Boston (Brookline). So imagine Alyssa's great surprise when she read the tour book and discovered this very truth. Of course, it was one of our first stops during our time in Boston.



JFK only lived in this house until he was four, but they recreated his room, including his original bassinet.



We also walked around his neighborhood and saw the school he went to, another house the Kennedy family lived in and the church where JFK was baptized. This was the highlight of Alyssa's trip! She kept commenting that it was strange to think about a baby president.

Another highlight was walking the Freedom Trail, which is essentially a 2.5 mile path connecting various historic sites around the city. Lucky for you, we returned our Boston tour book to the library and don't remember much, so our description of these sites will not be lengthy or accurate. In fact, we will just label a few.

The Massachusetts State House - featured prominently in the movie The Departed (or "The Depahted" if you have the true Boston accent).



Paul Revere's house.



U.S.S. Constitution - "Old Ironsides"



The church that sent out the "one if by land, two if by sea" signal.



Samuel Adams' grave. Paul Revere was also buried in this graveyard.



Site of The Battle of Bunker Hill.



For us, the most amusing part of the Freedom Trail was people's strict adherence to this red line. Almost the entire Trail is marked by a red line or red bricks so you can easily make your way from site to site without having to look at a map. Since it was very hot while we were in Boston, we often walked in the shade, even if the red line was on the other side of the street. As we were walking, we would look over to see the other sweating tourists as they walked on the sunny side of the street, never wavering from the red line. We joked that they would follow the red line off a cliff or into the Sahara desert, if that's where it went.



Near the middle of the Freedom Trail is the North End, Boston's Little Italy. We found this area to be very authentic and had a hard time choosing a place to eat. They all looked so good! Fresh, homemade pasta - delicious!

After a long day of walking in the heat, a cold beer sounded great! Recommended by a co-worker, we checked out an Irish pub called Doyle's. The bartender told us that several movies have been filmed here, including Mystic River.

The next morning we decided to take a look around the Harvard University campus. See below for what could have been. Harvard ranked in the top two for my college choices, but the bench of a division III basketball team was calling my name.

As we were finishing our walk around Harvard, Alyssa asked "Hey, didn't the Boston Tea Party take place in this city?" Let's just say I don't think she would have gotten in. Okay, Alyssa didn't really ask that but we did want to find out where the Boston Tea Party took place. After a quick google search, we arrived at this intersection where there was supposed to be some type of marker about the Boston Tea Party. If it was there, we couldn't find it.

Next, we consulted our tour book (a few years old) for the correct location. The search brought us to this bridge where there was supposed to be a replica ship (we think?) and a sign talking about the Boston Tea Party. Apparently the ship was removed after a fire and the sign was gone too! The current Boston Tea Party museum is under construction and is supposed to open in the Summer of 2011.

By the time our search was over, it was almost time to get a spot for the fireworks. On our way, we couldn't resist this amazing picture considering it was the Fourth of July.

The Boston fireworks were VERY impressive!

On our final day in Boston, we weren't done with JFK yet. We still had to see the JFK museum! This is Alyssa at the campaign office.

Other fascinating items at the museum from Jackie's childhood.

The amazing view of the water from inside the museum.

Our final stop was a tour of the Sam Adams brewery. Even though the brewhouse was extremely busy and our bus was leaving for Manhattan soon, Alyssa somehow was able to get us on the next available tour.

Near the end of the tour, they allow you to sample three of their beers including the Boston Lager.

Overall we had a great time in Boston and thought the Fourth of July was the perfect time to visit!