It's compulsary son

Tuesday Vicky, Mom and I saw another Broadway show.  La Cage Aux Folles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cage_aux_Folles_%28musical%29


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115685/ (American film remake)

I will let you check out the links above for the plot, but I have to start by saying this show was fantastic.  It had everything, from guys dressed as girls, wonderful musical numbers, and even some audience participation.

The most fun part was the 'mother', Albin.  Or Zaza to give him his drag-queen name.

The older readers of this blog will also recognise the name George Hamilton.  Playing the night club owner.

This poster set the scene for the show we saw:

Waiting for the show to start, one of the drag-queen's walked amongst the crowd and had a bit crack with people, and right before it started, he was on stage talking to the audience.

We had an unrestricted view of the stage as my Wife had been able to obtain seats in one of the box's!  Through a colleague of Vickys, these seats were free.

Here are pictures from the production I found online:

http://www.playbill.com/multimedia/gallery/3191/?pnum=1

This is two Broadway shows I have seen, and I really want to attend another one this year.  There are lots to choose from, Maybe a classic like Phantom, or a modern one like Spamalot, or the Book of Mormon

Another Will it or Won't it post

Our local tv station TV3Winchester has issued a weather warning for our area.  They call it a 'Winter Weather Advisory'.

http://www.tv3winchester.com/home/headlines/Winter_Weather_Advisory_for_Entire_Viewing_Area_137769618.html

Hopefully, like a previous post, this will turn out to be nothing.

Either way, my Wife and I have a date on the sofa tonight, and a lie-in tomorrow.

The morning after:

American commercials

We all know that American television is saturated with commercials.  Here are some of my favourites:

The commercial below was broadcast at 6.40 at night.  It is for a Lady's 'adult' toy, it is talked about, but not shown!

This advert is not for the squeamish.  Involving catheters.  This particular commercial is broadcast in the mornings!

 

I feel I must point out that the last two are NOT favourites ...

Reading electronically

Here is the big Christmas present from my Wife.

When I was shipping my things across from England to America, I worked out that I had sent over 45kgs of books.  I can't even think of how much the overall fedex bill was.


Now if I wanted too, I could put hundreds of these books onto a thin and very light piece of plastic!  The whole idea of reading on a regular basis has made me happy.  Instead of carrying around a thick book, I can easily slip the e-book device into a bag.

Amazon, and other sites have thousands of free books you can download to the Kindle, and so far I have enjoyed reading The Invisible Man; HG Wells.  I Loved the 'englishness' of the book.  There is violence featured, but it is sort of 'off-screen' to use a film term.  A couple of times a character will swear, but it is read like 'Griffen swore'.  Towards the end, when the Invisible Man has escaped, the other main characters are discussing how to catch him.  After a character suggested placing broken glass around a house, a policeman tells him that this idea is 'unsportsmanlike' Haha.

Family Birthday

On Sunday we celebrated my Wifes Birthday.  Her main present from Mom was a trip to the Theatre to see the musical Billy Elliot at the Kennedy Centre in DC.

http://www.kennedy-center.org/

This was my first trip to see a 'Broadway' show, and I really enjoyed it.  There were six of us, including one of Vickys nieces too.  I had a such a good time that I want to see another show.  The one thing I didn't like about it was how loud it was.  My Wife pointed out that it was a matinee performance, and there was a lot of old people there, so they probably had the sound turned up loud haha.

Everyone was all dressed up and I wore my new Calvin Klein shirt and tie.  Afterwards we had a few drinks, and then we ate at a Japanese restaurant.

http://www.sansuirestaurant.com/sansui_entrees.html

Even if we hadn't done the theatre, it would still have been a wonderful day, especially with us being apart like last year.

Forgive the lack of pictures, I'll add some later when I get the chance.

Pint of Newcastle please

It doesn't sound right does it?  A pint of Newcastle.

Here in America, you can buy Bottles of Newcastle's Brown Ale everywhere.  I have seen it sold in every supermarket I have bought food.  Not all pubs stock it, but all the big ones do.

During my second or third visit with Vicky, we had a meal in a pub called the Union Jack.

http://www.theunionjackpub.com/beer/

I'm going off on a tangent here, forgive me.
Check out their beer selection!  Sadly it is not as up to date as it should be.  They often have 20+ english beer's on tap.  And always Newcastle Brown Ale of course.  When I was asked what I wanted to drink, I asked for a bottle of dog.  Moments later the waitress came back to our table to ask me what I meant.  Yes I did this deliberately.

During my Birthday, we stopped at a Buffalo Wings restaurant, yes, this is all they sold!, and I asked for a pint of Brown Ale.  This was then followed up by a 'pint of Newcastle please'.

I want to bring with me as much of my heritage as possible, but I am sad that I will have to relent in some circumstances.

I rarely drank the broon ale back in England.  So with it being sold in a lot of places here, It is now my drink of choice.

A few months ago, my Wife and I were out shopping in a big supermarket called Wegmans.  They have a huge international section.  I was particularly interested in the price differences.

See my old blog post about Wegmans here:

http://geordieintheusa.tumblr.com/post/10083414802/wegmans


Walking down the international section where the beer was located was weird!, it was like being back at home.  But a beer caught my eye.  The Newcastle 'Werewolf'.  At first I thought it was a local rip-off, but I bought it anyway, and once home, I found it was a real Newcastle product!

This time, whilst out shopping alone last week, my Wife found another!  Newcastle's Winter IPA.  The Werewolf, and the Winter bottles are now kept on the shelf, along with my other wonderful Newcastle things here:

To conclude this blog post, I Love that I can see and enjoy a lot of Newcastle beer here, but I am sad I will have to start calling it by a different name.

New Years Eve

Vicky and I had been invited out with her Sister, but we wanted to just be with each other this time.
We'd been apart the past two NYE's, so this year was all about us.

We chose to go around Berryville.  I have written before about how small it is, and unfortunately most of the restaurants were closed by their normal hours.
We started out at the Battletown Inn:
http://thebattletowninn.com/
Check out it's video tour.
After a couple of drinks we moved onto the Berryville Grille.  But it was closed.  Shame as the food inside is always very nice.
http://theberryvillegrille.com/our-menu/

So it was off to the Camino Real.  A mexican restaurant and the only proper 'bar' in Berryville.  They were open till 1am.  Vicky drank a couple of Tequila Sunrises, and I stuck with yuengling lager.  Yeungling is America's oldest brewry.  Around 11pm, we walked back home to watch the ball drop.
London has the fireworks on the Thames, and in the USA, people watch a ball drop slowly until their fireworks are set off.

It was brilliant spending the time, just the two of us, and we both had the next day off work too!