The Adventure Continues...

Today was my first road trip in 18 months sans little red truck/tour partner and I must admit that it was pretty weird. One thing that did remain consistent, however, was my pink luggage, as I traded in my two pink suitcases for one pink backpack. Some things will never change.

So basically, even when I'm not traveling, I'm traveling. Today I drove down to NYC to see Mr. Best Friend, Ryan Lind. Ryan has endured all of the trials and tribulations of tour life with me except for the actual touring part. He's my main confidant. MCT should basically have been writing checks out to him this whole time. I got him an Aladdin shirt as a big thank you for standing by me and because he totally deserved a souvenir. And now I'm going to get my taste of life as a young, millennial actor who stays in place for more than seven days at a time!

My drive was surprisingly short, especially considering that I was alone after such a long time of not having to drive by myself. I used this as a time to fully jam out because -- although my tour partners will find this hard to believe -- I'd been holding back on my car dance parties.

Anyhooo, I made good time to Astoria, which did not require crossing the dreaded George Washington Bridge (side note: I hate the GW and it will be the first thing I destroy when I take over the universe) so that was exciting. Ryan and I then did the very exciting thing of watching a DVD of one of my performances of Aladdin and then did the even more exciting thing of laundry! Not joking. Ryan took me out to brunch at a bar near his apartment where he dines frequently enough to know the entire staff by name. He's a regular (and yeah, that's probably the first time someone has ever called him regular).

After that, I went with Ry to work. He is a host at a piano bar a few blocks away from Time Square! I hung out while he did host things. His mom was in the city so she came by to say hello (another side note: Ryan's mom is the coolest mom out there besides my own). Ryan's shift was from 4pm-12am so I went out for dinner around 7. I got pizza. I ordered two slices because that is pretty typical for me, but these two slices were essentially an entire pizza pretending not to be an entire pizza. LOOK AT THAT! It's literally the size of the tray. It was insane. I also made plans to see other friends in NYC because it wasn't until I got here that I remembered that this is a very large city and I know people here who aren't Ryan.

I went for a walk after dinner to burn off some of the crazy calories I'd just ingested and wound up at the Hershey store, which unfortunately smelled like peanut butter! Disappointed, I walked across the street to the M&M store which, thankfully, smelled like chocolate, so that was dangerous! I didn't get anything but someone did mistake me for being a part of their school field trip and I just feel like chaperones should probably know their charges a little bit better... I also feel like people should be able to tell the difference between a 24 year old woman and a high school freshman, but apparently, they cannot.

My plan had been to stay with Ryan at work until his shift was over but things got a little crazy and his bosses didn't seem to like that I was there (I bought a Sprite! I was a paying customer!!!) so I took an Uber home. It would have been a very comfortable ride if that driver hadn't played the same strange song over and over and over again. I heard it NINE times between Ryan's place of business and his place of living.

During my time in Manhattan this afternoon/evening, I also got cheesecake. Jas told me about a place called Junior's that I needed to try, so when we walked past it today, I knew that it was fate. I picked up two slices: the chocolate mousse cheesecake because it was what Jas said to get and the red velvet cheesecake because it was what my heart said to get. My wallet said I shouldn't get either but I told it to shut up. I haven't actually tried them yet because I was waiting for Ryan to eat them with me (which he couldn't do while he was working) but now he's on his way home from work and 1am cheesecake sounds like a brilliant plan to me!

Ryan and I have a ton of plans for the week. Including a mini-adventure to our alma mater in PA and lots of tromping around NYC. I'm so happy to finally be here! Also really happy to eat late night cheesecake...