Our trip from Penn Station to the hotel for much needed rest consisted of a two-stop subway ride and a two-and-a-half block walk. First we had to purchase tickets which should have been relatively uncomplicated but the machine we were at was being finicky. Immediately after walking through the subway turnstile, Kirk spotted a rat on the tracks. We walked a few paces down and saw another. Welcome to New York City!

Monday we went to the American Museum of Natural History (the museum from Night at the Museum). We probably could have spent all week there, the museum is huge and extremely detailed. Our top halls were Birds of the World, North American Forests, Cosmic Pathway, North American Birds, New York City Birds, The Butterfly Conservatory, Hall of Biodiversity, Hall of Planet Earth, and Hall of Meteorites. Those were only about one-third of the halls and we sped through some of them. To get up to the museum we walked through Central Park, and found out later that the subway went right into the lower level of the museum. Whoops, it was pretty at least.

Tuesday we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was also huge. We learned from Monday and prioritized rooms as soon as we walked in. There’s a lot of contemporary and European paintings in Kansas City so we opted to pass on those halls. Instead we focused on Arms and Armor, Egyptian Art, Medieval Art, Art of Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia, Photographs, Jewelry: the Body Transformed, and Musical Instruments.

Wednesday was the reason we came to NYC. Cursed Child Parts I and II. We originally planned to get up early and go to the MoMA but it didn’t open until 10:30am and we had to be in the security check line at 1pm (and eat lunch) so we decided to go to Rockefeller Center and Times Square before the play instead. Walking through Rockefeller Center, we saw the massive St. Patrick’s Cathedral and just had to see the inside. After being harassed on our walk through Times Square we got through security and had our first glimpse of the magic we were about to be a part of. The Lyric Theater has been completely redone for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and it was gorgeous.

The year-and-a-half wait was absolutely worth it and the play’s stagecraft surpassed our expectations. We still don’t know how they pulled some of those effects off (#keepthesecrets).

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