If I was a rich girl… I wouldn’t look like Gwen Ste­fani. Duh.
If I was a rich girl, I would go to New York City more often. After painful sav­ings (ah, the sac­ri­fices), I man­aged to buy a tick­et to the Big Apple. At last! My last trip there was more than three years ago so I was very excit­ed to be back in the city that nev­er sleeps.

The pur­pose of my trip was to catch Lea Salonga’s debut at Carnegie Hall. I won’t say the obvi­ous things about how tal­ent­ed she is bla bla bla bla bla bla. Every­one knows that. But the girl def­i­nite­ly knows how to pick up her guests. Dur­ing her show (which even includ­ed a bit of ABBA’s “Danc­ing Queen”), she invit­ed Pao­lo Mon­tal­ban to sing a duet from Les Mis­er­ables with her. Mon­tal­ban is a Fil­ipino-Amer­i­can per­former who played the Prince in the Brandy-Whit­ney Hous­ton ver­sion of Cin­derel­la. Hmm, I could live in ash­es any time of the day if I was sure to meet such a Prince. Every­thing was so delight­ful about him, includ­ing the voice.
That con­cert was def­i­nite­ly the high­light of my trip and if I have a kid, I will call him Paolo.

I also had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to attend a press screen­ing of Rent and I have one thing to say: I wish my vie boheme was like that – broke but with style. Now bring me a striped scarf and a plas­tic skirt.

As for Broad­way musi­cals, I couldn’t get to see the newest shows since I didn’t want to book in advance and want­ed to play it by ear. But I have no regrets.
Wicked? What is this show about after all? A green girl and a blonde? Would be like see­ing my neigh­bours on stage. Big deal.
Avenue Q: Hairy pup­pets. I have one sleep­ing in my bed right now. Do I need to go to New York to see that?
The 25th Annu­al Put­nam Coun­ty Spelling Bee. Who would like to see a show whose title you can’t even pro­nounce? Cats was so easier.
Spa­malot? I’d rather see Ben­ny Hill, the musi­cal. Can’t wait to see the chase at the end.
Sweet Char­i­ty? I’ll wait until Brit­ney takes over.
Jer­sey Boys. What?

So I end­ed up see­ing old stuff which I had nev­er seen. Yes, I have to con­fess, I had nev­er seen Lion King before. Come on, it’s going to run for decades, why would I rush? Although kids should be banned from cer­tain pub­lic places (the­atres, movie hous­es, shops, restau­rants, trains, planes), I real­ly enjoyed the show. And I also have just one thing to say: Moc­ca Choco­la­ta ya ya!

I also saw The Pro­duc­ers and only remem­ber one sen­tence: When you got it, flaunt it.
But what if you don’t?

The rest of my stay was spent at Cen­tu­ry 21 (a sort of cheap depart­ment store) to buy Clin­ique prod­ucts and some 2xist under­wear for my friend Cyril. He want­ed the “Con­tour Pouch Brief”, just in case you want to know.
I came back just in time to write this month Christ­mas shop­ping arti­cle. And since I real­ly think that learn­ing to love your­self is the great­est love of all, I took the time to cre­ate a Christ­mas wish list for me on Ama­zon. If you want to know what I wish (beside see­ing Celine Dion play­ing Dot in Sun­day In The Park With George, that would be a treat), just click here. Gifts will be deliv­ered straight to my door. Do not for­get your cred­it card.
Mer­ry Christmas.