In which Roz and Layla go to War and Peace: the pop musical and Layla has five minutes of fame

By Roz

We were definitely yawning when we arrived into JFK (the early start hadn't enthused either of us) and this no doubt explains how we ended up on the Air Train going round and round the terminals (instead of going to the subway stop) for longer than is kind to admit. But notice it we finally did, and soon we were speeding towards our hotel in Tribeca. We checked in, noticing that (a) the hotel was a lot nicer than the last one we stayed in in New York and (b) there was a Starbucks in the hotel lobby which was likely to improve Layla's life considerably (since she is sent to get my coffee each morning - notwithstanding she doesn't drink it herself - I am a cruel wife). We washed the journey off and changed into better outfits (more suited to the dramatically hotter weather) and made our way to the top of the High Line Park. We've been there many times, of course, but we feel very fond of it and it struck us as a good way to reacquaint ourselves with NYC again. We wandered along, speculating about what it would be like to live by it (annoying, surely, to have passers-by now able to peer through your windows) and settled down at a wine bar on the High Line overlooking the Statue of Liberty for a glass of wine and some snacks (both of us being somewhat uncertain about what meal we should be having given the time difference) and gazed with enthusiasm at the fab Manhattan skyline, and returned to speculating how I can get the Foreign Office to post me here...

From the park it was a hop, skip and a jump to get to the theatre where we would be seeing Pierre, Natasha and the Great Comet of 1812. We were both somewhat intrigued as to how this would turn out.  It had been my idea, having read rave reviews in Time Out and so forth. It was staged in a specially built (well, constructed might be a better word - form the outside it looked like a building site) venue and was a pop musical based on part of War and Peace (yes, Layla had the same face as you, dear reader, now have when I first suggested it). The inside of the venue was fab - a sort of cross between a Speigletent and a Edinburgh festival venue. We'd arrived early (as recommended) and settled down at cabaret tables to some prosecco, vodka cocktails, borscht, salad, Russian bread and a few other random Russian-themed things (most of which were included in the ticket price). All very nice (if random). And the musical itself proved to be really quite good, and very jolly. There wasn't a stage and the performers were all around the room which added some fun (though I had to remember not to lean back in my seat too much for fear of tripping the performers). We left, congratulating ourselves on an excellent start to the next leg of our holiday, popped into a jazz bar called B Flat for a nightcap (and agreed that I should definitely learn to play the trumpet - an enthusiasm we have not subsequently discussed!) and then went to bed.

The next morning we slept late, felt guilty - and then reminded ourselves we were on holiday and could do such a rash thing as sleeping in. We headed to a diner for breakfast / early lunch before hiring bikes to cycle round Manhattan again. We usually go anti-clockwise, but to be a rebel I suggested we go up the west side first. This had pros and cons.  The west side is definitely the most beautiful bit of the route - a bike path all the way, by the water, going past - and through - parks. And it meant we got much further up than we ever have before (since you can't get to the very tip of north Manhattan since it is closed off). But it also meant that the second half of the cycle is the less nice east side - which disappointingly had even more closed bike paths than usual. But it was lovely - it is such a fab way to see bits of New York that you wouldn't otherwise see and the weather was brilliant (if a bit too hot, ironically given our complaints about the weather in Seattle). We got back later than expected (I'd hoped our Burma cycling would have made us better at biking, and therefore a bit faster - but alas this proved not to be the case) and so, having returned our bikes to the bike shop after 5 solid hours of cycling, we headed back for a fast shower before an early dinner.

Our dinner was at a place called Balaboosta, a Mediterranean restaurant that's well-reviewed. It was all wood, exposed bricks and bottles of wine on the walls and had a nice ambience.  We enjoyed our food, though we ate quickly so that we could get to the Housing Works Bookstore which where the main action of the night was to happen: a Moth show (in collaboration with the World Science Festival) on the theme of Natural Selection. It was a Story Slam which means people put their names in the hat and 10 are randomly picked to tell their stories on the theme. By getting there a bit early we managed to find a good piece of floor to sit on (ah so elegant!) and then I added to the excitement of the evening by turning to Layla and saying "you've always wanted to tell a story at the Moth: why not tonight?!". She looked torn. She looked very anxious. But she also looked very excited. Rapidly deciding that one of her regular stories could be pruned to fit the time limit, and adapted to focus on natural selection, she put her name in the hat and began to rehearse under her breath. Each time a name was called, we looked at each other anxiously wondering if this would be the moment we'd hear her name. It never was and we were immensely disappointed. Though not so disappointed that we didn't really enjoy the stories, which were on the whole excellent. My personal favourite was that of a French brain surgeon who the whole audience simultaneously loved and hated and who was mocked by the compere after for his suave punch lines which were always along the lines of "And then I performed his life saving brain surgery". At the end of the stories, the Moth tradition is for all those who haven't got to tell their story to go up on stage and say the first line of their story. They looked in the hat and found that there was only one name which hadn't been called - Layla's. I was bitter. She got up on stage and said her first line: "As I made my escape to Canada on a Chinese tour bus, I knew natural selection had decided I was not to be research scientist". The compere looked impressed, the audience went crazy, someone shouted "encore!", and I took this idea up with vigour. Before long, the entire room was shouting for her to come back up to the stage. And so it was that in breach of Moth protocol, Layla was brought back to the Moth stage and told her story due to audience demand (the first time this has ever happened) and to great acclaim. Loads of people came up afterwards and congratulated her on her story, telling her it was the best. We went for a very jolly celebratory drink to the nearby Grey Dog bar / cafe - a venue we love - and I toasted my wife, so proud of her first appearance on the Moth stage.