Our students that we brought back east with us had one unequivocal request, “We have to go to New York City!!!”
“Ok,” I said, “Now, spend some time with the tour books and internet and tell me what you want to do while there.”
About an hour later I heard squeals of exciement. I asked the girls, “Well, what did you find?”
“JUSTIN BIEBER!!!!!” one said.
“He’s going to be on the Today Show!” the other explained.
When we looked at the dates, we weren’t able to go to see Justin Bieber, but there was a Christina Aguilera concert that fell within the dates that we would be in the city.
“Alright, we can go,” I relented.
We found ourselves awake at 4am in the suburbs of New York. After a quick shower and a bite to eat, we hopped in the car, drove 15 minutes to the train station and caught a 5am train into the city. We arrived at Grand Central Station at 5:50am and then did our best attempt at speedwalking to get to Rockefeller Plaza. The website had said that you should arrive by 6am for best viewing. We got to the plaza shortly after 6am and stood in the crowd of people. At approximately 6:30 or 7am Christina Aguilera came on for a sound check and performed one song. Well, we think she performed one song. We could hear the music playing and we could see that the crowd was excited, but we could not actually see a single thing on the stage. Even after we moved a little bit ahead of some freakishly tall people, we could still see nothing. The stage was so low that it was baiscally impossible to see the performer. Eventually, we let Kyle hold the camera above his head to take a picture and he got us evidence that Christina Aguilera truly was on stage performing.
After she performed a song for the sound check, Christina Aguilera disappeared and we were left wondering what was next. By stealthily listening in on people’s conversations we learned that she wouldn’t come back out for another hour and a half! At this point Kyle and I pulled our books out and began reading to keep the boredom at bay. Eventually she came back on stage again and performed multiple songs. After about the first song we moved to the back of the stage, hoping we could see something better from that angle. Standing on metal barriers, the girls were able to see the top of Christina Aguilera’s head and some of the dancers.
“OMG!” They kept exclaiming over and over again.
Although we were quite bored and wanting more coffee,when we saw the excited smiles on the girls faces at seeing a celebrity and appearing on the Today Show, we had to smile as well.
Erika … are you still out east?