Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
Glen and I slept in on Thursday morning. We did not make an effort to join Natalie and Julian for an early stake-out at the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Even though they barely had much sleep, they were at 57th St by about 6:30am. The parade started at 9am. We originally planned to meet at Columbus Circle, but thanks to their early morning arrival, Julian and Natalie soon learned this was not a suitable place to stand and went elsewhere.
We got up at about 8am, and were near the area by 9am. 57th St doesn’t get shutdown for the parade so traffic still cut through the crowd. In fact, the parade had to stop with the traffic lights to allow the cars through. As a result, there was a greater collection of people in this area all trying to squeeze around the corner. We decided to get breakfast at the Viceroy, a much more expensive breakfast than we’d anticipated, before wending our way across the street and down to the corner to meet the others.
We got to about 30m from the corner before we gave it up and went back the way we came. There was nowhere to move and I think people got to one point and turned around after realising they weren’t going to get down the street. We went to a Starbucks instead to use the wi-fi to message the others and say we would meet them at our second rendezvous (Carnegie Hall).
Starbucks was a mass of people and for a place that is usually so orderly, it was a nightmare. Glen waited far longer than he needed to for a coffee (and when it came, wasn’t what he ordered but by that point he’d given up and drank hot chocolate instead). We then decided to go for a walk down the street, stopping in at a shoe store along the way, before finding a great place to watch the parade at 51st St.
Here the crowds were thinner, the street was blocked off, and we were perhaps 15m away from the action. We could have gotten closer but really most of the action takes place up in the sky. We saw a few balloons – Snoopy (an iconic balloon), Spongebob Square Pants, some girl, and the Pillsbury Doughboy – as well as a police marching band (the drummers’ bare hands must have been frozen) and some guy who was probably famous but I didn’t have a clue who he was.
Unfortunately, we only had a little while to watch as it was already ten to 11 and we needed to get back to Carnegie Hall to meet Julian and Natalie. However, I’ll remember (if we ever come again) that 51st St is a good place to watch from.
Julian and Nat arrived at Carnegie Hall shortly after us. They’d latched onto a woman who was having a panic attack in order to get out of the crowd, otherwise they would have been stuck there for another hour or so. All of us (except Glen who brought his Canada Goose jacket) were a bit frozen by this stage and gladly descended into a nearby subway to catch the train up to Tom’s Restaurant uptown.
Tom’s Restaurant was used as the facade for the cafe in Seinfeld, so I was pretty stoked we got up there to see it. I know the interior isn’t meant to be like the interior in the show, but I was surprised at how small the restaurant was. The exteriors in the show make it look so much bigger. We squeezed into a booth, happy to get a seat on this very busy Thanksgiving Day. The food was cheap and mostly good (Glen didn’t like his burger but he did like the milkshake). Afterwards we decided to call it quits and go home for a nap, refreshing ourselves for dinner.
Thanksgiving Dinner
Julian had booked dinner at Sanctuary T for eight people at 6:30. Due to a problem with the booking, this was moved to 7pm. We met a little earlier to go for coffee, though being Thanksgiving we were a little short on options. This is why we ended up in Dunkin Donuts. The three of them ordered coffee, and this was one of those times when I was very glad I don’t drink the stuff. At least the place was warm, had free wifi, and gave me a place to fix my contact lens once it curled over itself and got lost somewhere behind my eyelid.
We then went back up to the restaurant and took our table. The other half of our party (two friends of Natalie’s plus their partners). We were given menus, chose what we wanted on the prix-fixe and the matching wines, and then waited to be served. So began a bizarre evening.
Our orders were eventually taken after a fair amount of time waiting. The place was full so we figured there’d be a bit of a wait. I think we waited another 20 or 30 minutes for the first course to come. When it did, two of the orders (the crostini) came out but everyone else was given salad when they’d ordered soup. We sent them back, thinking there was a mistake, only to have the flustered waitress come back to say that the kitchen was out of soup and the chef had told her after she’d handed in the order. She’d just forgotten to inform us. We reordered, some taking salad, others going for the crostini.
Our matched wines (a warm prosecco…I thought prosecco was supposed to be chilled) came when we didn’t have any food so we drank that and waited. The crostini was delicious though, ricotta cheese with fig on a bit of a toast. We wolfed it down.
Then the waitress returned.
The kitchen had run out of ravioli. Everyone who ordered ravioli needed to choose something else. 15/20 minutes later that course came out. I think somewhere in here Julian got us a couple of bottles of free wine (which had been promised when they rang to say there was a problem with the booking a day or two before Thanksgiving). The wine arrived but no glasses, at which point, I jinxed us all by saying they’d probably run out of wine glasses.
Lo, four tumblers appeared because “we’ve run out of wine glasses.”
We lost it laughing, because by that point it had become all highly amusing. The second course came – which was delicious as well – and we drank the red wine while waiting for our matched white wine to come. This came after the bowls had been cleared, but was a good drop.
The turkey dinner followed soon after, a delicious piece of meat served with the tastiest Brussels sprouts I’ve ever eaten. I hate Brussels sprouts but these were so good I even stole one of Glen’s. The third wine arrived, served this time in glass teacups.
The final course – the dessert – came some time after, the ice-cream having melted around the bread pudding, and served with clear plastic spoons. It appears they’d run out of cutlery as well. Julian and I nearly wet ourselves laughing over this. To top it off, the final drink, a toddy, was served in an assortment of glassware. The little caramels and chocolates that came with the bill were also really good.
We struck up a conversation with the table next to us, who were also experiencing this rather bizarre and hilarious dining experience. It was kind of a shared gallow’s humour, and despite all the challenges, it was a great evening.
Most of the staff handled the night well; I think we lost one of the waitresses at one point as she was at breaking point and really needed to go have a breather. The food was excellent, and, when you think about it, having such an experience makes it memorable. If everything had gone smoothly, we would have just eaten and left, probably forgetting everything in a sea of other meals that we’ve eaten.
After dinner, the four of us went in search of a good gay bar to dance for a bit. We went to Fairytail first (yes, tail is spelt wrong), which was extremely quiet. There was one other patron in there at the time we arrived. I suppose it was early, being 10:30pm. The guy who was there works on Broadway, not sure doing what. As a dresser perhaps? So we talked to him about theatre stuff and what plays are on. Was interesting to get a perspective from someone in the biz.
We then abandoned this very quiet ship to go to The Ritz (not the hotel, sadly), where they played crap music. It was a bit livelier, but not all that exciting for us, so we go in a cab and went back to The Monster. Julian and I ended up standing around the piano with all the other wannabe performers while the pianist played showtunes. We had fun, and then headed home about 1:30pm, ready for bed.
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?