Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Overexcited Audience

Friday afternoon hubby and I made a return trip to The London Bar. It was quite brave of us really since yesterday we made off with one of their pens as a souvenir and in an attempt to recoup some of the money we had paid out for afternoon tea, but we wanted somewhere nice to meet our friend Gordon who is over here for a week. Gordon was kind enough to bring some contact lenses over for me, which was a great relief as I was down to my very last pair. So we met Gordon and, later, his (slightly the worse for drink) friend Ted who was very excited to be making his first visit to NYC – “like a kid in a toy shop” as he put it. Spent about 3 hours chatting and catching up – it was great for us to see a face from home after nearly 19 weeks. But even better, we actually saw our first “celebrity” since arriving in NY where we expected (wrongly, as we have since found out) to be practically tripping over them. Jean-Paul (JP) the maître-d from The F-Word was working in The London Bar – top marks to hubby for spotting him, there’s a career at Hello magazine waiting for him (hubby, not JP) when we get back to the UK.

After saying goodbye to Gordon & Ted we went to the cinema to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. As we have often found to be the case over here in the USA, we were more entertained by the locals than the film (although the film wasn’t too bad.) Hubby put his finger on it when he said that the longer we spend out here the more obvious it becomes just how reserved us Brits are. The audience was so excited to be watching the new Indy film, there was lots of clapping and cheering, and that was just for the previews of upcoming films. The films they obviously liked the look of got a round of applause (Kung-Fu Panda; Hancock) whereas they stayed pretty quiet for those they didn’t like the look of (Australia). Imagine the whooping that occurred when the actual film started. There was some whooping just for the screen saying ‘LucasFilm Ltd’, more whopping at the first sighting of Indy’s fedora hat, and a large amount of whooping and clapping at the first sight of Indy himself. There was plenty more clapping throughout the rest of the film, and each time hubby and I grinned at each other and said ‘Only in America.’ We just don’t get that excited in the UK, do we? Or if we do, it’s never in public.

On our way back from the cinema we stopped for some dinner at A Salt and Battery, a UK-style fish and chip shop. I had v nice fish and chips while hubby went for the sausage and chips option. Yum! Afterwards, as we walked back to the apartment at about 10.45pm I was fantasizing that perhaps the Magnolia Bakery (as seen in Sex and the City) might still be open and perhaps, finally, I would be able to try one of their famous cupcakes. Hubby and I have walked past the shop on several occasions only to find a large queue outside, and we don’t do queues. I was very hopeful that the hip and happening people of New York City would have better things to do so late on a Friday evening, but no luck. The queue was longer than ever, stretching around the corner of the block. Their cupcakes must be out of this world and I am DETERMINED to try one before we leave. They open at 9am. Would it be too sad to start queuing at 8.30am, like the Harrods’ sale?