Grits & Gravy: A Little Bit Wicked

With Angie in NYC

A few years ago, I traveled to NYC to visit my fabulous friend, Angie. The fun part about our friendship is that we mostly seeing each other when we meet up somewhere fun like Hawaii or NY - maybe Africa this summer. Angie and I met my junior year of high school when we were the new kids on the cheerleading squad. After rooming together at camp, our friendship was sealed. During my last trip to the Big Apple to visit Angie, we saw WICKED and my love affair with the show began.

My older brother loved The Wizard of Oz but it just never was my thing. When Wicked came out, starring Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, I knew I wanted to see it but my adoration for the show caught me by complete surprise. It is simply phenomenal! After raving about it, Morgan sent me a copy of the soundtrack and I listened to it over and over. Momma purchased the soundtrack for me so now I have a copy at home and one in the office.

I have pretty much been dreaming about the next time I would see it so you can imagine my excitement when I heard it was coming close to Fayetteville. My friend Kerri, also know as my theater buddy, and I planned to see the show. I put reminders on my calendar to check on ticket availability until finally the release date was announced just before my birthday. Momma and Doug decided that my ticket would be my birthday present and away to ticket wonderland we ventured.

Tickets, Coffee, & Soundtrack

After posting something on my FB, Nikki approached me about coming along. Of course, we were delighted for her to join us and the three of us waited impatiently for October to pass and Wicked to be here. On the day of the show, I woke up and enjoyed coffee out of my NYC Central Park Starbucks coffee mug that I purchased while visiting Ang, it seemed only right. I am quite certain my neighbors wanted to shoot me as the walls shook with Defying Gravity at 8am on a Saturday but what can you do. We left around 9am and drove the three hours to Little Rock with soundtrack on hand. We gabbed and sang the whole way down.

When we arrived, we quickly checked into the hotel and changed. We had planned to get lunch but ran out of time and rather than be late to the show, we sucked it up. Best part of our hotel was that the cast, yes, the cast were staying there. Unfortunately, we only caught a glimpse of a couple of the dancers but we still slept close to the stars.

The DoubleTree dyed their water green

The show was amazing, yet again. Nikki was seeing it for the first time so that added extra excitement to the event. When it ended, we all wanted it to just start over. I cannot explain my love affair with the show but I swear it gets better each time I see it. I love the theme of doing what is right even when it is not popular and I am certain that is was keeps me coming back for more. The story has depth paired with beautiful music.

Nikki, me, Kerri

Once the show ended, we snapped a few photos and headed to the downtown area for food. You can imagine that at this point we were ravenous. We enjoyed a fantastic meal at Rumba, an amazing mexican-cuban restaurant. I enjoyed steak tacos (which had pot roast style meat) with yellow rice and black beans. Obviously, I had a margarita or two. This Florida gal loves me some Mexican-Cuban food, it warms my soul so I was in heaven. The restaurant has a funky, retro vibe that made it a great spot for a girls night out.

We ate ourselves into such a food coma that we retired to the room around 8pm. Our plan was to change and then hit the town. After chatting up a storm for two hours we decided to just hit the hay. I, admittedly, was practically already down for the count. I adored the show but our girl talk and hysterical laughter in the room was probably my favorite part of the trip.

We rose Sunday morning and hit Starbucks for a little breakfast and coffee. I love their egg white and turkey bacon sandwiches with a pumpkin spiced latte. Delicious! We hit the road back to Fayetteville and sadly, our fun adventure ended.