Manhattan - Five days in January - Five pub sessions, two Broadway shows and museums

Why Manhattan in January? Well, I am the frugal fiddling tourist, and hotel prices are great, our midtown hotel was less than 70% the price of high season. This is my fourth time in the Big Apple and with me were my friends from Cape Breton Chrissy and April. There are many sessions to chose from. We took in five. We also visited two museums (free!), the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art--free on Fridays and the Fashion Museum- just down the street from our hotel, The Stewart which was across from Madison Square Gardens.

Broadway theatre is the best in NYC, and Wicked the most popular. We got our tickets through the onsite lottery before the show...for 30 dollars each! What luck...and what a terrific show!

Myself, April and Chrissy.

Every Saturday night there is a great session at O'Neill's in Hell's Kitchen. We met a man who had visited Cape Breton, who had played with Angus Chisholm (Chrissy and April's great uncle) .

Come From Away is a Broadway smash hit about the Newfoundland hospitality extended to stranded air traveller during the 9/11 crisis. We had met the show's fiddler Caitlin Warbelow at the previous night's session at O'Neills.

After the show on Sunday we went to the first of two sessions in Manhattan, first to the charming pub The Brass Monkey near the shore of the Hudson River.

Before our second session we stopped at La Mela in Little Italy for some delicious Italian food and were delighted to meet "Butch the Hat" a character actor whose films include GoodFellas and other mob movies. He had coffee with us and shared stories of his acting roles and his life in New York where he first earned money working the docks in Manhattan.

Ah, the 11th St. Bar. This has been my third visit to the session hosted by Tony DeMarco, a great Irish-American fiddler (his mother was Irish). This session is of high calibre and you can hear the best players very week starting at 10 pm Sunday nights.

On Monday we went to the Late Night Show with Seth Myers and Jimmy Fallon was one o his guests. I don't have pictures because no cell phones are allowed in the studio, but here is a picture of us at Rockerfeller Center, which is outside of NBC studios.

Tuesday we visited the Fashion Museum on 8th Avenue, a short walk from our hotel, then we attended the taping of the Late Show with Steven Colbert. His guests included Drew Barrymore. All our entertainment was free as the museum has free admission and tickets to the talk show tapings are available free online.

Our hotel , The Stewart, was centrally located, across from Madison Square Gardens. At less than 150 dollars US., it was a bargain...and we had a kitchen with a fridge and oven!

Beside our hotel was one of the iconic food carts. We each Indian chicken on rice with a salad. Delicious and only five bucks! Pretzels are also popular street food in the city.

Our first session Tuesday night was at the Green Room Bar, which we again met our fiddle friend Tony Demarco.

I played a few tunes myself!

Later we went to the Swift Bar. For this session we chose to just listen. Great fiddling and a great atmosphere.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. We took the subway to the airport, but I got confused and got on the wrong train. Luckily we had time to spare and even got on an early flight. Goodbye New York. We will return. What great memories we have.

There are many musicians who play for commuters on the subway. I returned home in time to play a Robbie Burns gig with my Dad and his friend Maxine.