New York - Day 6

Today was the last day of committee meetings! We were all pretty excited about this because the committee sessions seemed very long. In my committee we got a few more draft reports approved by the dias, for a total of ten in all. I spent a lot of the caucusing time talking with EU countries and figuring out how they were going to vote. Usually, Czech Republic simply follows the opinion of the European Union. Most of the UNHCR delegate in the Czech Republic bloc (the one's at O'Neill's the night before) weren't at the morning session. I think they didn't get much sleep because they stayed out too late.

For lunch we went to another Irish pub. These little places usually have pretty good food. I had an amazing pot pie with really flaky crust, and Weston had some kind of burger which looked pretty good. I invited the representative of Belgium (who was actually from a school in Ohio), so he came along with our little WSU group. When we got back to the UNHCR, we finally started voting procedures. All of the draft report segments passed without a problem. There were no motions to divide or to vote by roll call. Some of them even passed by affirmation, which meant that a vote wasn't even needed.

After finishing up with the committee, we had a short delegation meeting and then Weston and I went to meet his friend Laura, a student at NYU who's originally from Issaquah. She took us out to an Italian place called Pietrasanta. The food was excellent, a culinary masterpiece. I am still amazed at how good these little hole-in-the-wall restaurants can be, especially with their limited space. We shared some tiramisu for dessert, which was a definite treat.

Then it was off to our Broadway show, The Producers. Weston picked up the tickets from Will Call and we stood in line for a few minutes until they opened the doors. I was impressed by the St. James theater. It seemed very old but also quite comfortable. We had seats on the mezzanine level toward the back, but we could still see the stage very well. The show itself was amazing from start to finish. The orchestra was brilliant. It was perfectly balanced and sounded just like a recording. The actors were superb. They were fun and exciting to watch, truly masters of their craft. The singing was flawless. The songs were easy to understand and the singers never strayed off pitch. I thought The Producers was hilarious, especially with Springtime for Hitler and Carmen Ghia. It's highly likely that I'll never see such a good live performance again in my life.

When the show got out, we found ourselves in a sea of people. They were everywhere! Times Square on Friday night is crazy, especially when all of the Broadway shows get out at the same time. We said goodbye to Laura, took some more pictures of Times Square, and went to bed.