The One Savage: Two Dames in NY: Rachel and Sarah Take Manhattan

Last fall, Rachel, Aubrey, and I caught a showing of the brand-new Newsies musical at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Milburn, NJ. The show was awesome, so when we learned that it made it two Broadway this spring, we knew we'd have to go see that, too.

Seeing Newsies finally make it to Broadway was great. The show has some fairly noticeable changes from the movie, but I think they are mostly good changes. They got rid of the Sarah character and created a new and more interesting love interest for Jack. They also replaced Denton (and totally got rid of "Patrick's Mother", unfortunately....UPDATE: WHAT?!). Other than that, the changes were mostly to do with added songs or altered/expanded lyrics to the existing songs and a few plot twists. Expanded songs is a good thing, but I admit that I miss some of the original lyrics. I was also sad to see that Spot Conlon played less of a role :(

In any case, our show wasn't until Saturday night, so we had to find a way to spend the rest of Fri.-Sun.. The obvious solution: Sabon. As soon as we realized this, our Newsies-motivated weekend trip to NYC turned into something much more...epic.

Sabon has always been a favorite stop of mine when in the city, mainly because the free hand-washing is a germaphobe's dream. Plus, their products are wonderful. With a little research, Rachel and I discovered that there are seven Sabons in Manhattan. This seemed like the perfect challenge. We set ourselves the goal of visiting every location. This was easy, since Sabon is everywhere I want to be. The hunt really led us around quite a few neighborhoods and gave us the perfect opportunity to stop at other important destinations.

Getting a luxurious hand-wash at each location was tougher, since it's really a "tradition" for first-time visitors. How many times can you wander innocently across a magical new place called Sabon and sit patiently through an explanation of the benefits of the Dead Sea salt scrub? We did it at every one, and managed to be curious and impressed every time. And our hands were really smooth and nice-smelling all weekend. My new favorite scent is definitely the Delicate Jasmine.

Also, we bought a lot of nice-smelling products. (And got some free samples, too!) All-in-all, it was worth the effort. Definitely a different way to explore the city.

In our minimal down time, we enjoyed the comfort of Harlem's trendiest club: the lobby of the Aloft hotel, complete with packed bar, billiards, and DJ. We also discovered the wonderful David's Tea and visited the semi-creepy Obscura.