Riverdance and Timing Belts Part 1

Saturday, after class, Shannon and I packed up the car and drove up to Topeka. We had tickets to go watch Riverdance (like the actual Riverdance!!) with Jenette and Chris and Newgen and Andrea. The plan was to meet at Red Lobster for a nice dinner, then head over to the show.

Well, Shannon and I payed the 8.10$ toll (jeepers) at the south end of Topeka, and then we tried to leave. But no, our car just died on us, at the toll booth. It just wouldn't start. So, Shannon pushed the car to the toll booth parking lot while the attendant stopped traffic. Then we called Jenette and Chris, they were about 8 minutes away. They came and picked us up and we headed to Red Lobster.

After finally finding a parking spot, we actually got seated pretty quick. But, still we've just taken over 15 minutes away from an already pretty tight schedule. Shortly, Newgen and Andrea arrived and we had the fastest trip to Red Lobster ever, about 45 minutes total.

Now, off to Riverdance! We got there about 8 minutes before the show started and walked very briskly into the center. Jenette and I peed, and then the six of us when up to our seats in the balcony. We got there, sat down and were immediately disappointed.

I mean immediately!

You could only see like 30% of the stage! No lie! There was this giant wall for the level below us overing more than half the stage! So, the 6 of us tried to move down and ovet to get a better view. Which helped a little, now we could see about 50% of the stage, still absolutely ridiculous! After the show started, but during one act, Chris when to to tell them how lousy it was and get our seats fixed. They said they couldn't

Then a little later, during the show, Jenette (I should add, the entire reason for this trip is because it's a Christmas present for Jenette from Chris) went to tell them about it, and it may have been the tears and runny make-up, but she recieved a different outcome. They told her that they couldn't reseat us during the show. But we could move seats now and then come down during intermission and they would try to move us to a better location. So, we all squished down and over some more. Jenette, Chris, and I got seats to see about 75% of the stage. Newgen and Andrea sat in the aisle to see more of it. It was crummy, and for 50$ a ticket it was just wrong.

The dancing was great. It's really impressive what they can do with their feet. But there was one act where all we could see was the projector and hear some music. Then a violin player appeared. Apparently he'd been playing the entire time, we just couldn't see him! Geez.

Then intermission came. The six of us wandered down to find the woman Jenette was told to meet. She was polite and worked with some other workers and they found us new seats! For the second half of the show, Shannon, Newgen, Andrea, and I sat in the second row right in front on the floor! Jenette and Chris were about 2 rows behind us. WOW! What a difference!

You could see the entire stage, you could see the looks on the dancers faces, you could see all of the red dancer. And you know what, there was live music! In that corner that we couldn't see there were about 6 musicians playing wonderful music the entire time! It was even more amazing.

So, it ended okay, but is sucks that Jenette and Chris had to deal with that...

Well, now that the show is over, we still have the issue of our car. But this post is really long already, so I'll have to write it up later.