a very quick trip to England

Never can tell where I'll show up when you don't hear from me for a few days, eh?

I got to Brooklyn Wednesday night to stay with Heather, who was to accompany me to a Colbert Report taping last night. We caught up over some asparagus and later, beers. She took Thursday off so we wandered around the city, into Manhattan. At one point my mom called and asked, "Where are you?" which seems to be a bit of a trend in my life. She was calling because there were tornado warnings all over NJ, particularly near camp. I was not near camp and it seems the tornadoes didn't end up being near camp, either, but still, I'm amused when people ask where I am.

Heather and I met up with Taylor and Alison at Penn Station in the afternoon. Alison had scored tickets to Colbert, who is her hero and #1 crush of the universe, and we were all excited to go. We headed up town to find his studio and scope out meal options. Lunch: Empanada Mama. Really, really delicious.

So from there to England. Colbert was in England for the royal wedding! The taping was really fun. Stephen Colbert came out ahead of the show and did a question and answer session as himself, not in character. He strikes me as a really nice man, and definitely funny. Alison in all of her awesomeness asked him if he'd sing Happy Birthday to Taylor (it was, in fact, his birthday). Colbert said no but sang Billy Joel's "Vienna" after having a brief conversation with Taylor and learning that's where in Virginia he lives. It was really cool.

The show itself was a pretty silly episode. You can see us at about 1:09 as the camera pans across the audience. We were sitting in the third row, all the way to the left facing the audience. Alison is in the corner, wearing purple, then Heather in black, Taylor in bright green and me in light blue. Colbert actually flubbed the first line of the intro by pointing over the wrong shoulder to Big Ben, so the entire show really started off with the giggles. The second take took, but there were many other laughs throughout. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed watching the final product to see what they changed and how they covered cuts. Of course Stephen Colbert made no mistakes... but if he had, he would have told us not that as long as no one blogged about it, everyone would buy into the magic of TV and no one would know he made mistakes.

After the show, we had sushi at Hanami Japanese Cuisine before heading back to Penn Station, New Brunswick (where I'd left my car), and northern Virginia. What can I say? I cover a lot of ground.