Journey mercies and tanned feet: The art of waiting

I have come to the conclusion that New York City is one of the best places to spend a summer. If you can live on PB&J (which I haven't been very good at), you can do some amazing things, spending relatively little money. NYC has it all - museums, architecture, parks, waterfront and history. You can make an event out of simply picking a section of town and walking it. The fact that there are free concerts, movies and plays, among other things, is a big plus when you are living on a very limited income in one of, if not the most, expensive cities in the world. The problem I've found with all these fabulous free things is that everyone else and their mother and their brother, want to take advantage of them, too.

This brings me me to another conclusion, one could simply wait away a summer in New York. Now, having lived in England, the home of the queue, I developed a tolerance for waiting, to an extent. However, I've found myself waiting, quite a bit in NYC this summer and with nothing to show for it.

Example 1: Shakespeare in the Park, The Merchant of Venice featuring Al Pacino. Price: Free. Picture the most amazing venue in the middle of Central Park. We arrived at 6am for the distribution of the tickets at 1pm. After waiting 7 hours, we were 28 people away from getting tickets.

Example 2: Today Show Concert series - Lady GaGa. Price: Free. The plan was to meet at Rockefeller Plaza at 6:30am. After receiving a tip via text at 1:45am that the line stretched several blocks, I made the executive decision that a 6am wait would not result in seeing (or possibly even hearing) Lady GaGa. Mission aborted.

I consider it pretty crazy to wake up before 6am to stand in a line. I mean, how many other people are crazy enough to wake up before 6am or even camp out all night for some of these things. I guess the number of crazies is proportionate to the population. Since NYC is approximately 9,000,000, I guess it makes sense that a lot of people would wait for these opportunities (Shakespeare in the Park - 500 and Lady GaGa - 18,000).

So, what have I learned from all this waiting?

1) Never underestimate others who share your same idea

2) Free things are never guaranteed even if you do invest the time.

3) Whatever time you think you should arrive to queue up, subtract 2 hours.

4) Bring food, books, activities and a lot of patience to pass the time.