Last night in the Big Apple

Tuesday was our last full day in New York but it was also THE day that we came for…you'll see why in the end.

Our day started at the Morgan Library Museum.

I think every house should have a library like this.  Why don't I have a library like this?

They had 2 exhibits going on - Hemingway between the wars and Matisse.  The Hemingway exhibit had a horrible chemical smell.  Glue?  Paint?  Were brain cells killed? Nose hairs singed? It was not a scratch and sniff exhibit so I don't know what was going on.

Back out on the street. Fresh air!!

Iconic sights.

We split into two groups for the afternoon.  Dawn and I had a truly lovely lunch at a cafe in the west village.  So civilized.  Every day should be like this.  It really should.

When we regrouped, it was time to head to our evening plans.

Our star attraction was….David Mitchell!!  (I'm sure some of you got excited when you saw Jon Hamm on the poster….if only we'd known to come here the night before.  Anyway, sorry, but it's an author evening.)

Dawn had the connections to get us into the green room before the event.  And it really was green!!

We were so excited just to be alone in the green room that we started snapping pics.  I should mention that we picked up a friend on the way in - Xtian (His name is really Christian but since he spells it Xtian on FB that is how I think of him.  I pronounce it Ex-tian in my head.)

Then David's editor and publicist came in and got into the act with the selfies.

I think they were impressed that David had such hot groupies.

And finally - the man himself!!!  I think he was surprised to have such hot groupies as well.  I was dumb struck and could barely string two intelligent words together.  We reminisced about the two signings I went to in London (well, I reminisced and he said he was sure it was nice) and the professional photographer took some shots of us all together so who knows what press pack we might end up in.

Then we went to our seats (front row) and met up with our other Booktopian pals.  

Can I just call out how amazing it is that Booktopian friends are everywhere?  

5 years ago I had never met any of these people  - now we just post on Facebook that there is an author event and you wind up surrounded by a group of kindred spirits.

After the longest signing line in history (you'd think we'd have gotten our books signed in the green room - but no) we made it to the mexican restaurant with only minutes to spare before the kitchen shut down.  We didn't even order - we just said to bring out food for nine hungry people so they did.

I asked the waiter to take our picture - he obviously didn't realize my phone is set permanently to "selfie".

I do love reliving this on the blog.  A great night with great people.