NYC Birthday Trip (Part VI -- SA-Yes Charity Event & Afterparty)

After the play was over, everyone who had a ticket to Gillian's charity event for the SA-YES foundation went into the anteroom ;) There was free wine and appetizers served, and the place was packed full.

From @GillianA Twitter

And, I finally got a chance to spend some time with my girls before Gillian came out.

FRIENDS 4 LIFE!!!

Me and Jess

Me, Jess, and Sara

THE CREW

Minus Kerry...where is she?!

Jess, Max, Kay, Sofie, Sara, Lindsay, & me

Of course there were tons of XF fans at the play and charity event that night.There was one in particular that we got to hang out with (and her lovely husband) because Lindsay had told her we wanted to meet up. Her name is Corey, and she happens to also be a phenomenally talented artist who brought prints of her artwork for Gillian to see, AND GAVE SOME TO US! Please go check her out or just give her a shout to tell her how amazing her work is!

Prints of artwork by Storybycorey.tumblr.com

Soon after, Ms. Anderson herself came out to very loud applause and told us about their foundation (SA-YES) and played a video about it. You should definitely go check it out because they do amazing things to educate and prepare South African students (both those at-risk or those with economic need) for life after high school.

Before the video started, Jessica and I couldn't take the pain anymore and, well....

CRUEL INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE

DISGUISED AS FASHIONABLE FOOTWEAR

Then, she did a question and answer session and the beginning was mainly people passing her gifts they had brought for her (which she begged for them not to and instead to donate to charity...she would be auctioning them off most likely). One gift, however, was ridiculously awesome and my housemate, Kerry, got it on video. It was a huge Chewbacca doll (she loves Chewie) in a kilt. 

Then, two of my housemates were chosen to ask Gillian a question about the foundation (Sara asked if she could share the biggest success story she could remember happening, and Lindsay...OMG I don't remember what Lindsay asked, and I think it's because I was too freaked out over Gillian asking if Lindsay was standing on a box because she towered over the crowd as a 6 feet tall girl in 4" heels...lol.). Then a guy said he would donate $600 if his daughter could get a photo with Gillian and so that opened the door for others to request the same. Jess and her husband then went to go get that awesome photo op. 

While we waited for that to be over and have Jess back, I got to spend some more time with Jos and Roi and we joked about the extremely cute wine boy's attraction to our friend. But, we were starving and needed PIZZA! The next 30 minutes was spent talking about pizza places and trying to arrange for us all to go. By "us" I mean this fabulous group of people right here!

The pizza places nearby were all shut because it was after 11 on a Sunday and the group with Jos and Roi were staying in a much different area than where we were, so we reluctantly parted ways. Then as those whose cell phone was still alive mapped out pizza places, we took some photos and went went searching for "the pole".

THE INFAMOUS "POLE"

The story behind "the pole"? A fan put this amazingly awesome sticker of Gillian on a pole outside of St. Ann's and it became a "thing" for people to find and get their photo with...and eventually more people put stickers on it until it was almost completely covered. So, yeah...

Then we walked over to the place we'd been the night before, and I captured Jess and Mike being adorable.

Unfortunately, The Bridges kitchen was shut and we were STARVING, so we hailed a couple of taxis (Yeah we did!) and got it to take us to a pizza place just over the bridge. 

And, one of the people I couldn't wait to finally meet up with when I found out I would be in NYC after she moved back there, was this girl right here!!!! Tiffany came all the way out to see me after work! SO excited to have finally gotten the chance to hug her neck and catch up in person!

And then, at exactly midnight, this amazing group of people I was so blessed to have gone thru this experience with surprised me, led by Miss Sara ;)

After that we went to a couple of pubs but I was so exhausted that I literally fell asleep with my head on the table. LOL. Well, I had just turned 35 ;) 

We walked around looking for the right subway station to take us back to Brooklyn and got home around 2am. I had to say all my goodbyes that night because the next morning, I would be heading back home at 7:30.