Back from New York and my feet hurt
My flight arrived on time Wednesday, and I was at the steps of the Guggenheim as it opened. Unfortunately, it didn't actually open as they were setting up the Kandinsky exhibit and the galleries weren't open. I decided to walk across Central Park to the American Museum of Natural History. Of course, I got lost, but I did see Cleopatra's Needle, and the boat house, and the statue of the polish king, and tavern on the green, and a bunch of other stuff. Eventually I made it to the museum. The planetarium was good, but the highlight of the museum is the top floor, devoted to dinosaurs. It is huge and light and airy, and filled with the most amazing fossils. I skipped the stuffed elephant room, and the stuffed fish room, and some of the American indian exhibits. I did spend a chunk of time on the Indians of the northwest as I studied them a lot in college. They had amazing "stuff" but the light was so dim to preserve them that it was hard to see.
Then it was off to the Museum of Modern Art, which was incredibly crowded. I saw Monet's Water Lillies. I had no idea how big it was, 3 giant room-sized canvases. It was lovely, but I preferred his Agapanthas, which I had not seen before. And then I turned a corner and was face-to-canvas with Starry Knights. Too cool! I've never been a big modern art fan so there was a lot of MOMA that left me cold. But the special exhibit by James Ensor was wonderful. I was totally unfamiliar with his work and I loved it. Clear bold colors with delicate details, a sense of motion and life. Really really liked it.
I was both amused and appalled as I checked into my hotel. I walked into the lobby to be greeted by a big sign "Welcome MIS Institute Auditors training." I can't get away from those guys anywhere!
I had a late dinner and wandered around Grand Central Station. But I was happy to go to bed. It had been a very early day.
Day 2 began with rain. And what else do you do on a rainy day but shop? After all those Thanksgiving Day parades, I wanted to see Macy's and Heralds Square. I ended up buying a great black dress. They had an entire floor of shoes. An entire floor!!!! But I was afraid my feet might be swollen from all the walking and didn't dare buy anything. Lunch was a quick bowl of soup at an organic place across the street, followed by a cross-town bus to the pier. The sun had come out, so I purchased a ticket for the harbor tour on the Circle Line. I had an hour to kill, so I walked over to the USS Intrepid museum. I wish I'd had more time there. I was able to go thru the ship but did not have enough time to tour the submarine or the Concorde. The ship was impressive. Rarely do you see something that big built for one single purpose. Impressive engineering, and the history in it - somehow it made me want to cry. Then back for the harbor tour. I was very happy to sit down for a while! The close-up view of the Statue of Liberty, the holes of the World Trade Center, the Brooklyn bridge. Way cool. In a weird way, that day was like a summary of what it means to be an urban American - shopping, subways, war boats, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty.
That night I decided to go to Aquavit. My trip research had described it as one of the best restaurants in town and close to my hotel, but dedicated to Scandinavian food. Now, Scandinavia is not known as a foodie mecca. And the menus on their website were suspiciously dedicated to herring. But the more I thought about it, the more I decided I wanted to try it. I've expanded so many mental barriers this year, why not one more? I began with a herring sampler - herring created 4 different ways. They were surprisingly good, but also very strongly flavored. I also had the aquavit sampler - caraway, horseradish and lingonberry. The caraway was good. The lingonberry was wonderful. The horseradish was just plain odd. Ten there was some grav lax. I'm sure it was very good grav lax. Probably even excellent grav lax. But you can have my share next time, so you can enjoy it yourself. I don't want to be selfish. My main course was bacon-wrapped venison loin on dumplings with mustard greens and lingonberries. OMG good. The waiter had guided my choices and we'd chatted throughout the meal. He decided I needed to try a fourth aquavit called "leenya" or something like that, and brought me a shot as a gift. It was flavored with caraway and anise, and is packed into casks and shipped twice around the equator. It's not considered "done" until it's done that trip twice. It was very smooth, very tasty. I've never been a huge anise or caraway fan, but it was good. Then desert, a goat cheese parfait filled with mango curd, with a side blueberry sorbet. You could not tell the parfait was made with cheese - it seemed more like a very rich, creamy ice cream. The flavors and colors were amazing together. It was really a great meal - flavors and textures I've never had mixed that way before. But I was very full and very tired, and quite ready to go to bed.
Friday I was at the Guggenheim half an hour before it opened. This was opening day of the Kandinsky exibit, and the line went nearly around the block by the time it opened. I was maybe 10th in line, and with my corporate membership, was the first person to actually head up the ramp into the exhibit. This was wonderful as it meant I got to see nearly the entire thing with no one around. I was surprised by how much I liked some of his work, especially his improvisations during his Munich period. His later stuff I didn't like so much - darker and more pointed, formal and controlled. The museum is as beautiful and cool as it looks. The architecture is a great contrast to the rest of NYC.
Then I headed down the street to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I'd spent a day in there once before, so I planned to just hit a couple of highlights. I saw the special exhibit on art in Afghanistan. Then I headed to my favorite, the Temple of Dendur. On the way, I passed thru the art of Ceylon. All the people in the statues are smiling. It had never occured to me how rare that is, until I saw all these ancient statues and the smiles stuck out. They looked happy. How wonderful to dedicate art to happy gods! Parts of the Egyptian exhibit have been redone to be better organized and displayed. I liked it a lot. And the Temple of Dendur is wonderful. I love reading the names of Legionairres and 1800s explorers carved into the walls as much as looking at the hieroglyphics. It gives you quite a sense of time passing to think of its creation and all the people who saw it over the centuries and left their mark on it.
Soho was my destination next. I got a little turned around and ended up in Little Italy where some sort of street festival was going on. It was mostly about "food on a stick" being fried up in little boothes. I got myself reoriented and wandered the shops. There was some beautiful stuff and some hideous stuff. It was very funny to see Patagonia so close to Armani. Talk about things that don't go together! About 5 pm I hit a wall of exhaustion and just couldn't go any more. No energy. I'd planned to spend more time in Times Square that night, but I just couldn't do it. I had a simple dinner and a shower, and crawled into bed where I was too tired to fall asleep.
Saturday morning, I only had a few hours before my plane left. I walked the five blocks to St Patricks Cathedral, just as mass was starting. It was a special mass dedicated to the German heritage parade which would start from there as soon as mass was done. Lots of bad fake-landsknecht, women in pseudo-Victorian mourning gowns, and hats with billions of feathers on them. Also men in lederhosen carrying tubas. The cathedral is much friendlier somehow than the National Cathedral in DC, but very beautiful. After mass, I wandered through Saks and up and down the shops of Fifth Ave. Cartier had beautiful things dedicated to expensive conspicuous consumption. There were shoes I lusted for in Feragamo and some beautiful draped jackets that I wish I had $500 for. The people in this area of town were fascinating. You could tell the "fashionista" from the tourists very clearly.
In New York in general, people were thinner than I see in other cities. I think it is the subway effect. Many people will take the subway everywhere, which means they do a lot more walking on average compared to the rest of the country as they walk a few blocks to and from the subway and their destinations. That's got to have an effect. But you could also see the effect of it being such a fashion capital. Lots more beautifully dressed people, which perhaps made the ones not so beautifully dressed stick out. Let's just say I now understand why "What Not To Wear" is based in NYC.
I am home today and still exhausted. I need to go to the grocery store and do laundry, but I'm not sure I have the energy. What a trip!