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Day 9: NYC
We knew better but we didn’t know where else to go on the first day, so we had breakfast at the fancy-schmancy place next door. And sure enough, it was $50 for what would have cost $20 at Biscuits in Beaverton and for less food. But the décor was nice. The African waiters were arguing in the back. We never did figure out about what. They weren’t speaking English. We’d decided to take a walk around the area while we waited for Daniel and Eve to arrive. We walked up 5th Avenue and came upon St Patrick’s Cathedral. It’s quite impressive. A “Europe-level” cathedral (although it’s no Passau, but few are). We had just started having a look around inside when Daniel called so we hightailed it back to the hotel. We intended to come back for a better look at some point but we never managed it. The kids used our room to clean up (theirs wasn’t ready yet). They’d been sleeping on air mattresses at a friend’s house in Boston and looked a little the worse for wear. The hotel is definitely a step up for them.
We walked up to the Museum of Modern Art. The front door was closed off since the ground floor was having some kind of an event (and a fancy one at that). So we headed around the block to the other side. It was very busy. But overall, very good. There was really only one floor of very weird stuff (like a chair made out of what looked like penises, a can of the artist’s shit, all Duchamp pieces, etc.) Typical “why is this art” stuff you’d expect from a modern art museum. But on the other floors there were a lot of impressionists and post-impressionists (I still like Cezanne). And you can take pictures! Very unusual and nice. There are some very famous pieces there, like Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Dali’s melting clock painting. But they tended to be swarmed by people. (The Dali painting, like the Mona Lisa in Paris, was smaller than I expected). But there were a lot of other pieces I liked a lot that didn’t get quite the same attention.
We enjoyed a nice lunch at the café. Then perused the store where Marion found much to like and a $4.00 Cezanne book for me. We walked back to the hotel past Saks Fifth Avenue where we stopped for a picture or two. It was getting hot and it had been a long day so we skipped the New York Public Library where we were headed. I thought it was farther than it was. But it was only a few more blocks. Oh well. We were pretty tired (well, Marion and I were anyway).
We hung out in the room for a bit. The hotel supplied the New York Times every day which was really nice. I like doing the crossword puzzle. But back home, the Oregonian is a month behind so next month I’m going to be mad when I discover I already did the puzzle.
It took some effort to figure out where to have dinner with all our various requirements (I don’t like vegetables, Eve is vegetarian, Daniel isn’t eating carbs, etc.). We ended up at a Turkish/Mediterranean place. It was actually pretty good. But their idea of dessert and mine don’t mesh. Actually, I find that to be true in a lot of places. The English understand dessert. And the French, Germans and Italians. But beyond that, it’s dicey. And anywhere in Asia? Forget it. Marion got some kind of nut/honey thing. I don’t remember exactly. She didn’t want it all and tried to convince Daniel to eat it but he said “Mom, I can’t eat all your leftovers *and* dessert”. (He was handy that way as he grew up. We never took food home.) The Turkish coffee (that Eve had) came in a cool cup which I dutifully photographed.
We were seeing ‘Something Rotten’ tonight. The theater was on the other side of Times Square from the hotel. What a madhouse! Mobbed with people. There are lots of folks dressed up as various characters angling for getting their pictures taken for tips. Let’s just say some costumes are better than others. Some are downright scary. I don’t quite get the appeal either. But apparently many people do. Lots of people standing and gawking as you might imagine. But then in the middle of it, some guy will be wheeling a cart full of something (pipes, boxes, whatever) through the crowd trying to work. I guess it really is the center of the world.
The play was showing at the St James Theatre which is quite nice. Kind of ‘old time’. We had great seats a few rows back in the mezzanine. The top 2 or 3 rows of the mezzanine were filled with students, likely theater students, who were quite enthusiastic but in a good way. They were coming in as Eve was trying to get out to use the restroom and it was like swimming up the rapids getting through them.
It’s a fun show. There are lots of inside theater references. It gets a little goofy towards the end but we enjoyed it a lot. Christian Borle, the actor who played Shakespeare, won a Tony for his performance and it was well deserved. He was great.
Afterwards we took our lives in our hands crossing back through Times Square to get back to the hotel and I managed to avoid the ice cream man even though it looked pretty good.
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