Wednesday, April 30, 2008

NYC--Day Three (part one)

We got up early on Friday and made our long journey to The Cloisters (which is in upper Manhattan). We had to change trains in the middle of Spanish Harlem, which was a bit scary because when we stepped off the the subway, there was absolutely nobody else in the station. Here we are looking frightened...haha.

Once we got there, we waited on Bonny for a little while, as she got out at the wrong stop and had to walk up a giant hill to get to us. All I have to say is: Can you hear the children? Hehehe.

The flowers around the area were absolutely gorgeous, I really wish you could take a photo of how amazing it smelled. A scratch and sniff photo. That would be awesome.

After we toured the Cloisters, we took the Subway down to the Met (the Cloisters is an extension of the Met, so you can get into both of these museums for the same price if you go on the same day). The Met was my favorite museum out of all the ones we went to. The best exhibit by far was the 19th and early 20th Century European painters. Man! It was so cool to see work by the legends in person. My favorite painters from the exhibit were Seurat (on the left) and Signac (on the right). Their work is incredible! I love the neo-impressionistic style, and French painters (imho) are the best.

Stay tuned for our encounter with the Pope, and our journey into the Village, Chinatown, and Little Italy.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

NYC - Day Two

Day Two of our NYC journey takes us to the Natural History Museum. We saw the dinosaurs, a hugantumous (thanks LT) blue whale, totem poles, the monkey exhibit--twice (ICK--thanks Carol)--and one of the Easter Island statues. Here's Carol giving the statue 'Gum Gum.'

After the museum, we met Bonny for lunch at Alice's Teacup. Its an adorable little tea/sandwich shop decorated to the gills with Alice and Wonderland paraphernalia. The tea was amazing, as were the scones. Drool!


We wondered through Central Park for awhile after that, and then made our way down to Broadway to see CHICAGO!! Our seats were on the 2nd row from the stage, and it was incredible. The scantily clad dancers (male and female) were fantastic, the singing was awesome (especially Mama-wow!). The show left us giddy and glad that we'd lucked into such amazing seats for such a cheap price. Woohoo!

After the show, we went down to Times Square and walked around for a bit, before heading back to the hotel in Newark (2 hours later). Much rest will be needed, for tomorrow, we attempt 2 museums in 1 day!!

NYC - Part One

I'm going to do this in multiple parts. One: because we did a LOT of stuff, Two: I'm at work and don't have a lot of time to write stuff, and Three: because most of you, like me, don't have a lot of time to read stuff. Short attention span. Ok? Ok.

So. NYC. It was amazing. Busy. Exciting. Fantastic. Crazy. Crowded. We had a great time, my feet hurt like hell by the end of the 2nd day and didn't stop hurting until late Sunday or Monday. We probably walked at least 5 miles a day, some days it felt more like 10. My new Reeboks really served me well, I can't imagine how badly my feet would've hurt had I been wearing my old sneakers.

We got into Newark around 11:30 on Wednesday and went to check into our hotel. We had a lovely view of the parking lot and highway (!!) but we didn't care, the only thing we planned on doing at the hotel was sleeping. We then made our way back to the airport on the shuttle, accompanied by a rather good looking British guy. We attempted to get him to travel with us (he was alone and just going to hang out in the city for the day before flying back home) to NYC, but he opted to take the Air Train instead of the bus. Oh well. Thus began our mass transit experience.Leg 1: Airport Shuttle to Newark International
Leg 2: AirLink train from P4 to Terminal A (after several days of this, we almost had the announcements memorized. USA 3000!!)
Leg 3: Bus 62 to Newark Penn Station
Leg 4: Path train to Journal Square
Leg 5: Switch Path trains to Penn Station NY

Yeah. Everyday. Twice. Most nights we didn't get back to the hotel until 2am. Next time we stay in the city.

We met up with Bonny and she showed us Times Square, we ate at Vinyls, which was a hip pan-asian/american restaurant. They had 4 bathrooms that were each decorated for different stars. Dolly Parton, Cher, Elvis, and Nelly. I went to the Dolly, it had a huge mosaic of Dolly Parton on the wall, a creepily accurate Dolly Barbie doll, and Dolly music piped in. It was awesome! We then went to the Time Warner building, saw one of the Trump buildings, and walked around Central Park. We made it an early-ish night, since we'd only had about 4 hours of sleep the night before.

To be continued...

Thursday, April 10, 2008

week from crazytown

This week has been nuts. I had the most upsetting/ridiculous/irritating conversation via AIM that I've ever had in my life (which resulted in the deletion of former 'friend' from all interweb applications). I'm trying to get everything together for my vacay to NYC, which is less than a WEEK away. We booked our hotel in Newark this morning, and I found fan-freakin-tastic 4th row seats to Chicago on Broadway for $66 apiece. I'm going to get to see my cousin and her hubby, and one of my best friends while in NYC.

I.

Cannot.

Wait.

Tonight was Artwalk downtown...it was pretty slow, at least compared to last month. I did have one lady that liked one of my photos. I've come to realize, though, that no matter how much I'd love to sell my work, just being able to have a studio to play in, and have people walk through and appreciate it all, is awesome.

Ok. Its way past my dinner time. I'm off to make breakfast for dinner (my favorite).

Its almost Friday!!