US here we come

This is continuing the post about our final weekend in NYC. I’ll add some photos later, when we’re free from the need to pay 50 cents per minute for internet at the hotel. (If our laptop was working, it’d be free wireless high-speed connection in our room).

Despite getting to bed around 2.00 in the morning, I was wide awake and out of bed around 7.00. This is a life-long condition of mine – no matter how late I go to bed, I’m always up early. Wide awake.

Sunday 18th was our last full day in NYC so we were keen to make the most of it and that meant going to the Metropolirtan Museum of Art, on Central Park. I’ll leave it to Joan to fill in the details of this magnificent institution, as it was very high on her priorities.

At first we went to the Guggenheim but it is being renovated and the wonderful design by Frank Lloyd Wright was concealed by tarp and scaffolding. We kept walking till we reached the Met on 5th Avenue, the exclusive upper east-side. You could spend a full week in the Met and still be awe-struck and wandering around the finest examples of various civilisations. It’s just stunning. I like modern art and stood close to works by Leger, Picasso, Dali and Matisse like I could never in Australia – also, while the building was crowded, the indiivdual galleries were large and so you weren’t ever cramped or rushed.

On leaving the Met in the late afternoon, it was drizzling rain outside and we went quickly to a subway station, but stopped at a deli in this very wealthy part of NYC. The deli had exquisite offerings. I can’t imagine what it must be like being a multi-millionaire living on this side of town.

On the subway, we became confused – or rather, I did – when we had to change lines at Grand Central station (itself another magnificent building). We ended up on the wrong train but even this was a good thing as we were heading to Brooklyn and from the train window we saw the vast warehouses covered in graffitti, known as the graffitti living museum. Anyway, we made it back to W42nd Street, or ‘home’ as we were calling it by now.

I wanted to ‘chill’ for the evening but the irrepressible Joan was considering the idea of going to the Empire State Building, which we could see from our hotel window. However, Hannah and Joey and I won the day and we stayed ‘home’ to recuperate from a full day of walking and adventure.

Yesterday I mentioned how I’d dropped off the laundry on Saturday morning. Well, we experienced our first case of losing something when I went to collect it on Sunday. Two of my shirts were missing – and there was a white vest belonging to someone else. We returned the vest but the shirts had simply gone – luckily they are old ones. Perhaps they have been returned – we can’t know as we left NYC on Monday 19th for San Francisco.

I’m writing this from Frisco. We’re all in love with this Bay city. It’s the best. We must come back one day. When I leave here, I’ll really be leaving my heart in San Francisco.

Will write again, and post some photos to exisiting reports.

Barry

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 11:07 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.