DAY 3 - WEDNESDAY, MAY 16TH
We weren't up nearly as early as we would've liked (again), but I sort-of-on-purpose made sure to plan everything important for not-the-morning, because I'm way past the point of giving myself that much credit.
Since we weren't coming back to the hostel that night, we forked over $16 for luggage storage (two bags for two days? pretty good) and walked across Central Park (we picked a more scenic, less-frantic route this time) to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I have to throw some kudos at NYC right now, because the student prices for Met tickets are crazy affordable for how big the place is. Because we slept in a bit, we only had about an hour and a half to spend in the museum, but I still felt like the ticket price was worth it. We spent some time in the Greek/Roman/Egyptian art before trying to make our way to the European section; we got a little turned around and wound up in Musical Instruments, which wound up being my favorite part of our very brief tour.
At the back of the exhibit, there was a small strings ensemble rehearsing for an evening concert. It was special that they left the area open, even though the performers were in plainclothes and the space was pretty bland, because they were playing the most beautiful music. I wish I had recorded some of it to match with a title later, but I really just didn't think of it--I was too busy listening, I guess. I would've stayed there all day if we didn't have places to be.
And by "places to be," I definitely mean "staring at Caravaggio's The Denial of St. Peter."
The piece is more breathtaking in person than I expected it to be, and I expected it to be pretty great. Truthfully, I prefer sculptures to paintings, but I make a definite exception for Caravaggio. He's my favorite, and I especially enjoy that he was kind of a nut. (As is standard procedure for all SVU graduates, here's where I make my shout-out to Professor Crawford for giving me a love of art, and the ability to discuss it without sounding like a complete buffoon. Just half of one.)
Ricky tugged me away, finally, and we tried our hardest to leave...but we got lost. Again. After directions from two different securities guards, we finally made it out around 1:10, and started our voyage to the Gershwin Theater for a 2:00 matinee. Now, you think I would've learned by now that crossing Central Park when you're trying to get somewhere is a bad idea, but no. We crossed Central Park, again, to pick up the subway at the Natural History Museum and just take a straight shot south. Sure enough, it was 1:30 by the time we made it to the station. Since I wrote about this in my "go to a Broadway show" post, I'll just quote:
After the show, we decided that we really needed to get "I love NYC" shirts (even though I was going to have to settle for the non-Powerpuff Girl kind), so we stopped at a street vendor and bought two before heading back to the hostel to pick up my messenger bag and drop off our tourist memorabilia. We were starving at this point, since we didn't have time to grab food before the show (we may or may not have munched on Cheez-its during intermission), but we had dinner plans with one of Ricky's mission companions soon, so we decided to swing back by Tom's Diner for some hunger-satisfying-but-not-all-the-way-full milkshakes. (And for the bathroom. Obviously.)
Rob, Ricky's mission companion from his years living in Portugal, lives with his wife and adorable daughter in a high-rise apartment overlooking the river. I KNOW, RIGHT? I still can't believe the doorman (yes, the doorman) let me in looking all grubby and travel-y. Anyway, we decided to meet up with him at Grand Central Station on his commute home from work, so while we were waiting, we took a lot of pictures. I wasn't as impressed by Grand Central Station as I always imagined I would be, but the constellation-painted ceiling was lovely. (NYC has some great ceilings!)
The Apple branding everywhere made me roll my eyes. Once Rob found us (we weren't hard to miss--we were the only ones not rushing someplace), we walked the few blocks back to his apartment, making a quick detour to pick up some enormous pizzas on the way. We had a great time with Rob and Gina! Their toddler, Heidi, is totally a genius, and the pizza was delicious (I felt bad about only eating one piece, but the slices were so big!), and Rob gave us some great investment advice (he's a financial consultant). It was a lot of fun, and we were sad to go, but we took off around 10:00 to find the pick-up spot for our Boston charter bus.
It was about a 30-minute walk (we didn't dare risk the nighttime subway debacle again), but we eventually saw a huge line of people with luggage wrapped around the corner and figured that must be it. Actually, that caused a bit of a panic for me, because the bus lines between NYC and Boston tend to overbook, so there's no guarantee that you'll get a seat if you're at the end of the line. Fortunately, the line we saw was for Pittsburgh (phew!), and the Boston line was much, much shorter. So we waited...and waited...and waited some more. Our 11:10 departure time came and went, with no sign of the bus--they were still boarding the Pittsburgh group, so I figured we wouldn't leave until they did. Sure enough, right after their bus pulled out, ours came rolling up. It was a double-decker bus, and I had enough experience with those in Oxford to know that they make me super carsick, so I made sure to snatch a pair of seats on the bottom level. There weren't very many seats on the lower lever, and almost everyone was going up to the top anyway--probably because of the bus toilet being on the lower part. If only they had known! (Insert cliffhanger music here.)
To be continued...
At the back of the exhibit, there was a small strings ensemble rehearsing for an evening concert. It was special that they left the area open, even though the performers were in plainclothes and the space was pretty bland, because they were playing the most beautiful music. I wish I had recorded some of it to match with a title later, but I really just didn't think of it--I was too busy listening, I guess. I would've stayed there all day if we didn't have places to be.
And by "places to be," I definitely mean "staring at Caravaggio's The Denial of St. Peter."
The piece is more breathtaking in person than I expected it to be, and I expected it to be pretty great. Truthfully, I prefer sculptures to paintings, but I make a definite exception for Caravaggio. He's my favorite, and I especially enjoy that he was kind of a nut. (As is standard procedure for all SVU graduates, here's where I make my shout-out to Professor Crawford for giving me a love of art, and the ability to discuss it without sounding like a complete buffoon. Just half of one.)
Ricky tugged me away, finally, and we tried our hardest to leave...but we got lost. Again. After directions from two different securities guards, we finally made it out around 1:10, and started our voyage to the Gershwin Theater for a 2:00 matinee. Now, you think I would've learned by now that crossing Central Park when you're trying to get somewhere is a bad idea, but no. We crossed Central Park, again, to pick up the subway at the Natural History Museum and just take a straight shot south. Sure enough, it was 1:30 by the time we made it to the station. Since I wrote about this in my "go to a Broadway show" post, I'll just quote:
After a lot of empty threats about my getting a cab, the train finally showed up at 1:40, and I was doing all sorts of really poor math in my head to figure out when we were going to get there. Five stops at two minutes each? Maybe? Who knows! At 1:45, I'm contorting my face into various "stressed out" expressions and cursing Caravaggio for forcing us to stay late at the Met with his stupid awesome painting. 1:50--our stop! There's a mad dash (or as dash-like as you can be when you're not actually running because there may still be some people left in the city that don't know you're a tourist) up one block to 51st, where (luckily) the theater was right off the corner. Ricky and I shared a congratulatory fist bump when we took our seats at 1:55.
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| Gershwin Theater lobby |
After the show, we decided that we really needed to get "I love NYC" shirts (even though I was going to have to settle for the non-Powerpuff Girl kind), so we stopped at a street vendor and bought two before heading back to the hostel to pick up my messenger bag and drop off our tourist memorabilia. We were starving at this point, since we didn't have time to grab food before the show (we may or may not have munched on Cheez-its during intermission), but we had dinner plans with one of Ricky's mission companions soon, so we decided to swing back by Tom's Diner for some hunger-satisfying-but-not-all-the-way-full milkshakes. (And for the bathroom. Obviously.)
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| My black-and-white: chocolate and vanilla. |
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| Ricky's hazelnut. |
Rob, Ricky's mission companion from his years living in Portugal, lives with his wife and adorable daughter in a high-rise apartment overlooking the river. I KNOW, RIGHT? I still can't believe the doorman (yes, the doorman) let me in looking all grubby and travel-y. Anyway, we decided to meet up with him at Grand Central Station on his commute home from work, so while we were waiting, we took a lot of pictures. I wasn't as impressed by Grand Central Station as I always imagined I would be, but the constellation-painted ceiling was lovely. (NYC has some great ceilings!)
The Apple branding everywhere made me roll my eyes. Once Rob found us (we weren't hard to miss--we were the only ones not rushing someplace), we walked the few blocks back to his apartment, making a quick detour to pick up some enormous pizzas on the way. We had a great time with Rob and Gina
It was about a 30-minute walk (we didn't dare risk the nighttime subway debacle again), but we eventually saw a huge line of people with luggage wrapped around the corner and figured that must be it. Actually, that caused a bit of a panic for me, because the bus lines between NYC and Boston tend to overbook, so there's no guarantee that you'll get a seat if you're at the end of the line. Fortunately, the line we saw was for Pittsburgh (phew!), and the Boston line was much, much shorter. So we waited...and waited...and waited some more. Our 11:10 departure time came and went, with no sign of the bus--they were still boarding the Pittsburgh group, so I figured we wouldn't leave until they did. Sure enough, right after their bus pulled out, ours came rolling up. It was a double-decker bus, and I had enough experience with those in Oxford to know that they make me super carsick, so I made sure to snatch a pair of seats on the bottom level. There weren't very many seats on the lower lever, and almost everyone was going up to the top anyway--probably because of the bus toilet being on the lower part. If only they had known! (Insert cliffhanger music here.)
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| iPod camera, you are NOT good. |
To be continued...
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