Oh what beautiful morning oh what a beautiful day, I have a beautiful feeling, everything’s going my way!

Back down to the subway!

I guess I can take this moment to express our feelings about the subway. First, Metro cards are freeking amazing. Seriously, they are such a great deal, unless you are paying ride per ride. $30 bucks each and we have unlimited rides for a week on any bus, subway or shuttle we can imagine. If I lived here I would just sell our car, buy a couple of folding bikes with the money, and ride on the subway.

Now having said that there are some drawbacks to public transit as well. The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that, at least during the time we were there, it was like a blazing sweaty humid inferno down there. And the lower you traveled, the hotter it seemed to get. Karl joked it was because we were getting closer to the center of the earth. Funny. No mostly it was because the lower you got the less ventilation there was. When we were out in China town we we had to take three very long and steep escalators to get down to our platform. I had no idea that there were so many layers of train all stacked up on one another.

Today we weren’t going too far:



We took the A train to 81st street, got on a cross town bus that road us across Central Park and dropped us off:

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art



First fun fact:

Did you know that this museum is actually IN Central Park? Yes it faces the street, but the building is in Central Park. We passed it on our epic bike ride yesterday. We were both puzzled as to what it could be. We found out.

We are huge How I Met Your Mother fans, and the character Ted is always talking about this place. Although he never names it. They just show shots of the building. So we were excited to see what all the fuss was about.

Just as a heads up, Ted was right. This place was AMAZING!

We started in Ancient Roman Art.

Just walking into this room was completely overwhelming. Karl, who generally mocks art, and is constantly looking for ways to make fun of it was speechless. His first comment after moments of silence was, “I didn’t even know this much Ancient Roman art still existed in the the world, let alone all in one place.”

This one’s for Zac Whitmore. He knows what we are talking about.

Some kind of old Saint?

The detail…



In my World Civ class in college my teacher said that we were constantly finding that civilizations were “much more advanced than we previously thought.” Maybe that was what was so breath taking. It all seemed so new, so modern, yet it was all thousands of years old. BC stuff.

My ancestors left me an awesome nose.



This was cool. I have a picture just like this one, next to a head just like this one in Albania. Except the head in Albania is WAY bigger.



Man (Zeus actually)

Woman.



There were artifacts of every kind from ancient coffins with amaznig detail:

to Ancient Roman, Door Knockers. 😉



Perseus Slays Medusa. I have seen pictures of this one all my life.

Ugolino della Gherardesca and his Children

From Dante’s Inferno.

He was a traitor to Italy, and he was in the second ring of hell to pay for it. So starving his children, who were also there for some reason, begged him to eat them.

Very emotional, and powerful. We spent a bunch of time here. I love this staue of this woman below. I have been her so often this last little while.

These statues were actually in a gallery that connected us to another portion of the Museum, European art.

This makes me think of my mom, for some reason.



This portion of the Museum was as Karl put it, “an engineering and architectural feat” They had whole victorian style houses IN the museum. With original walls, and floors, and everything.



Check out this room. Amazing! There were whole stone terraces, and a little farther down the way:

The sculture is awesome, but the gate behind it was actually moved here from Italy I think! Just the SCALE of this place, the things they have in one collection.

We moved on into gothic styles.

We found ourselves at some stairs that said, “Modern art” and ran smack into another Picasso:

And this one, which Karl immediately declared his favorite painting.



I think that modern art can either be super accesible, or really incomprehensible.

This group of youth, considering this bike part sculpture.

I seriously wanted to sit down on the bench.



Then we found some interactive art, and spent a while here:











And one together now:



Then we found Vincent again.



“it looks like uncle Marshall”



This painting is so much better up close.

This one makes me think of my Mom too.

This is a copy I think.



Still very beautiful.

Karl said he didn’t like Impressionist paintings all that much. I do though.

But honestly, not as much as lanscapes. That is something that I discovered about myself on this trip. I LOVE LANSCAPES. Like this one:



Heroic Landscape with Rainbow

by Joseph Anton Koch (German, Obergibeln bei Elbigenalp 1768–1839 Rome)

The colors, and the perspective. It is like being outdoors, but inside warm and safe.

At this point we were getting really beat. We started on our way out, the realized that we miss a whole section.

Egypt.

We are both really glad we took another look, because if we were astounded by what Rome had to offer, Egypt gave, and then some.

Like this actual Egyptian structure, that somehow is inside a building in New York:



You got to walk around in it.



Then there is of course:



Also, on I Am Legend it showed him fishing in this pond, but there were no fish to be seen here.





It was at this point that Karl all of the sudden got really obsessed about seeing a mummy.

Close. There is a body in there.



And in here:



We left, entirely satisfied with our experience. It was the first place we have been that both of us said, if we came back to New York, we would definitely do that again. It is the kind of place that is best to have a membership to. You can just go and experience it if you are blue, or if you just need a break. Seriously so cool.

Outside of the Met, I bought some scarves. The museum gift shop solt t-shirts for $59, so I passed and got these instead.



We walked a few blocks and found ourselves here:



The Guggenheim

From inside:



This was the first place that was strictly no pictures. From top to bottom, it is one comprehensive statement. It isn’t a collection of different art, it is art itself. The current exhibit was Lee Ufan, Making Infinity.

Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity

Check out the link if you are interested. It really makes the whole thing make more sense, and it shows most of the images from the exhibit.

The idea is this Korean man’s idea of mand connection between himself and surroundings.

It was very modern.

We found this sweet Frank Lloyd Wright Reading room.

I found a book,



I am in the Guggenheim reading about the Guggenheim!



Karl Reading, right before a lady yelled at my for taking a picture.



Down in the gift shop, Karl found a block friend.



Karl eating a Gyro out side.



Me looking at terrible art, and eating a Kanish. Which was terrible by the way. It tasted like ketchup and curry.



Our hearts and minds full of art and culture we made out way to the Financial district to get on a clipper.

Yes that is a little boat. There is this random little marina there, and our New York Pass had this place on it. We have never been on this type of sail boat together, and it seemed like a romantic kind of anniversary thing to do together.

Back onto the Hudson we go! We headed out to the bay again.



Our first daytime view of the Satue of liberty. We decided not to take the trip to the Island. This was better. A guy served us drinks, and we let the cool breeze wash over us.



My foot had been killing me all day, still I couldn’t resist getting up to the front of the boat!







There were only about 25 of us on board. It was nice, peaceful and quiet.









Ellis Island. The Golden Gateway or Island of Tears.



I smell a Christmas Card.

We left the boat, and were walking again. On our way back to midtown we passed the World Trade Center construction site, and say a picture of the “artificially lite waterfalls.”

The square in the middle is a dry area where victims families can go an remember their loved ones. According to our water taxi tour guide. She was a certified tour guide.

Once we were back in midtown, we went where I have been wanting to go since we decided to take this trip:

The Empire State Building.



This building is famous for it’s beautiful architecture and art deco feel, and for CRAZY long lines to get to the top. We came at a good time, right as people were starting to go to dinner. So we only waited an hour to get to the top.

Me made a little detour on our way up to the New York Sky Ride:

Here is how it was advertized:



This is what it was actually like:

This thing needs a serious upgrade. It was laughable. If it wasn’t part of our pass, I would have passed. Still, it makes a great story.

We got back in line for another half hour, and then:

We were at the top.



It was not like it looked in the movies. It is way smaller for starters.



We found a part in the crowd and got to take in another New York Sunset.



I love Karl.







The Chrysler building.

More views of the city.

After years of wishing, months of anticipation, and hours of waiting in line, we did it. We made it to the top. After 20 min of walking around, we were ready to go.



It started to get so crowded that walking was a luxury that many could not expect.



After that we went shopping! We visited H&M for the fist time, and both got some sweet new looks. Then we visited Macy’s. The worlds largest store.



At first glace it was just like the Macy’s in Utah.

Then we saw the Escalators, they were made of wood!



We took them 8 floors up and then 8 floors down again.



It turned out it was just like any other Macy’s, just freaking enormous.

It was 9:00 at this point and we were starving. In an effort to try and find an Albanian place we accidentally found this cute little French place instead.

It was called Serge’s and it was named after it’s owner and chef, Serge.

He was French, and was not going to apologize for it.

I ordered Mussels and Karl got pasta.



There was delicious bread, and I had a Creme Caramel for dessert.

Other highlights:

They thought we were weird when we didn’t order coffee or wine.

Serge greeted us as we came in, told us the specials, helped us order, and asked us where we were from. When we told him Utah, he had no idea, so we said it was near Las Vegas. He said that he went there last year and was not that impressed. The only thing that he liked about it was that he was “a cigar smoker.” That he could smoke a cigar where ever he wanted.



We were totally beat.



We walked home and CRASHED!