The second day of hard-core touristiness has really taken a toll. I feel like I've been hit by a truck: my feet hurt, my ankles hurt, my head hurts.... but we're going to keep on powering through. Day 6 / Thursday is the last day we have the passes, so we're going to try to fit in the Natural History museum, the Top of the Rock and MoMA, and hopefully Strawberry Fields and the Dakota.




Yesterday we hit the town early (for us) and took in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This place is ginormous! We didn't even make a dent in it. A lot of the installations are actually built into the museums structure. A Greek temple entrance or at least a section of it may lead into an adjoining room. Even whole 17th century French palace rooms have been pieced back together. We started with early Roman and Greek art:

The Greek column behind Laurie was originally from a temple.

G and his main man Socrates

My main man.... ahhhhhh!

Then we made our way to Oceania, then Modern Art, then Baroque/Renaissance:

These were masks originally used by tribes that inhabited what is now Australia.

There was a somewhat tiny but interesting installation on modern furniture design. I really liked this lamp.

Some rich bastard once lived in this room.

Finally we ended up in Egypt:




Post-Met we walked a few blocks uptown to the Guggenheim. They didn't allow photos past the ground floor, which was fine with me because I found the exhibit a bit boring. I was mostly there for the architecture.

"Come for the architecture and maybe look at the art," is possibly the best way to explain the Guggenheim. The exhibit that was on was entitled Beyond Infinity, but I think Beyond Bullshit would have been more appropriate. Thankfully the Guggenheim also had a collection of Kandinsky (one of my favourite artists) on display, which really made up for the main exhibit.




After the Guggenheim we made our way to Grand Central Station, which is huge and so packed full of people (remember, I don't like crowds).


Then we made our way to the Top of the Rock, but due to line we wouldn't make it up in time for sunset, so we bought our tickets for Thursday instead and went to the Empire State Building observatory.


There were so. many. lines. And this was at 8, 9 at night. It was ridiculous! And once we got out to the observatory deck, it was so crammed with people that you could barely see anything anyway. It wasn't my favourite part of the trip, that's for sure. But I did appreciate the view and the building itself.

So impressed

The lobby was gorgeous and I couldn't imagine having to build it without any of the construction safety features we have today. I tend to get a little bit of vertigo (I'm not scared of heights - I'm scared of somehow falling off them) so I could only imagine what it was like building the thing.
I would probably never recommend the Empire State Building to anybody visiting NYC, unless of course they're willing to buy the super expensive express tickets that go to the higher observation deck.

By the time we were done I was just grumpy and sleepy and wanted to go home! Now today we're off again, but Friday and Saturday promise to be a little slower and relaxing (I hope!)

Until tomorrow,
Laurie and Garret