Well, I ended up catching the 10 PM flight from DC to Hartford, so with the shuttle and all, I made it to my aunt's place in Amherst, MA, around 1:30 AM. Plus, United managed to leave my suitcase behind in DC when we flew off, so I had no clothes until the next morning. Grr.
Anyway, I slept in until almost noon the next day before we headed to the airport to pick up my luggage and drive on into New Haven to meet up with my awesome friend, Rachel, so we could all take the train into New York. I'd never been to New York before (or New Haven either, I suppose), so this would be a fun trip.
We got in around early evening and ended up walking from Grand Central Station to the hotel a few blocks away. 'Twas a nice little stroll through the brisk winter wind, but the cityscape was well worth the walk.
Our fun-filled evening brought us to the Marriott Marquis, where my aunt, Rachel, and I got a little table overlooking Times Square.
Then we head to Tonic, a restaurant where my aunt's friend is a chef. Food was great as were the multiple, gigantic screens showing different sports games.
Rachel headed back home after dinner, and we ended up walking a few more blocks to Grand Central Station again.
Then my aunt and I headed back out with her friends, Paul and Sunny. It was a great first night in New York, although I'm bummed I couldn't blog about this last night. Oh well.
Today, we had Japanese food for lunch with Sunny and then in the afternoon I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
My aunt and Sunny decided to go shopping while I went through the museum. I thought I'd try and get through it quickly so I could join them in about an hour, but being the art history nut that I am, I ended up going through as much as I could. Sad news: my new camera has no memory card (yet), so I only had about 30 pictures to take...had to choose the best ones.
I started with the Greek and Roman statues...
...then headed for the European paints gallery where I saw paintings of places I've been. It's a pretty neat feeling to be like, "Hey, I've been there!" Anyway, first was Copenhagen, which I visited in June and July this year during my Humanity in Action Fellowship.
Then it was a view of Dresden, which is pretty much the same view I saw when I took a train between Berlin and Prague in August 2007.
Then it was Berlin, which I have visited twice now in 2007 and 2008. I swear I took a picture of the Tiergarten from the same spot as the painting of the left.
Then I found a painting of the view of Naples and Mt. Vesuvius, which I visited just this September. It's crazy that the view I saw looks exactly like the painting.
Then it was views in Rome with the Colosseum and Palatine Hill. Ah, good memories from August and September this year...clamoring through the Roman Forum with Steffen and Brukab.
Then I walked into the Impressionism Gallery which brought me back to the first time I went to Boston to visit my aunt, and we went to see the Monet exhibition in town. Honestly, all I remember was the Water Lilies. C'mon, I was in fifth grade. :P
After that, my art history and Western Civ nut went wild as I saw Seurat's pointillism...
...Cezanne's volumetric shapes and asymmetrical lines...I did one of my humanities art posters on Cezanne. :P
...and of course, Van Gogh.
But nothing quite made more excited than to see something extremely familiar on the wall...
I took a picture in front of these dragon-type statues from Babylon's Ishtar Gate in Berlin's Pergamon Museum. Quick flash-back to August 2007 when my Berlin study abroad program toured the Pergamon (I know, I'm such a nerd :P):
Then I visited the Assyrian gallery, which was pretty dang cool.
...before walking above the main entrance hall to head to another gallery...nice live classical music near the cafe.
I ended up walking into another European paintings gallery, but I saw two of my favorite paintings--Panini's
Ancient Rome and
Modern Rome, in which he painted a bunch of tiny little paintings and famous sculptures in Rome. Cool, huh?
Those were neat because I could actually recognize the majority of the locations and sculptures in the painting. Anyway, the last paintings I saw were some of the best...Vermeer and Rembrandt. I didn't get a picture of Vermeer's
Young Woman with a Water Jug, but I did get Rembrandt's
Self Portrait as an Old Man.
After the paintings, I headed to the European Sculptures section, which had a pretty awesome atrium.
In the back corner, I spied another art history piece, albeit a copy--Rodin's
Burghers of Calais.
By then, I had already gone through the museum for about an hour and a half, so I decided to call it a day and head out (don't worry, I actually saw more than just these pictures--I could only take a few pictures, remember?). Before I exited though, I decided to check out the Egyptian gallery, and I found one of the coolest Egyptian exhibits I've ever seen--the Temple of Dendur. It had a ring of water surrounding it!
After the museum, I met up with my aunt and Sunny again, and we headed over to Keen's Steahouse, a pretty historic steakhouse in the city. We stopped in Bryant's Park first though and got a few pictures with the Christmas tree.
Then we headed to the steakhouse, and man, the steak was deeelicious.
Dinner was incredibly filling, so we headed home, where I spent the past hour writing this blog. Blogging is a lot of fun, but it does take a while. :P After dim sum in Chinatown tomorrow, I'm going to head to Boston to spend a night with a friend and catch up with some other friends as well. I'm excited to go back to Boston; it's been a long time since I was last there.
Back to Amherst on Monday and then Seattle on Tuesday before Spokane on Wednesday. Crazy...I'll be in a different city over the next few days, but I love it. Alright, time for bed. Nice to break out the travel blog again.
It's been almost six years since we last saw each other, so it was nice to catch up. We grabbed dinner and ended up watching a rather interesting movie...Get Smart with Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway. I guess it got bad reviews, but 'twas pretty amusing.
The topic is the most interesting to me, of course, though. Still...too many good choices! Any suggestions or comments? Leave me a note. =)
