I really am sorry these are so long. When I try to be brief I feel like I%26#39;ve lost all sense of what it was really like to be there and I%26#39;m writing a report for myself more than anything. Selfish, but true.
Friday
January 5, 2007
We had a nice lie in after our late night and spent most of the morning pottering around straightening out the huge mess we%26#39;d made of our stuff the day before. The first thing I did was pack away those horrid high heels, won%26#39;t be using those again. Nope, no matter how much better they make my rear end look. Found a pair of dirty unmentionables in the toiletries bag, yuck. I also got to watch the news for the first time in days. I love watching the local broadcasts when we travel. My favorite one was in Japan where they showed a feature on how to keep your laundry from getting mildewed. (I guess that%26#39;s what it was about. I don%26#39;t speak Japanese, but the visuals were pretty explicit.) New York news is surprisingly like that of Baton Rouge, just on a grander scale. The weatherman says it%26#39;s supposed to be rainy today, but still way too warm for this time of the year. Ski resorts all over the East are having a lousy winter. A bunch of locals are interviewed about global warming. (They%26#39;re all very concerned.) I began to feel a little guilty about enjoying the lovely day yesterday. Oh, and the morning news people on the local Fox channel are all extremely silly.
Since it%26#39;s rainy out we decide to indulge in a little culture and visit the Met. I%26#39;m all excited, Scott not so much so. I love museums, any kind. In my youth I worked in the archives of an historical collection. I was also a tour guide in an historic home. Put me in the right part of any museum and I can wax dull for hours. As a result no one in my family is an enthusiastic museum goer. One reason that Scott is less than thrilled with my travel choices is that I have a tendency to abandon him in an endless series of museum cafes and gift shops while I disappear for hours into the bowels of the British Museum or the Louvre or Ripley%26#39;s Believe It or Not. For the record one of my favorite museums in the whole world is the Frick, but they don%26#39;t have anywhere for me to park Scott so it%26#39;s off to the Met.
We get to take a numbered subway train today and we%26#39;ve got a choice. Looks like the 4, 5 or the 6 trains will all get us up in the vicinity of the Met. Now we just have to find one of them. This time we%26#39;ve got a good map. One of those big folding ones that we can actually read. Off to the 53rd St. station where we almost make the fatal error of boarding the E train which would have swept us willy-nilly off to Queens. I know you native New Yorkers have seen people like us. The ones who jump onto a train without looking and then frantically have to push their way out when they realize what they%26#39;ve done. (Note to the novice: Always pay attention to the name of your train. If you don%26#39;t you may find yourself a long ways away from where you expected to be, Queens for instance.) After a short round of ';Which Way Now'; at the Lexington Avenue station we find our uptown train and fetch up at 77th Street in the Upper East Side. Since it%26#39;s my turn to navigate I take the easy way out and try to stop one of the many guys-in-suits rushing past and ask the way. This guy-in-suit never breaks his stride, just points Met-ward and keeps on walking. Even so, I like this part of town a lot better than I expected to. For some reason I thought it was all high rise apartment buildings like you see on The Jeffersons but there are some really lovely old homes here.
Into the Met where we pick up a schedule and yet another map. New York is a city of maps. Before our next vacation at least one of us needs to go to map school. The schedule looks more promising. There%26#39;s a highlights tour starting in five minutes just a few feet from where we%26#39;re standing, no navigational skills necessary. That%26#39;s our huckleberry.
Our tour guide is extremely elegant. Her clothes fit her the way they do in magazines and she%26#39;s wearing heels. I%26#39;m impressed already. You never know what you%26#39;re going to get in a tour guide. When I gave tours I tended to concentrate on gossip, scandal and the more sensational aspects of plantation life. Some of our guides were ';furniture'; people, some political buffs. The last tour I took at the Met was conducted by an antiquities fan. I was hoping for something more artsy this time.
We started out with a couple of Madonnas in the Medieval section. Scott surprised me by really enjoying one of them. She was rather lovely, what I saw of her. I%26#39;m just too short to see above the head of anyone over the age of nine and too meek to push my way to the front. It took me both Madonnas and a Bruegel before I hit on a system of just standing behind the guide to listen to her story and then waiting for everyone to move on before I viewed the piece. The problem with this was that I tended to lose the group on occasion. I%26#39;m just not good with tours.
My favorites were the 17th century European pictures. For me this is what art is all about and the guide stopped at one of my very favorite paintings, Velazquez%26#39;s Juan de Pareja. If you ever get a chance to stop by and see it please do. Take good look at the dignity in the carriage and the eyes of this Moorish servant. You don%26#39;t have to know anything at all about art to see that Velazquez liked this guy. If you have any doubt at all look at his portrait of Philip IV across the way. There%26#39;s also a picture of poor little Maria Theresa who grew up to marry Louis XIV only to watch him chase after pretty much every female in France except for her. She was very religious and cried a lot. (I know, blah, blah, blah. That%26#39;s why nobody goes to museums with me.) Kudos to the guide for including Senor de Pareja, even if she did skip the Vermeers.
I got a little carried away at the Rembrandts and lost the tour for a bit. Our guide was surprisingly fast for such a petite woman in such high heels. I caught up at the vast Hudson River School landscapes in the American Paintings section. I%26#39;m not a big fan of landscapes so I drifted off to look at the Homers (Winslow, not Simpson) and Cassats and got behind again. We all ended up together in a Chinese garden that someone had reconstructed at the museum. It was all rippling waters and cool grey rocks, a nice peaceful way to end our tour.
Lunchtime! We decided it would be easiest and fastest to have lunch in the Met cafeteria. There it was on the map (!!!), as plain as you please, just in front of the Lehman collection. We would have gotten there in no time at all if we could walk through walls. As it was we wandered through a lot of sarcophagi and sets of old dinner plates before we found a tiny little arrow on a doorframe pointing us downstairs to the cafeteria. There%26#39;s such a thing as being too highbrow and discreet.
The cafeteria was not at all discreet. It was big and loud and full of kids on field trips for many of whom this was the highlight of their day. I was a perpetual room mother and have been on more field trips than I can count. I don%26#39;t know how it is in the big city, but in Baton Rouge, Louisiana your average kid doesn%26#39;t really want to look at art. Your average kid back in Baton Rouge wants to have lunch and run amuck in the gift shop. That and use the little bathroom on the bus. Anyway, it was chaos in the cafeteria.
We each got our own tray and went to our separate little food pods. At the Met, rather than a standard cafeteria line, you can choose from several little stations offering different sorts of food. I have this rule about cafeteria food. I only get stuff that can sit around under heat lamps for a couple of hours and still be edible. Soup%26#39;s usually fine, pasta too. I got the pasta and a tiny plate of salad. Scott hasn%26#39;t been on as many field trips as I have and made the mistake of getting a burger. I think he had a Diet Snapple too. I got a pricey bottled water and was slightly ticked off to find free water available on the other side of the cash register after we had already forked over nearly thirty bucks for this feast. If you haven%26#39;t already noticed I can be a little tightfisted at times.
After lunch it was Scott%26#39;s turn to pick out our art. Get ready, boys, we%26#39;re gonna look at some guy stuff. I would have thought guy stuff would be the soft-porn Greuze upstairs but, no, we%26#39;re off to the Arms and Armor rooms. The Arms and Armor rooms are dedicated to slaughter with swagger and style. War was a very different affair back in the 16th century I%26#39;ll tell you what. Every piece of armor, every sword or lance appears to be lavishly painted, jewel-encrusted, plated with engraved silver or covered in crimson velvet. Forget about camouflage. If you were a 16th century knight there was no way that every peon on the fief wasn%26#39;t going to see you coming, not to mention the enemy. And it all looks so heavy! I stood there looking from the armor that had protected a horse as big as a Budweiser Clydesdale over to a five hundred pound knight%26#39;s outfit for a man not much taller than myself. Here%26#39;s my question. How in the heck did that little guy ever climb up on that behemoth of a horse wearing all that junk? I can barely get on a modern horse with someone boosting me from behind. And that%26#39;s in jeans and a T-shirt. If he fell off did he get back on or was it all over? I%26#39;d just like to know.
After the armor we move on to the arms. This is more interesting because Scott can actually answer some of my stupid questions. He%26#39;s a big fan of The Westward Movement in America (That%26#39;s cowboys and Indians to you and me, folks) and knows a surprising lot about old guns. Some of these are as elaborate in their way as the knightly stuff next door with inlaid ivory instead of the gems. Scott tries to explain to me how these babies worked but I didn%26#39;t quite get it. Some of these guns took several pieces of equipment and a whole lot of time just to load one bullet. If you missed with your first shot any old barbarian with a big stick could pretty much knock you off before you could rearm. Can you imagine facing some wild animal with one of those? I mean, what do you do? Say ';Excuse me Mr. Mountain Lion. I need for you to wait five or ten minutes while I reload my gun here.';? A vital working piece of these old guns was (and I swear I%26#39;m not making this up) a rock. I%26#39;m surprised anyone was ever shot at all. Maybe that%26#39;s the secret. This stuff does have a certain artistic quality sadly lacking in today%26#39;s munitions. Maybe a little less technology and a little more walnut marquetry could bring about world peace. Who knows.
Next on the guy hit parade was the Temple of Dendur. Everyone who goes to the Met visits the Temple of Dendur. It%26#39;s an Egyptian sandstone temple that was going to get swallowed up by Lake Nasser when they built the Aswan Dam. I guess that seemed like a shame because somebody boxed it up and moved it over to New York. It%26#39;s kind of cool because you walk around in there and have somebody take your picture and pretend like you really went to Egypt. You can%26#39;t add to the 19th century graffiti though.
Enough of the Met. Our feet hurt. We have no trouble finding our way out since we had pretty much memorized the first floor during our multiple circuits of the place while looking for the cafeteria. Outside it%26#39;s been raining and is still drippy and neither one of us feels much like walking back to the subway. I%26#39;m strongly considering throwing financial caution to the winds and taking a cab when Scott comes up with a brilliant idea. How about the bus? Turns out that the bus is perfect. It runs straight past the museum and stops about a block from our hotel. Genius! At the bus stop we meet the sweetest elderly couple you could possibly imagine. They were my chosen bus-assistance victims and promised to help us find our stop. The little old man was wearing a golfing cap and she had on a beret. People don%26#39;t dress like that down here. We chatted all the way down to our stop. They%26#39;re from Brooklyn and have lived there their entire lives. They pointed out all sorts of things for us as the bus lumbered down toward midtown. We had our own private guided tour of the landmarks of 5th Avenue. We all marveled at the weather and they told us that the cherry trees were blooming in Brooklyn. Cherry trees in January, isn%26#39;t that nice? The subway may be faster but I think I%26#39;ve enjoyed my bus rides most.
We bid our new friends goodbye at 52nd Street and walked back toward the Hilton. Along the way we hit a Duane Reade and a little grocery for beer and goodies in the room. I always travel with a little collapsible ice chest for breakfasts and sandwich stuff, yes, I%26#39;m that cheap. Scott%26#39;s in charge of the beer. Back in good old room 936 he sets up what he calls his Cajun Ice Chest. It%26#39;s not complicated. First you disinfect the bathroom sink with hand sanitizer. Then you fill it up with hot beer and ice from the machine down the hall. Wait ten minutes and, voila, cold beer! You have to wash your hands in the bathtub and spit into the toilet when you brush your teeth but you%26#39;ll have plenty of cold beer. Just the way Scott likes it. Sleeping on ice.
Jennifer
Our Anniversary Trip-Day 2, Part 1 (A Little Culture)
Very amusing, you sure have a way with words.
';Homers - Winslow, not Simpson'; - Haha.
I would not say cheap, just eccentric!!!
Looking forward to more.
Our Anniversary Trip-Day 2, Part 1 (A Little Culture)
Well, count your blessings you didn%26#39;t end up in - shudder - Queens!
I%26#39;m sure that would have been a REALLY fun game of ';Which Way Now?'; !
;o)
Thanks for another installment! I%26#39;m resting up for the next chapter.
Actually I%26#39;m rather fond of Queens. We met some of the most helpful people of our trip there. It%26#39;s just kind of a roundabout way to get to the Met if you aren%26#39;t on the ball with the trains.
Jennifer
What a fabulous description of the Met. You certainly know how to keep the reader interested Jennifer, I%26#39;m loving every single word.
I%26#39;m hoping to go into the Met next week, and will no doubt think of you!
Jennifer dont%26#39; ever apologise for the post being too long - I%26#39;m going to be gutted when these end I%26#39;m enjoying them so much! You have such a lovely writing manner that I can visualise everything you describe and well.....you make me howl too :)
I have to quit reading your posts while drinking something- I start laughing and spitting out coffee or champagne or whatever. You really are a great writer. Ready for the next one!
Greatest. Trip. Report. Ever.
I presume you%26#39;re a writer. If not, you should look into it. Seriously.
Keep %26#39;em coming!
P.S. Next time drop Scott off an any one of the numerous sports bars on Second or Third Avenues in the 60%26#39;s, and go hit the Frick. I%26#39;ll be happy to babysit if there%26#39;s a good game on! ;-)
When I signed on, I was hoping there%26#39;d be another report from you. I think I%26#39;d love to go to a museum with you and hear all the blah, blah, blah. Thanks for the laughs.
Please write a book. Now. Or a TV show.
You write so well, are you a writer?
I love your trip reports. Best reports ever! And they dont feel long either, so keep writing!
This is getting better day by day.
And I think the answer to how the guy with all the armor got on the horse - STEPS!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment