NYC October 07

Tuesday, 10.10.07

Our last day in the city. It was hard to believe it was already time to go home.

After coffee we walked through Inwood and to the Cloisters, the medieval arm of the Met, where Michael worked as the librarian. It was a lovely walk, as the scenery changed quickly from the Little-Dominican-area of Inwood to a wooded park and on to thick wooded hills and a quiet, leafy walk uphill to the Cloisters. The building was gorgeous, castle-style, built early in the century.

Inside, Michael showed us the library, which is a wonderful, quiet, oak-paneled room filled with volumes of books aligned neatly under high ceilings. Talk about a great place to spend your days.

We walked the grounds then, looking first at the art and pieces of architecture, then moving on to the Unicorn Tapestries, probably the most famous works in the place. They were impressive, more for their age than anything, and I have to admit they made me feel sad. They depict a typical human reaction to the strange or fantastic: Hunt it down and kill it.

After that we made our way out to the gardens, which were beautifully laid out and kept.

From there we made our way back up the hill toward H&Ms apartment. In lieu of a great neighborhood deli, we found ourselves back at Grandpa's, where C got manicotti and I got a slice of pepperoni and a sausage roll. Mmmmm-MM! Great food.

We bought some flowers for the apartment and went back up to pack. Then it was off to the airport and so long to NYC. As it ended up, we would be spending the night in Denver as we sat on the tarmac at Laguardia for about 3.5 hours before being allowed to take off. But that's another (unpleasant) story.

As for NYC, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and can't wait to go back, but I have to admit it made me feel no small amount of regret. I can still see the application packet from NYU that I filled out for grad school before being offered an assistantship and teaching job at Eastern Illinois U, which would pay for my school and get me good experience, but would also keep me confined to the cornfields and culture of central Illinois. I know: Regrets do me no good. But I felt them, and still feel them, about missing my chance to spend some of my formative years in this amazing place.

But I'll be back.

NYC October 07

Monday, 10.9.07

After some days of fairly nonstop activity and interaction, a body--and a mind--need a break. So on Monday I made it a point to haul myself out of bed early, get a cup of coffee made, and grab a seat at the table with a good book to chill out and enjoy the silence. So I did, enjoying the stillness and aloneness with a view out the window onto 207th St.

When everyone else got up about an hour later, we tore into the chocolate bobka and had more coffee and fruit. We were headed to the Museum of Modern Art for a quick tour of their greater paintings. With a $20 admission, the only reason we could make a quick tour of it was because both Heidi and Michael work for the Met, which meant we got in free. Woohoo! Therefore we could skip to the 5th and 6th floors, breeze around the Pollacks and the Picassos, the Miros and Monets, the Klimts and the deKoonings, spending two hours before bolting for lunch without feeling bad.

It was a great rush tour, too, filling me with that unbelieving awe I feel at the Chicago Art Institute, being in the presence of such masterworks as you see so often that you become desensitized to their actual physical existence.

So, from there we were making our way toward the West Village, and we came upon the Columbus Day Parade on the way to the subway. I watched while Cathy ran into a store to shop for boots.

When we got to the West Village, we walked around for a while looking for our next meal when we came across the Crumpler store. We went in, Cathy bought a bag, and then we headed across the block to an Italian joint for a snack. We got mussels in a fennel cream sauce with a salad of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, and arugula, with a glass of white wine each.

Next up, Bleeker Street Records. Unfortunately, the only really remarkable thing about the store was the gargantuanly fat cat they had patrolling the aisles. I think I blew my wad at Other Music a couple days previous, so I actually left without buying anything. More shopping led us to a coffee shop where we got a raspberry mousse and a couple coffees. We walked some more, shopped some more, and walked some more.


Eventually we made our way to a Thai place for dinner, and here we'd have the first bad meal of our trip. Bland Chineseish food passing itself off as Thai was the order of the day at and it's not worth saying more than that.

We'd intended to see some jazz this night, but a lackluster lineups at the joints in the East Village, a sold-out door at the Vanguard, and tired tired feet won out, and we hit the subway to make our way home.