At the moment, I am sitting on my friend Abby's couch/futon, which has been my home for the past several nights. It's a cute place in Brooklyn - she has two roommates as well. It's a block from the subway, so I have a Metropass that I have been using to explore the city.
I arrived via train on Saturday. On Sunday, we started our day by going to Our Lady of Czestochowa - St Casimir, a nearby Polish Catholic Church. The entire Mass was in Polish, but it was a beautiful church with gorgeous stained glass, and it was reassuring to hear that people mumble and mutter their way through the Nicene Creed in other languages, as well. After Mass, we stayed and watched a production put on by a children's group honoring the life and commemoration the death of Father Jerzy Popieluszko. Again, all in Polish but it was pretty easy to get their overall message.
Then we went home and made cinnamon rolls.
In the afternoon, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge - it had some great views, and, like most of this city, we ridiculously crowded. After this, we went to a "steampunk" fashion show. For anyone not familiar with "steampunk", it's this style that some people like which is based on Victorian fashion, but is crazy. That's not the actual definition, but it will really tell you all you need to know. So, we went to this crazy fashion show. We decided later that the show was really just a confirmation all peoples' worst fears about New York City. It really had it all. The show opened with a modern/interpretive dance which involved the dancers being tied together while someone read T.S. Eliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock over a soundtrack of techno music and seagulls. Then a number of designers showed a bunch of clothes which were really cool but completely unsuitable to ever be worn, complete with more techno music. Then the dancers came back. Then the show ended and everybody used big and overdramatic words to claim that these fashions were significant and groundbreaking. Overall it was pretty fun.
On Sunday night, we went to Kettle O'Fish, which is a "Wisconsin" themed bar in the East Village. EVERYONE was there to watch the Packers/Vikings game - it was packed shoulder to shoulder. Most people had on Packer jerseys, one group of guys was wearing t-shirts from their high school in Prairie du Chien. Luckily I have my "best state ever" shirt with me, so I wore that. It was a really exciting game, and the Packers won, so a great experience. Afterwards we all went out for pizza.
On Monday, I was on my own - Abby had to go to work. I decided to go to the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Gardens, but I spent all day at the zoo and had to head home before I could go to the gardens. We had Annie's mac and cheese for dinner.
Yesterday (Tuesday), I spent all day at the Met. I paid $10 to get in (the student rate bwahahahaha) and then discovered that all their tours are FREE!!!. So, first I joined "The Old Masters" and had an excellent tour. There were about 8-10 people in the group and the docent was excellent. We looked at A LOT of "Madonna and Child" paintings and saw how they evolved from the end of the Middle Ages through the Renaissance, and also looked at a variety of other paintings, as well (including works by Rubens, Raphael, El Greco, and Giotto, among others. Oh, and some Dutch masters as well!) That tour ran a bit long, and though I hurried, I didn't make it back in time for "Fashion in Art", so I killed time by eating a cupcake. Then I went on a "Museum Highlights" tour, which was actually my least favorite - the docent was the weakest of the three I had, and it must be a tough tour to give because there isn't much continuity between the pieces. Also, I thought she chose bad pieces. The only part of her talk I liked was a segment on Edward Hopper. Oh, and she also gave an interesting talk on a Rembrandt self-portrait, and a brief portion on Vermeer. Maybe she wasn't that bad. After that tour ended, I went on my own over to the 19th and 20th century painting wing and managed to latch on to the "Impressionists and Post-Impressionists" tour. This was another excellent docent, and though I only managed to join in from Renoir onwards, I really enjoyed her talk - she talked quite a bit about Seurat and Pointillism and their interest in the science of color. I also listened to her portion on Cezanne, and then she ended with Van Gogh. I looked at Monet and Degas on my own and then left the museum so I could go sit on the subway a while and rest my feet!
I went over to Julliard for a free piano concert which was excellent, and then down to NYU to have dinner with Rob. We had some great pizza and then more cupcakes! And then I came home. WHEW - long day!
So, today is a relaxing day. My mission(s) for the day:
- do a little laundry
- go downtown and find discounted day-of Broadway tickets for tonight
- go to Best Buy because I stupidly brought the wrong charger for my camera battery and now my camera is dead
- eat some falafel
The two places I wanted to go that I haven't been yet are Ground Zero and the New York Public Library, so maybe I will fit those in this afternoon, or maybe tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon I leave for Ireland!
Very envious of your day at the Met. Every single artist name spelled right, too!
ReplyDeleteYou already found so many more fun things to do in NY than me!! Very jealous of the crazy fashion show, haha, wow.
ReplyDelete