New York City has everything. I mean everything--street venders with carts selling every kind of food you can imagine, from the usual fare of hot dogs and pretzels to kebabs, gyros, grilled meats, rice, patries, bagels, fruits to be pureed into smoothies, soda, water...the list goes on--then the restaurants--Italian, French, Greek, Indian, Belgian, Brazilian, Ethiopian, American...and those are just the ones I noticed...people selling knock-off designer handbags, sunglasses, scarves, and knick-knacks from a plastic tarp on the sidewalk, souvenir shops selling t-shirts and cheap trinkets just a few hundred yards from the world's most famous designer fashion boutiques...shops specializing in just electronics, paper, cupcakes...
Culture--there are museums that take up entire blocks filled with artifacts that are thousands of years old as well as the materpieces of Rembrandt, Renoir, Michelangelo, Rodin, Picasso, Pissaro, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, along with countless others of beauty that are not as well known. There are Broadway and off-Broadway plays and musicals and street perfomances by those with just as much talent as an actor or musician who was fortunate enough to "make it."
The people--there are homeless on the subway claiming/singing [and I quote] Jesus' mother was a hooker, beggars, con-men, preachers, punks, businessmen in three-piece suits, tourists, immigrants, mothers dragging strollers (with babies in them) up long flights of steps from the subway to the street, black, white, brown, yellow, some speaking languages I've never heard, some harried, some hurried, some happy, some laughing, but mostly just tired.
This doesn't even cover the land and the architecture of the place.
Today we started with breakfast at Stage Deli. I had corned beef hash, egg, and cheddar on a roll. Tim had the omlet with Novi. From there we decided to tackle a couple museums. One could spend a week at the Metropolitan alone, but alas, we had other things to see as well. We started at the Guggenheim and really, just made a quick run through--about 2 hours, I'd guess. Then we walked to the Metropolitan Museum of Art--this thing is HUGE! Tim estimated that if you walked every square inch of the place, you'd walk about 40 miles--unbelievable. Since we had a big breakfast, we skipped lunch and stayed at the Met. We decided that tinstead of almost literally running through as much as we could, we would cover the parts that we knew we wanted to see. We spent the rest of the afternoon there viewing the masterpieces of early 19th and 20th century artists while browsing through other sections along the way. Again, you could spend weeks touring New York's museums alone.
We ran by Times Square and for whatever reason, had a much better selection of shows for the evening. I had a difficult time choosing. We ended up with 9 to 5--much tamer than Avenue Q. Allison Janey starred along with two women who had just come from playing Elpheba and Glinda in the Broadway production of Wicked. All three where good, although Allison Janey can't really sing. The other two had strong voices. Oh, we had Italian for dinner. This time I got skate wing (good, but not as good as Tim's the other night), and Tim got a seafood pasta with red sauce--it was very good.
After the show, we went back to Times Square to take a few time-lapse photos, by the way, still partying. It's almost impossible to get a good shot because all the lights are so bright. Well, that's all from the Big Apple. Tomorrow we head...well, I'm not sure, that plan has not quite been solidified, yet.
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