The Rest of the Day with No Sleep

We were going to go back to our room for a nap, but everyone decided we wanted to do some exploring first. We walked through Times square a bit just taking it all in with amazement.

We decide to go to the Museum of Modern Art, it was very, very cold and an inside day seemed in order! We arrived at MOMA only to find out that it was closed on Tuesdays. The guard says it like we should know this. Our first introduction to the wonderful customer service standards of New York City!

We grab a cab to Central Park. In the cab I do the “Oh my god, we are in a NEW YORK CITY CAB!!” to the kids. They would laugh at me the rest of the trip as I was so excited everytime we did certain things.

We walked through Central Park towards the Metropolitan Museum of ARt. It was DAMN COLD! But the park is absolutely gorgeous….(Oh my god, we’re in CENTRAL PARK!!!). We meant to go on a buggy tour, but it is something we’ll end up having to save for another trip.

One of the many central Park sculptures:

The beautiful park:

We wandered along, and then found ourselves on Park Avenue. We walked up Park Avenue, it is a truly beautiful walk.

We arrived the Met. Museum for our first introduction to the absolutely stunning architecture of New York City’s buildings.

We went in to check our coats, and the coat check guy bitched and moaned to himself the whole time he was hanging coats about how there were too many damn people here already and they should just close the damn doors. LOL!! We laughed pretty hard about it. It became pretty apparent to us pretty quickly that this was just another part of New York’s personality. BAck home, a person would be fired for the kind of service we got almost everywhere in New York…here, it was just the way it was.

The museum was humongous, and had wonderful art. Some of it was…well, barely art in our view. But there were some wonderful pieces also.

Some of the wonderful pieces:

a different view of things:

This lady had bad hair:

John wasn’t that into the museum, and he did a lot of bench sitting. Kelsey wasn’t so much either, but she did find one of her favorite paintings by one of her favorite artists:

We were greatly surprised by Jorden’s love of the museum, though! He was very into it, and would examine almost every piece, reading the plaques and admiring the art.

He wanted me to take a photo of him with a Van Gogh, but he wouldn’t smile!! lol

Kelsey really liked this piece, it was made of burlap and other materials but contained no explanation of what it depicted. We decided it looked like a road through a clear-cut forest where new flowers were growing. *shrug*

I don’t know a lot about art or artists, I”m just not cultured like that. But I know what I like, and a few of the pieces really struck me. Usually it was because of the lighting of the painting, or the softness of the technique. Here are a few I liked:

I understand this is Chagall. I love it:

This one made me sad, obviously depicting a dying child with the angel in the sky:

I found this one utterly amazing…it had quotes written out in the painting that at first glance seem to be part of the landscape. The quotes are details about the artist’s life. I love it because it is different and original:

IT was about 1pm, and John, Jorden and Kelsey lay down and napped for a few hours. I unpacked everything and couldn’t sleep. I woke them in time to get ready for their hockey game.

Kelsey and I get dressed for a nice dinner and shopping. We walked the guys to Penn Station to help them find their way to Jersey for game. It turned out to be very confusing trying to find where to go to catch the New Jersey trains. It’s a good thing I came in with them to help, as John is not that good at finding his way and stuff. Finally I see a group of guys in Boston Bruins jerseys, so I just went up to them and asked if they were heading to the game. They confirmed, and so I asked if my husband and son could tag along as we weren’t from here and they didn’t know how to get there. They said only if they were Bruins fans…..good to go! lol. Jorden explained to them his love for Lucic and they welcomed them with open arms.

Kelsey and I shop for bit, and go in Macy’s. We are stunned by the crowds! It is two days before xmas, and everyone is shopping. You could barely walk through the store. We take a quick trip downstairs on the original escalators (made of wood!) and then we get the heck out of there.

We are both starving by now, and we find a restaurant called Frankie and Johnny’s steakhouse. The food was amazing, but pricey. Kelsey orders a $42 Filet Mignon, and I decided just to have a salad and a few bites of hers. The steak comes on it’s own, and then we ordered potatoes au gratin and asparagus with hollandaise sauce. It was all absolutely amazing, and so much food I’m glad I didn’t order my own steak. It was the best food I had had in a LONG time.

I ordered a martinin, then had a glass of wine with dinner, and a special coffee with desert (cheesecake, of course!) and with my one hour of sleep in the past almost 48 hours, it went straight to my head. Time to head ‘home’!
We shop a little more on our way back to our hotel. Soon I realize that I am going to fall asleep walking, so we hurry back and go straight to bed. I don’t think I even got undressed! The guys came back around 11pm, and I barely woke up.