Well, I knocked one thing off of my bucket list. On Saturday, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Actually, all things considered, this weekend in New York was really fun. I am liking this town more every day; I feel like it is literally impossible to be bored. You could live a lifetime or two, and never do all there is to do in NYC. But, I am getting ahead of myself.
Naturally, on Friday at 4pm I get assigned a research project so my boss can get something filed by the follow Tuesday (now, tomorrow). Not her fault-- I think the other side just kind of sprung this on her, and the filing deadline is tight. Anyway, the internet in the office is really, really, painfully slow. So, long story short, I was in the office until 7:30pm Friday night, thus totally blowing my opportunity to get to the dining hall (yes, I am on a meal plan. It was easier-- though not cheaper-- than trying to haul my cooking crap out to NYC in already-overfilled suitcases). Since I live like a 3 minute walk from there, I decided to swing by Little Italy for dinner.
I had no idea it was such a thing. First, it is Little. It butts up to Chinatown, but Chinatown has kind of taken it over; really, Little Italy is a few streets, surrounded by Chinatown. But it was definitely a happening place. They had police blockades on the main drag--Mulberry Street-- so it was like a street fair, with people walking up and down the middle of the street and all. Even at 8:30 at night, the touristy stores were all still open, and people had tables set up on the sidewalks selling all kinds of goods (including a full table of crucifixes and saint idols. Ok. But, I guess it is Little Italy, and Catholicism is like, a thing and all). And more Italian restaurants than you have ever seen in your life. And I don't mean like, hole-in-the-wall type places you see in like Chinatown. These were legit trying-to-be-fancy, mainstream restaurants. Even the little cafes were trying to class it up (some more than others... there were a couple of super-classy decorations around such as a scale replica in some cheap material of Michaelangelo's David sculpture [editing note: currently, the automatic spellchecker on Blogger thinks Michaelangelo is misspelled, or doesn't recognize it as a word. Are you kidding me?].
I initially set out to find this one restaurant I had found online that had good reviews, and mentioned that famous people sometimes hung out there. So I figured it would be a decent feed. However, on my way down Mulberry Street, I got talked into trying this other place by the not-too-shabby looking maitre'd (who was very good at his job of getting people to come in). And the food was very good; some of the better food I have had since being in NYC. And reasonably priced-- like, in general, but especially for New York. I had three meals for like $35ish including tax, before tip. I've paid that much for takeout Chinese in Chicago. I started with minestrone-- classic Italian, but usually not that exciting and kind of mundane. But, it was literally the best minestrone I've had. The broth was lighter and more broth-y than a lot of minestrones, which can kind of be thickish. So it was refreshing, even though it was hot soup. And it tasted very fresh. The entree I had was good, too. It was a chicken dish with mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, and a little bit of linguini as a starch. It was nice and light, and had the right balance between protein, vegetables, and carbs, so I didn't feel like a stuffed oompa-loompa [another editing note: Blogger recognizes "oompa-loompa" as a real word, but not Michaelangelo. Sad.] by the end. And, for dessert, I had... cannoli! It was a very good, chocolate chip cannoli, with a light dusting of powdered sugar. A tasty, sweet and rich, but not super heavy, end to a good meal. My boyfriend was super jealous when I sent him a picture of the cannoli. He is part Italian and very into italian food, and loooooves cannolis. So I got to be a bit (playfully) mean and taunt him with cannoli pictures. I tempered it though by promising that the next time he comes to NYC (in about a week), I will take him to Little Italy to get cannoli. And man, was Little Italy a happening place on a Friday night. Considering I didn't sit down until 8:30pm, I didn't finish dinner until like 9:45pm, the streets were still crowded, the stores were still open, and people were just sitting down to eat. Will definitely have to go back there again.
I must have been *really* tired from the week and night before, because I didn't wake up until noon on Saturday, which even for me is late. It was supposed to be a crappy-ish day with on and off rain, so I decided to go to the Met. I putzed around for a while, gathering work clothes that needed to be dry cleaned, dropped them off; since it indeed turned out to be a day of on and off rain, I then headed to the Upper East Side towards the Met.
Holy crap, man. Talk about how the other half lives. The Met is right off of Central Park, on 5th ave and like, 84th street. Smack in the middle of the likes of Park Avenue, Madison avenue. Basically, where I imagine a lot of Manhattan's most fabulous live. I did not know this beforehand (because I honestly don't really know where much is in New York). And it totally looks it. It is probably the cleanest part of New York I have been to yet, and you can tell they are trying to bring a pleasant, old-school, charming "vibe" to the area. Lots of boutique stores, lots of fancy looking apartment buildings with very long awnings up the walk, and doormen. The entry to the Met is cool, too, because as you walk up, several people have little tables set up to sell street art, usually handmade crafts or some kind of prints. I actually bought a couple, because they were real inexpensive and I thought they would make good accent art for places in my apartment back in Chicago. And they were small enough that I can in theory pack them (although let's be real here, I am going to be shipping things back to Chicago at the end of the summer. I even saved the box that my dad used to send me stuff here, for this very purpose).
The Met is amazing. I have been to a lot of museums in a lot of cities; a lot of museums in a lot of major, big cities around the world. The Met, in my experience, is only really rivaled by the Louvre in Paris, France. The thing is huge. I was there for about four hours, and only saw the Egyptian wing and the Modern Art wing (and they have like, 25 wings on 2 levels). The Egyptian collection was amazing. Like, I was speechless. Not even the Louvre's collection was this big. It just kept going, covering every period of ancient Egyptian history and cultural development. I saw several very famous pieces of artwork-- things that even non-ancient-art-history geeks would recognize from popular culture. And I learned something really cool, too: they apparently have decided who built the Great Sphinx. This must be kind of recent, because I was always under the impression that it was kind of a mystery. But I guess current scholarship has settled on one of the kings who built the Great Pyramids of Giza as having built the Sphinx as a representation of one of the sun gods. And, the most stunning thing of all: the Met's Egyptian collection has a temple in it. And I don't mean parts of a temple, I don't mean like a wall with which they use to reconstruct a version of the temple, like they sometimes do with tombs. I mean, in this big atrium room thing, they have a full, honest-to-god, ancient Egyptian temple complex, complete with the offering vestibule, the obelisks, statues from the site (as well as several unrelated statutes that they put in to more fully represent how a temple complex would be set up and decorated). I think they built the room specially for the temple, because they even had like a pond thing in front of it, as is often the case in holy places, I guess. Apparently what had happened, was in the 1960s, the U.S. did something nice for the then-Egyptian government, so as a thank you, the Egyptian government...gave us a temple. Because that's normal. But yeah, I guess they dismantled the thing, brick by brick and statute by statute, and carefully put it back together again in New York. It was one of the coolest things I have experienced, to actually step foot inside an ancient Egyptian temple (particularly since it's probably as close to getting into an actual temple as I will ever get, especially in light of *ahem* recent political developments in Egypt). SO yeah, my art history side was geeking out hardcore.
Being in the ancient Egyptian wing, and being all excited about everything, in a way made me kind of sad. It made me really wish that I didn't have to choose between career paths. I wish there were a way to do both ancient Egyptian curatorial studies, and criminal law. But the only real relevant subject in law is "art law," which is mostly a specialized field of property law dealing with galleries, dealers, collectors, museums and nations all bitching at each other over who *really* owns what piece. Kind of boring. Not nearly as interesting as the mob. I don't know; maybe I don't have to choose. I read an article about a 65 year old guy who was just beginning his medical residency. Apparently he had been in the business world for like 30 years, but decided he wanted to become a doctor, and did. Maybe I can just practice criminal law or something for a while, until I get bored with it, and then go back to school and do something else. I feel like being in the same career for like 30-40 years, even if you really liked it, would get mundane after awhile. Like, you will have seen most everything in that field there is to see. Maybe it won't be a bad idea to change it up after a while. I have no designs to work my way up to the tip-top of any field; I'd rather do what I like, then move on when I need a change.
Since I had gotten going so late in the day, I realized at some point around 5pm that I had not eaten for the day. The Met is interesting because in addition to the usual museum cafeteria, the museum actually has a couple of legit cafes. On my quest to find food, I also found that the Met-- during the summer seasons anyway-- has a rooftop terrace thing where they do cocktail/wine hour. So I went up to check it out (not because of the wine, as anyone who knows me will tell you I do not like wine, but because I heard rumors there would be food). Alas, the food selection was wanting (they had like, bags of chips), but the terrace/party itself was awesome. You were on the top of the building, looking straight down into Central Park, and straight out into the Manhattan skyline, in all four directions. At dusk-- although a cloudy dusk, since it kept sprinkling on and off-- it was one of the coolest views I had seen in a long time. Very scenic and picturesque. I got some good photos on my phone. But, as there was no food, I headed down to one of the museum's she-she cafes. The food was good, particularly for a museum/institution, and they definitely were going for a "real restaurant/cafe" vibe, but it cost more than my meal in Little Italy, for less food, and was not as good. But still, not a bad deal for a museum.
My last stop was through the Modern Wing, which was definitely worth it. I know a lot of people don't really like or "get" modern art, but I do. I think a lot of it is aesthetically pleasing, because I find abstraction and geometry very pleasing decoratively. And since learning about modern art in school, I can appreciate what the artists were trying to do, what they were responding to, etc. I admit that some modern art is, erm, more "successful" than others. I do contend that a lot of contemporary art--from like the last 15 years or so-- really is stretching the definition of what can and should be considered "art," even by what I think is my more liberal or permissive standards. If you ever wonder what I mean by that, next time you have a chance to go to Paris, France, check out the Pompidou Center. You'll see what I mean. But, this collection had mostly art from modern artists who have basically been legitimized in the establishment, field, etc. Artists from like 1900ish onwards. It was cool because, again, I got to see a lot of "famous" works by "famous" modern artists, including that big-ass painting of Mao done by Warhol. It was also cool because I finally got to see real Pollacks from his drip-painting phase. In all my study of art, I don't think I ever actually was able to see a Pollack drip painting. I think I may have seen some of his earlier works, before he got into his signature style, but not that. So that was cool. Also, they had some real Rothkos, which I had also never seen in real life (at least I don't think so; it is possible that I saw some in France, but I don't really remember). I mostly appreciated it because a few months ago I had seen a production of Red in Chicago, a play about Rothko's commission (and subsequent rejection of it) for The Four Seasons hotel. Side note: Red is a phenomenal play, even if you aren't really into art. If you ever get the chance, do go see it. You won't regret it.
So, that was pretty much my weekend. Not a bad one at that. Sunday was pretty uneventful; I had to do laundry, finally, and do some work for work, so I basically hung around the dorm. Laundry actually kind of turned out to be an ordeal, but it's not interesting enough to go into. Suffice it to say that the system doesn't run as smoothly as you would think, so it took me longer than I thought. My roommate finally showed up on Sunday, so now the apartment is full (I and my other roommates who share the other bedroom had been calling her "mysterious fourth," because we knew she was on the list to be rooming with us, but we were never told when she would be moving in. It's kind of a revolving door in the building generally, so it was never really known. Watched the Tony Awards, did work. A nice, calm day to end what had been a busy week. And now, on to the next in the city that never stops.
Random thoughts
So, these things I have thought about don't really go with the above post; they are just things that have intrigued me/annoyed me since being here, and just in general. So I thought they should get there own section, because it's not really worth a full post.
1. Construction. I have an unnatural hate for construction, construction workers, and pretty much everything to do with it. Why? Because it always disrupts my sleep and my quiet enjoyment of wherever it is I happen to be (usually, my own private room/property). And because I can't fricking seem to get away from it. Seriously. It follows me like some fricking voodoo curse. A week after I moved into my apartment in Chicago, they started tearing down the building next to me so they could build a new building. And across the street from my building, they spent the year renovation the inside and outside of an old post office so they could subdivide it into stores, and have been working on a hotel next to it, too. The fricking noises are constant. And they NEVER follow the goddamn rules. I looked up the Chicago noise ordinances: begin construction no earlier than 8am on weekdays and Saturdays, end no later than 8pm. Exceptions only for public emergency work (which, building for private entities shouldn't really count...). But, they would be out there at 7:30am, or staying late until 11:30pm, 12am. On several occasions, the people working across the street from me were there into the wee morning hours, making all kinds of racket I could hear even though I was 18 stories above them. I called the complaint line a couple times; nothing ever changed. Considering how corrupt Chicago is politically, I imagine someone, somewhere paid someone off or something. So it's We the little People who suffer.
Why do I bring this up? Because lo and behold, a few days after I get to New York and settle in, the lot across from my dorm is under construction! Looks like they are building up a whole new building. So for the last like 10 days, every morning except for Sundays I get woken up at around 7:30, 8am by the lovely sound of hammers on metal pipes and 2x4, which I can still hear even though I am 10 floors up, have a loud air conditioner running, and am wearing earplugs rated to 33dB cancellation. I. Hate. Construction. I looked up the NYC noise ordinance: they, by law, can only be out there from 8am until like 6pm, and have to take a lot of noise-cancelling precautions. So, I get home tonight at a little before 9pm, thanks to a long day at work, and what do I hear? CONSTRUCTION NOISE FROM THE GODDAMN LOT. If I have to put up with their crap in the morning, I sure as hell am not going to put up with listening to that bullshit at night, when I am trying to wind down for the day (and not for just me: like, 9 pm is legitimately a time people start thinking about getting ready for and going to bed. Not ok.). I literally had the phone in my hand and was dialing the complaint line when they finally stopped. But if they pull this bullshit again, you better believe I will be calling in their asses. No forgiveness. If I were ruler of the world, my first decree would be that construction could only happen between the hours of 11am and 5pm, Mon-Fri. Anything over that would be punishable. By death. Again, I hate construction with a passion.
2. Supermarkets, and grocery stores generally. One thing I have noticed about NYC that is weird to me, is the lack of like, normal grocery stores. So far, I have seen places like Kmart sell food, or little Mom-and-Pop joints, but they don't really sell a full grocery store's worth of food. Like, it is mostly things like packaged foods and delis. And they are usually teeny. When I was over in the Upper East Side, I did see one place that looked like a legit grocery store, but it looked like one of these bougie overpriced stores that you see in wealthy places, like Andronico's Market (this reference will be lost on people from outside the San Francisco Bay Area/Peninsula). I haven't seen like a Safeway or a Dominick's or a Ralph's, or even a Trader Joe's. Like, even in Chicago we have urban outposts of major market chains like those named above, relatively frequently. I haven't seen one national supermarket chain, and other than that place up in the Upper East Side, any place that looks like it sells any kind of decent selection of things like fresh fruits and vegetables and non-processed breads. One kind-of grocery store had a few apples and bananas, but that was it. Do people in New York not do supermarkets? Do have to go to like, specialty shops and stands and things to get each kind of food, like you do in France? I have seen some Farmers' Markets around town, but that is as close to readily-avalable fresh produce and such as I have seen. This is very strange. If we can get supermarkets and produce in the frozen tundra that is the Chicago winter, they should be able to get fresh food in NYC.
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