Tuesday – February 7th
Paul’s last full day in NYC. We decided that a trip to NYC without visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art would be incomplete at best, so early in the morning we made our way across Central Park to that mecca in the cult of culture. Here’s a shot of the facade.
We arrived before 10:30 and stayed until they started to close up at quarter past 5. A day well spent indeed, and despite the length of time we were at the museum there were whole room, nay, wings that we didn’t even set foot in. I have always thought that the Met is one of the few places in Manhattan that does not feel like Manhattan. Most locations attempt to pack so much in per square foot that there is barely enough room to maneuver (just ask Paul about sharing a room in the I.House). However, in the Met, there are vast open courtyards and entire rooms that are simply there to house, for instance, an honest-to-goodness Egyptian temple.
We saw too much to enumerate here, but the list includes Rembrandt, Vermeer, Goya, Velasquez, Poussin, Tiepolo, Duccio, Van Eyck, Rubens, Raphael, Titian, Cranach, Memling, Caravaggio, Sargent, Eakins, Whistler, Cassat, Homer, Van Gogh, Renoir, Manet, Monet, Degas, Rodin, Carpeaux, Cannova, Houdon, Negrioli, and Stradivarius, among many others.
After leaving the Met, we met up with Tara, Loren and Jee for another dinner, this time at a little French Bistro known as Camaje. Oddly, this was one of the first restaurants that I found in NYC: it is charmingly small, comfortable, and affordable (considering it’s location in NYC). Paul enjoyed the halibut while Jee and I took the shrimp and avocado salad sandwich, Tara a panini sandwich, and Loren the Kobe burger (in which he found no end of delight to the fact that it was less expensive than the burgers in Kobe are). We shared a couple of crepes for a (pre-dessert) dessert. All agreed the food was delicious. And in a sign of his magnanimity and despite sincere protestations, Paul refused to allow the rest of us to pay for our portions of the meal.
After the meal, we walked up the block to view the Washington Square Arch near the campus of New York University. (It was awfully cold that night.)
Then on to another dessert place near Amy’s Bread, where we sat and debated matters both of import and banality as only graduate students may, all the while munching on a variety of dainties and dessert beverages. Several hours later, we decided to call it a night and thus ended another enjoyable evening, as well as Paul’s sojourn in Manhattan. Back to the grind for me…
– Jeremy
