A Couple of Days in NYC

The Apple Stretching.

Mary and I are just wrapping up a few days in Manhattan - it feels like it was a very short visit, but we still packed a lot in.  Last year, when I booked a hotel with Hilton down in Orlando, they offered a deal with a lot of benefits if I might go to NYC to listen to their grand vacations pitch.  As a result, we've spent two nights in midtown, just a block from MOMA.


The timeshare they offer makes sense for some, and it might even make sense for us someday.  But we're not pulling the trigger on it this time.


When we got into town on Monday, we headed up to the Neue Galerie to check out the Klimt paintings.  The have the famous golden lady painting there, among others.  I've seen the painting reproduce many times, but I have to admit seeing it in person was an amazing experience, and I came away feeling like I knew Adele personally.

The Dakota with scaffolding.

Afterwards, we had coffee and pastry in the cafe there, which reminded me of a place in Vienna.  Then we headed over to Central Park - as long as we were up in the 80's and had to walk back down to midtown, I figured we should walk by Strawberry Fields, and maybe check out the Dakota building - famous, not only as John and Yoko's residence, but also for appearing on the cover of a Led Zepelin and other albums.


The building was going through some renovations when we walked by.  Still, that's quite a nice neck of the woods up there!

The real estate boom around Central Park.

Later the first night we were able to hook up with my niece and her boyfriend in the West Village.  They know New York so well and we were able to navigate to a couple of stops with them.  A great visit!


Tuesday was another busy day - we started with the timeshare pitch - actually a difficult thing to organize, which is something we would have to come to terms with if we were considering it at this time.


From there, we went to the new section of the High Line - an amazing redevelopment success story on the West Side.  Then back to the hotel neighborhood and a stop at MOMA - great exhibitions there, but my favorite was an interactive display of eight oral histories of refugees in the Mediterranean region, where the artist traced their routes while they told their stories.  There is a lot of turmoil and conflict in our modern world.


For our last activities of the day, Mary had to get away to a Wellesley event up near Central Park.  It sounds like she had a wonderful time.  Meanwhile, my friend Tony came in from Long Island and we had an impromptu reunion - the first time I had seen him since he left Berlin in 1984!


I've written about our reunions and that community before, and it's always great to have a chance to reconnect with my old friends.  Tony and I were in language school in Monterey together, and then overlapped in Berlin a couple of years.  Facebook has facilitated so many reconnections, and this is another of those.


This morning we're headed back down to DC, after breakfast.  So with that I'll close.  Nice little road trip, but I'm looking forward to getting back to the hop yard and brewery!