14th Jan: uptown girl

Today we enjoyed a wide variety of breakfast cereal! I had some wheeties, and in doing so received 90% of my daily iron intake, among other things.

We passed the post office on the way to the subway. The post office was a most interesting place. There were without a doubt the most surly workers on duty. No customer could do right! They could yell at anyone and put them in their place, if nothing seemed wrong, the simple use of marker could be cause for more yelling. We were worried about which surly worker we would get, but thankfully we did not get yelled at, and did not seem to cause much trouble. We then struggled to make our way past a blind person hitting and yelling retarded person (somewhat like I first imagined the whole of New York to be like, it turned out to be much better) and caught the sub.

We raced excitedly up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This has art from all periods, from all over the world! It was MASSIVE, you could get lost in it, and it would take you days to see everything. We started with the Egyptian exhibit, which included an ENTIRE tomb! So extravagant. There was many a statue, and many a mummy to be seen too. We walked into the most grand 'great hall' which was included a sculpture garden, the Tiffany windows and a house entry into period rooms from the 18th century. It was incredible. We checked out the arms and armour, the medieval art and the tapestries. We came through and saw the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. We the moved through the Greek and Roman art, many a statue, column and many a vase used for mixing wine and water. Seemed to be all they got up to! Then we went up to see the ancient Asian art, including a beautiful Japanese roof garden!

Then we strolled through Central Park and found ourselves some bagels and cream cheese for lunch! Oh the New York bagel - I salute thee. And Jacki we found the Alice in Wonderland statue and admired it, and thought of you! Around the bottom it had heaps of cool quotes from the book. No-one can resist but to climb on it. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring more of Central Park. We made our way around to Strawberry Fields. Across the road from this is the Dakota building.

We caught the subway up to Columbia University. The grounds were very beautiful, but did not allow for much fun. No walking on the grass (in cleats) and no loud noises. BOO! We couldn't even use their washrooms! We popped into a second hand broadway shop, which was pretty cool, and then went down to Columbus Circle. This housed the Christopher Columbus obolisk (to mums joy) and is home to the Time Warner Center, a giant glass mountain of shopping mall.

Somehow managed to fit in a bit of shopping before heading over to the Museum of Natural History for the last free hour. This was pure joy, we luckily ended up in the rock and formation of the Earth section. I was overjoyed. Then we ended up in the diversity of life section, many a stuffed animal and a diarama to enjoy there. We were hustled out of the museum, and into the most magical cupcake store of all. Crumbs, recommended to me by a friend who lives in New York. The cupcakes were monstrous and delicious! Had some Budweiser and some tea, and got ready for Washington DC!

13th Jan: doo wop party

Today we had a modern art extravaganza!

After first visiting Union Square in the morning, and seeing a pant-ed protest in the day light hours, we caught the subway down to the Museum of Modern Art. We met up with mum's friend Michael who was quite good at pimping the 'I'm an Australian' and 'a dingo ate my baby' lines. He managed to get himself a discount into the museum. Sophie posed as an angsty teen, and we manged to get in rather cheaply. We spent so much of our day there, appreciating the modern art.

First we loved the Monet Water Lilies, then worked backwards in time from the 1970's back to the 1880's. I adroed the Andy Warhol's, enjoyed the craze of Jackson Pollock and took in the Jasper Johns'. Then admired classic Van Gogh's, Picasso's, Dali's and Matisse's. My heart exploded with delight when I laid my eyes upon an Edward Munch, screaming many! OHHHHH. I adore you Mr Munch. I wish there had been more than the one work of art, but it was fantastic to see one in the flesh. I normally mock people that stand beside works of art, but here I could not resist to stand by. One weird girl went up to Starry Night, scrunhced her face and demanded photos of her ugly scruncy glory. Why did she feel the need to look so unhappy and ugly near a master piece. And waste my time, by having her in the way of my admiring it. When she was done, she tried to look at me, and laugh about what she was doing, I looked back blankly. Some jerk, also told us to MOVE from reading about a painting so that he could simply photograph it and move on to photograph more. Bastard! The museum was a delight, we did have to stop for lunch in the middle. One of the more wholesome meals I have had in a while - rustic chickpea soup. We finished our art experience at about 5, and moved on to Starbucks. Amusements on the way home included limo stopping for hotdogs, and the true church of Times Square:

We went home via the pharmacy to buy some beer, and drank it sneakily in our room before some tea.

Jan 12th: yip

Today breakfast included poptarts! It was glorious. We left and mastered the subway more-so, we made it to our destination, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum without a hitch. We strolled through the classy upper-east side to get to the Gugg. In the upper-east side they spell their numbers with letters. At the Guggenheim the Kandinsky collection was on exhibition. We took in this avant-gardes of abstraction. His works were whimsical, and numerous (the man was an art machine), but appreciating some art always makes me feel good. We got a free audio guide gadget, and were able to better 'understand' the art at present. The museum was somewhat packed. I wondered weather this Kandinsky just knew how to draw a crowd or something else. The exhibit finished the next day, so we were very fortunate to see it!
We had some lunch, I somehow ordered a meat and mushroom burger, but managed to pick out the whopping American sizing of meat out. We then explored Bloomingdale's - 9 stories of shopping haven. It is full of designer boutiques, and many novel items including a rather large replica of the New York skyline in chocolate, and many usless rich people items. The Ralph Polo baby was the most horrifying section. What sort of child needs to wear Ralph Polo when he/she is going to sick up on it, and generally make a mess of these expensive designer miniatures. There was a $50 Ralph Polo bath robe for new borns - what kind of new born needs a functioning bath robe!!

We subway-ed to Times Square and bought some half price tickets to HAIR! There were many scaplers, judging from what they were yelling Billy Elliot and West Side story were the most unpopular plays. And we "overheard" a conversation about how great Memphis is. Their spruking did not work on us, no matter how many Tony's it is lined up for, and how many mothers enjoyed it. We had some reviving coffee and made our way to Herald Square to explore the World's largest store, Macy's. It was as its title describes pretty darn massive. We could not concur it if we tried! We bought some giant pretzels for dinner and made our way to Broadway! We found our way to our seats and generally loved Hair! Oh, I wish I could sing and dance, it was really spectacular!!!

11th Jan: Man: This enormous woman will devour us all! Aah! [jumps into water]

Today we ate up free breakfast and made our way out onto the streets on New York.It was much busier today, being a workin' weekday. The streets were jammed with traffic gas, break and honking.

We set out to explore the lower isle of Manhattan. We mastered (to some degree) the subway. It was grimy in the way you'd imagine the subway to be. Upon entering, I walked past a suspicious large yellow puddle with a "caution wet floor" sign knocked over, and sprawled in the very puddle it was trying to protect people from. Made a transfer on the sub, and made our way to Battery Park. We wandered around, and tried to buy tickets to see inside the statue of liberties head. No luck, it is sold out - until late January. Using this knowledge we decided on catching the free Staten Island Ferry past the statue. This afforded a good view of the green machine. She was pretty magnificent. We did not linger on Staten Island, and caught the ferry straight back to admire liberty once again.

While in lower Manhattan we checked out the bowling green, with a famous charging bull statue - a monument to the bull market and Americas general economic success. Trinity Church and St Paul's Chapel which was where George Washinton went to worship (and still has a pew there) and where much of the 9/11 resuce effort was conducted. It was right across from Ground Zero. The chapel and ground zero were so incredibly moving, tears wanted to stream from my eyes, as I walked around the gaping hole in New York's skyline, read about the footprint of the two towers monument, and the stories and efforts of all those involved at the Church.
We walked along Wall Street, I waved at Mr Trump again as maybe he was chillin' in this building, as the other probs still had some protesters outside it.
We saw the stock exchange and ate some Maccas for lunch. It was the grandest McDonald's EVER! It has a pianist on the second story who played delightful melodies, and occasionally sung. We passed Federal Hall, where George Washington was inaugurated. It was mighty hard to get a photo of George, as every visitor wanted to pose triumphantly next him. I encouraged Sophie to do this too, and ruin other peoples humble photos. We admired City Hall and then stomped across Brooklyn Bridge with many other pilgrims. We however, unlike many made it the full way across the bridge into Brooklyn! We walked back and bought a few souvenirs. Had some starbucks, and then bought s'more flavoured poptarts and soup for dinner! Yum!

10th Jan: New York Minute

Woke up and looked out upon traffic and yellow taxis. I was so excited. We had some free breakfast, which included the smallest portions of orange juice in the world.

We set off to stroll the streets. We passed the lovable Flatiron Building, an oddly shaped, somewhat triangular and somewhat like an iron, building that defines its neighborhood (the one that we happen to be staying in - the Flatiron district). We passed Madison Square Park, where Sophie dramatically lost a mitten for a brief moment, but nonetheless it was run over many times. We passed the Museum of Sex, which mum hates with a passion, and made our way to the Empire State Building. There weren’t too many people around, so we managed to make it to the top in about 15 minutes! The day was so clear, beautiful and -10 that we could see for miles and miles. Oh! I love NY.
We walked around 5th Avenue for while and checked out Bryant Park and the Pond on which many people were ice-skating. I sent loving vibes to the Public Library of New York and the grand lions out the front. This was only the build up to Times Square. The glory, the neon lights. There were too many advertisements - it was glorious. Admittedly I did have a coke later form a hot dog stand!! When asked, if I had requested Pepsi, I snapped back no – COKE.


We had a quick bite for lunch and went off to explore Central Park! There were a million horses and carts, and men and bikes offering to tour you around. We politely declined. We strutted around and enjoyed the outcrops of rocks. Mum and Sophie became experts in glacial striations.
There was a Trump ice-skating rink, but Trump was not skating. He was locked in his ivory tower watching the protestors down below. We popped into Tiffany and Co, and walked down more of glamorous 5th Avenue, taking in the Louis Vuitton, Prada, Jimmy Choo and more. We tried to poke in at the Saint Patricks Cathedral, but there was a service on, so we promptly left. We walked round to the Rockefeller Centre and Radio City Music hall, to find another ice-skating rink, and general festivities.

We went onto Grand Central station, and like its name, it was very grand. We had some coffee there and people watched. We tried to get into the Chrysler Building, but the lobby was closed – permanently.

Onto the United Nations, where I waved hopefully at the building. We made our way back home past Gramercy Park (which is a wanky private park, that only people that live around it have the keys too it, and can visit and frolic in its wonderland). I shook my fist. When we passed Union Square there was a pantless movement happening. Later investigation suggests that this was the 9th Annual Pant-less Subway Ride.
We drank and enjoyed some Budweiser in our room, and then went out to a really nice, all-vegetarian Indian restaurant. It was packed full of Indians, so you know it was good! Sophie picked something incredibly spicy, but generally we all ate up our tasty dosas.