Oh hey, I meant to do this before!
Mar. 30th, 2010 03:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
momebieI've been so busy being stressed and talking about my ~feelings that I forgot to post about New York! So, here are some pictures and commentary.
By the time Lisa and I arrived in New York and got let into the Bed and Breakfast we had been up for a good 6 hours, so we got the grand tour, and then hung about in the room pretending to take naps between texts to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mcwonthelottery and privatelyricist. The Bed and Breakfast in itself was a rather strange character. A slightly converted town house that seemed to be falling apart in the strangest places. Like, the ceiling fan was coming out of the ceiling. But the room was lovely and large and they gave us slippers and stuff, in case we needed them. Also, there was random Rumi on the bookshelf. Obviously this room and I were meant to be, you guys.
Window seat! I am a long time lover and coveter of window seats. All I wanted growing up was a house with a cupola that had window seats. And perhaps a widow's walk.
I'm also kind of a fan of staircases that go nowhere.
This was randomly set into the ceiling just outside of the kitchen. I don't even understand that little detail.
Finally Becca made it into the city and we head into Manhattan to wander about and locate the MoMa while we waited for Jon toread Tumblr for four hours finish his laundry.
Everyone I know who's ever been to New York has told me that Rockefeller Plaza is a lot smaller than they somehow make it look on TV. And it's not that I didn't believe them, but it really surprised me by being as small as it was. Those dudes in black in the middle were epically cockteasing everyone by pretending they were going to do big skater type moves and then just doing flounces.
When we go to the MoMa we found out that there was something happening called Free Friday Nights. And while I'm certainly down for free art, the line to get in wrapped around the city block on three sides, so we thought our time might be spent elsewhere. We met up with Jon, who mostly pestered us about being tourists and not knowing where to go, so I just started off in a direction down 5th Avenue. I knew the main branch of the public library was somewhere on that street, I just hoped I had the right direction.
Luckily, I did! And then we went in and looked at maps of the Hudson River.
Maps of the Hudson River such as you have never even imagined! Maps on the walls. Maps you could walk on. Maps in old books. Google maps up on a projector. If our tour had included the Hudson River we would have been set.
And then I did more touristy things, like take pictures of the building. I can't help it, I kind of like buildings.
From there we went to Chipotle so Jon could get some food, and we sat and chatted for a while, which was good because little did we know we were about to walk all of Manhattan. And by all of I mean 60 blocks. Which isn't really all of, but it's certainly more than I would have seen of had we had a set itinerary and taken trains. I actually really enjoyed Jon's faily Tumblr tour of the city, even if he did make fun of me for looking up at the buildings. I can't help it. I like to take in new places. Also, New York is set to a much more massive scale than any other city I've ever been in.
Paramount to the Tumblr tour was the Flatiron Building, which Jon introduced as 'that building everyone reblogs all the time'. Very knowledgeable, was our tour guide. ;)
Also very creepy, as we sat in the park adjacent to that building and just kind of dicked around and took pictures ofchildren more buildings. Somewhere on Jon's twitter there's a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture of the Flatiron Building, because we were trying to out irony the hipsters. But it's been a week and a half now, so I'm not going back to look for it. Pfah.
I did not climb that statue.
Lisa is unamused with our camera antics. And Becca is distracted.
From there we set off walking again. There were some buildings in the area of the Flatiron with creepy fucking mannequins on the tops. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T BLINK.
Our aimless wandering took us down to Washington Square Park, where it was busker night! Or maybe it was just a night. I couldn't tell. When we came up the guy on the piano there was playing 'Hey Jude' and everyone sitting around the fountain was singing along. In that moment, I loved New York so much.
Banjo Guy was really pretty good. We watched him for a few songs before wandering back to the piano in the fountain.
And of course, when we turned back to look, Banjo Guy had amassed a HUGE CROWD of people, some of which had actually kicked off their shoes and started dancing right there. Rock on, Banjo Guy.
Oh, and these creepers were there too.
From Washington Square Park we walked down to where there's a bar called The Living Room. Apparentlykarenthology's cousin runs it. I was originally just going to go down and check it out, and tell her cousin 'hi' if I saw her, but it was 9:30 or so by the time we go there and standing room only. Becca decided she had better eat if we were going to drink, so we walked back to Sugar's before finally deciding that Lisa and I had been up since 4am and were going to DIE if we actually did drink. So we just chilled in there for a short while.
And this douche was still following us around, flaunting his Inner Thoughts. Fucking hipsters. The food at Sugar's was actually kind of amazing. I definitely recommend it to any one who's ever in the area.
And this is the point, dear friends, where I caught the plague. My nose had been kind of runny for the past couple days, but somehow in the time it took us to sit down and eat, it grew into a full blown assault. I tried to find tissues or NyQuil on our walk back to the subway, but was unsuccessful. We bid Jon adieu and waited thirty minutes before being able to catch a train back out to Brooklyn, where I spent all night having extra bizarre dreams that I blame on Lisa's allergy meds and waking up every fifteen minutes to blow my nose into the world's worst toilet paper. Becca, I'm sure, was thrilled the whole time.
BUT THEN THERE WAS DAY 2!
The next morning we got a slow start. I finally found some drugs and tissues and it took us a long time to get into Manhattan because a train was down. By the time we got to The Metpockyslash was already waiting for us. The other's hadn't made it yet, so we walked down to a nice little cafe and had some lunch and bonded. I like Kait. Even if her names DOES weird me out every time I see Becca use it, because it just looks like she tried to type 'Kati' and messed up.
Once we got into the museum we split up. Becca and Kait wanted to wander around and make fun of the art, and I wanted to wander around and revel in the art, and Lisa was just kind of tired.
This is the part where I tweeted about having seen 'Don't Eat the Pictures'. PLEASE TELL ME SOME OF YOU HAVE SEEN THIS. Because Lisa just thought I was kind of crazy. Here's the first part on youtube if you don't know what I'm talking about:
ANYWAY, there were Ancient Egyptian things, is the point. It was kind of weird, wandering around some of the exhibits, because a lot of stuff has changed since I was last there, but a lot of it has stayed the same. The thing that seems to have changed the most is the attitude about pictures. It just seems more permissible now. Which basically means I wasn't the only douchebag taking pictures. It probably has to do with the fact that a lot of digi cams don't NEED flash, which was always their biggest concern.
This looked pretty awkward. If you have to use both hands to hold your head to see where you're going, HOW DO YOU MULTI-TASK?
There were also American things.
This was my very favorite American thing. Just the way she seems to be lifting the veil in the rock, and how light it all looks. I mentioned this tobrilligspoons, but I am in awe of people who can just take a slab of stone and chisel something so beautiful or intricate out of it. If I was going to believe in a god, that would be one of the reasons. This of course, is probably why I plan to get Some marble blocks have statues within them, embedded in their future tattooed on my body at some point in time. Also, because I'm a hipster douchebag.
I was also quite in love with this. There were actually two of them. They'll come back later.
AND IN THE OLDEN DAYS, MEN USED TO FIGHT FOR TINY DRAGONS.
I was actually really annoyed with myself for having left my moleskine back in the room. When I see things I might want to use for later as setting or background I sometimes try to rough sketch them out. Now I was just stuck with taking pictures. Which was probably just as well. It would take me 8 years to sketch everything I loved in the small areas of that museum that I actually got to see.
There is a Visible Storage section of the American Wing and this was in it. The quality's shit because I took it on my phone to just send to Lisa really quick, but now you can all be excited too. :p
AND THEN I WANDERED INTO MEDIEVAL ART, WHICH IS WHERE MARGARET FOUND ME. And then for five seconds I felt kind of awkward because she stopped and waved and I was all 'OH GOD, I DON'T KNOW WHAT ANYONE LOOKS LIKE, HOW DO I KNOW IT'S THEM?' I mean, I did that internally. Instead I just went 'do I know you?' And I did. So there were hugs. HUGS I SAY. I like to think that all the Mary's approved.
From there we went and looked at some really freaking old things from Asia, mostly from Japan.
Gosh I love things that are really freaking old. And then we went and looked at some Victorian photo collage, which I was not allowed to take pictures of, but which IS AMAZING. I mean, I kind of love Victorian's anyway, because they're all kinds of hilarious, BUT THIS WAS EXTRA SPECIAL. Just look it up on the internet.
And then we went and looked at musical instruments and there was a WHOLE CASE of accordions and concertinas. MY LIFE YOU GUYS. I wouldn't be surprised if Lisa and I are ever jailed for trying to liberate that whole section.
But by then it was getting kind of late, so we wandered over to the cafe in the American Garden and hung out and chatted until Lisa and Karen caught up with us. The only reason I knew Karen was Karen, btw, was because she threatened to punch Lisa.
NOBODY MOVE, I'VE DROPPED MY CONTACT.
From there we met up with the whole group at a Starbucks, where Gary the Dalek was regaling everyone with stories of HIS museum adventures, which apparently mostly consisted of hitting on headless broads in the Greek section. I think he's gone native, guys.
And then it was off on a several block search for a bar that could seat the seven of us. What we found was a restaurant called Cinema, which I also heartily recommend. The food was good, and our waiter was gracious, even though we hogged his table for four hours and mostly drank too much. But hey, that apparently didn't bother them, because they brought us free shots! This was about the point that that phone post happened. So, you know. This particular picture is ofpaper_tziporah with the free shot, because my camera didn't see fit to include anyone else in the picture.
And this is a picture my phone ALMOST took of Karen double fisting.
And this is the picture from before of the New Jersey girls (and Becca, who just has a New Jersey Soul) being douches. Because that's what Jersey does best!
From there the rest of it was just a blur of cold medication and tissues and subway rides and leaving. I wouldn't mind visiting the city again, but I don't think I could ever live there. I'm just not a person who likes being around people, and they seem hard to escape. It doesn't help that Saturday afternoon, when I felt the absolute most sick and couldn't breathe, the subway was extra crowded because of the line changes. I mostly remember closing my eyes and pretending I didn't have thirteen stops to go. At one point there was a dude standing in front of me reading a Batman TPB and I just kind of honed in on that. Seriously, Batman will save me. Lisa said later that he was checking out my tattoo, so you know, mutual appreciation, we found our people, woo. But really I was just sick and cranky and not into being smushed into tin cans with tons of other people.
It has its charm and its interest though, and I feel extremely lucky to have gotten to meet up with Becca and Jon and Karen and Kait and Joni and Margaret. I totally think we should make the fangirl meet up a yearly thing. As Lisa said, no city with public transportation is safe. I hear Boston is nice some times of the year. ;)
In other news, the other night while I was on the phone with Boy we realized we had been together ALMOST TEN YEARS. You guys, I am so, so old. *weeps*
By the time Lisa and I arrived in New York and got let into the Bed and Breakfast we had been up for a good 6 hours, so we got the grand tour, and then hung about in the room pretending to take naps between texts to
mcwonthelottery and privatelyricist. The Bed and Breakfast in itself was a rather strange character. A slightly converted town house that seemed to be falling apart in the strangest places. Like, the ceiling fan was coming out of the ceiling. But the room was lovely and large and they gave us slippers and stuff, in case we needed them. Also, there was random Rumi on the bookshelf. Obviously this room and I were meant to be, you guys. Window seat! I am a long time lover and coveter of window seats. All I wanted growing up was a house with a cupola that had window seats. And perhaps a widow's walk.
I'm also kind of a fan of staircases that go nowhere.
This was randomly set into the ceiling just outside of the kitchen. I don't even understand that little detail.
Finally Becca made it into the city and we head into Manhattan to wander about and locate the MoMa while we waited for Jon to
Everyone I know who's ever been to New York has told me that Rockefeller Plaza is a lot smaller than they somehow make it look on TV. And it's not that I didn't believe them, but it really surprised me by being as small as it was. Those dudes in black in the middle were epically cockteasing everyone by pretending they were going to do big skater type moves and then just doing flounces.
When we go to the MoMa we found out that there was something happening called Free Friday Nights. And while I'm certainly down for free art, the line to get in wrapped around the city block on three sides, so we thought our time might be spent elsewhere. We met up with Jon, who mostly pestered us about being tourists and not knowing where to go, so I just started off in a direction down 5th Avenue. I knew the main branch of the public library was somewhere on that street, I just hoped I had the right direction.
Luckily, I did! And then we went in and looked at maps of the Hudson River.
Maps of the Hudson River such as you have never even imagined! Maps on the walls. Maps you could walk on. Maps in old books. Google maps up on a projector. If our tour had included the Hudson River we would have been set.
And then I did more touristy things, like take pictures of the building. I can't help it, I kind of like buildings.
From there we went to Chipotle so Jon could get some food, and we sat and chatted for a while, which was good because little did we know we were about to walk all of Manhattan. And by all of I mean 60 blocks. Which isn't really all of, but it's certainly more than I would have seen of had we had a set itinerary and taken trains. I actually really enjoyed Jon's faily Tumblr tour of the city, even if he did make fun of me for looking up at the buildings. I can't help it. I like to take in new places. Also, New York is set to a much more massive scale than any other city I've ever been in.
Paramount to the Tumblr tour was the Flatiron Building, which Jon introduced as 'that building everyone reblogs all the time'. Very knowledgeable, was our tour guide. ;)
Also very creepy, as we sat in the park adjacent to that building and just kind of dicked around and took pictures of
I did not climb that statue.
Lisa is unamused with our camera antics. And Becca is distracted.
From there we set off walking again. There were some buildings in the area of the Flatiron with creepy fucking mannequins on the tops. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T BLINK.
Our aimless wandering took us down to Washington Square Park, where it was busker night! Or maybe it was just a night. I couldn't tell. When we came up the guy on the piano there was playing 'Hey Jude' and everyone sitting around the fountain was singing along. In that moment, I loved New York so much.
Banjo Guy was really pretty good. We watched him for a few songs before wandering back to the piano in the fountain.
And of course, when we turned back to look, Banjo Guy had amassed a HUGE CROWD of people, some of which had actually kicked off their shoes and started dancing right there. Rock on, Banjo Guy.
Oh, and these creepers were there too.
From Washington Square Park we walked down to where there's a bar called The Living Room. Apparently
karenthology's cousin runs it. I was originally just going to go down and check it out, and tell her cousin 'hi' if I saw her, but it was 9:30 or so by the time we go there and standing room only. Becca decided she had better eat if we were going to drink, so we walked back to Sugar's before finally deciding that Lisa and I had been up since 4am and were going to DIE if we actually did drink. So we just chilled in there for a short while. And this douche was still following us around, flaunting his Inner Thoughts. Fucking hipsters. The food at Sugar's was actually kind of amazing. I definitely recommend it to any one who's ever in the area.
And this is the point, dear friends, where I caught the plague. My nose had been kind of runny for the past couple days, but somehow in the time it took us to sit down and eat, it grew into a full blown assault. I tried to find tissues or NyQuil on our walk back to the subway, but was unsuccessful. We bid Jon adieu and waited thirty minutes before being able to catch a train back out to Brooklyn, where I spent all night having extra bizarre dreams that I blame on Lisa's allergy meds and waking up every fifteen minutes to blow my nose into the world's worst toilet paper. Becca, I'm sure, was thrilled the whole time.
BUT THEN THERE WAS DAY 2!
The next morning we got a slow start. I finally found some drugs and tissues and it took us a long time to get into Manhattan because a train was down. By the time we got to The Met
pockyslash was already waiting for us. The other's hadn't made it yet, so we walked down to a nice little cafe and had some lunch and bonded. I like Kait. Even if her names DOES weird me out every time I see Becca use it, because it just looks like she tried to type 'Kati' and messed up. Once we got into the museum we split up. Becca and Kait wanted to wander around and make fun of the art, and I wanted to wander around and revel in the art, and Lisa was just kind of tired.
This is the part where I tweeted about having seen 'Don't Eat the Pictures'. PLEASE TELL ME SOME OF YOU HAVE SEEN THIS. Because Lisa just thought I was kind of crazy. Here's the first part on youtube if you don't know what I'm talking about:
ANYWAY, there were Ancient Egyptian things, is the point. It was kind of weird, wandering around some of the exhibits, because a lot of stuff has changed since I was last there, but a lot of it has stayed the same. The thing that seems to have changed the most is the attitude about pictures. It just seems more permissible now. Which basically means I wasn't the only douchebag taking pictures. It probably has to do with the fact that a lot of digi cams don't NEED flash, which was always their biggest concern.
This looked pretty awkward. If you have to use both hands to hold your head to see where you're going, HOW DO YOU MULTI-TASK?
There were also American things.
This was my very favorite American thing. Just the way she seems to be lifting the veil in the rock, and how light it all looks. I mentioned this to
brilligspoons, but I am in awe of people who can just take a slab of stone and chisel something so beautiful or intricate out of it. If I was going to believe in a god, that would be one of the reasons. This of course, is probably why I plan to get Some marble blocks have statues within them, embedded in their future tattooed on my body at some point in time. Also, because I'm a hipster douchebag. I was also quite in love with this. There were actually two of them. They'll come back later.
AND IN THE OLDEN DAYS, MEN USED TO FIGHT FOR TINY DRAGONS.
I was actually really annoyed with myself for having left my moleskine back in the room. When I see things I might want to use for later as setting or background I sometimes try to rough sketch them out. Now I was just stuck with taking pictures. Which was probably just as well. It would take me 8 years to sketch everything I loved in the small areas of that museum that I actually got to see.
There is a Visible Storage section of the American Wing and this was in it. The quality's shit because I took it on my phone to just send to Lisa really quick, but now you can all be excited too. :p
AND THEN I WANDERED INTO MEDIEVAL ART, WHICH IS WHERE MARGARET FOUND ME. And then for five seconds I felt kind of awkward because she stopped and waved and I was all 'OH GOD, I DON'T KNOW WHAT ANYONE LOOKS LIKE, HOW DO I KNOW IT'S THEM?' I mean, I did that internally. Instead I just went 'do I know you?' And I did. So there were hugs. HUGS I SAY. I like to think that all the Mary's approved.
From there we went and looked at some really freaking old things from Asia, mostly from Japan.
Gosh I love things that are really freaking old. And then we went and looked at some Victorian photo collage, which I was not allowed to take pictures of, but which IS AMAZING. I mean, I kind of love Victorian's anyway, because they're all kinds of hilarious, BUT THIS WAS EXTRA SPECIAL. Just look it up on the internet.
And then we went and looked at musical instruments and there was a WHOLE CASE of accordions and concertinas. MY LIFE YOU GUYS. I wouldn't be surprised if Lisa and I are ever jailed for trying to liberate that whole section.
But by then it was getting kind of late, so we wandered over to the cafe in the American Garden and hung out and chatted until Lisa and Karen caught up with us. The only reason I knew Karen was Karen, btw, was because she threatened to punch Lisa.
NOBODY MOVE, I'VE DROPPED MY CONTACT.
From there we met up with the whole group at a Starbucks, where Gary the Dalek was regaling everyone with stories of HIS museum adventures, which apparently mostly consisted of hitting on headless broads in the Greek section. I think he's gone native, guys.
And then it was off on a several block search for a bar that could seat the seven of us. What we found was a restaurant called Cinema, which I also heartily recommend. The food was good, and our waiter was gracious, even though we hogged his table for four hours and mostly drank too much. But hey, that apparently didn't bother them, because they brought us free shots! This was about the point that that phone post happened. So, you know. This particular picture is of
paper_tziporah with the free shot, because my camera didn't see fit to include anyone else in the picture. And this is a picture my phone ALMOST took of Karen double fisting.
And this is the picture from before of the New Jersey girls (and Becca, who just has a New Jersey Soul) being douches. Because that's what Jersey does best!
From there the rest of it was just a blur of cold medication and tissues and subway rides and leaving. I wouldn't mind visiting the city again, but I don't think I could ever live there. I'm just not a person who likes being around people, and they seem hard to escape. It doesn't help that Saturday afternoon, when I felt the absolute most sick and couldn't breathe, the subway was extra crowded because of the line changes. I mostly remember closing my eyes and pretending I didn't have thirteen stops to go. At one point there was a dude standing in front of me reading a Batman TPB and I just kind of honed in on that. Seriously, Batman will save me. Lisa said later that he was checking out my tattoo, so you know, mutual appreciation, we found our people, woo. But really I was just sick and cranky and not into being smushed into tin cans with tons of other people.
It has its charm and its interest though, and I feel extremely lucky to have gotten to meet up with Becca and Jon and Karen and Kait and Joni and Margaret. I totally think we should make the fangirl meet up a yearly thing. As Lisa said, no city with public transportation is safe. I hear Boston is nice some times of the year. ;)
In other news, the other night while I was on the phone with Boy we realized we had been together ALMOST TEN YEARS. You guys, I am so, so old. *weeps*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-03-30 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-30 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-30 08:16 pm (UTC)Also, your photos are some lovely. I'm also a fan of stairs that go nowhere. There is a bar up the road from me that has 4 or 5 doors that go nowhere! You can ask Melanie about them; she's seen them too. Personally, I'm of the opinion that the doors go lots of places, but only at certain times or for certain people, so there.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-30 08:18 pm (UTC)I really wonder why those particular stairs didn't go anywhere, but the guy who ran the place was hardly around when we were to ask.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-30 08:19 pm (UTC)HOW DO YOU MULTI-TASK?
He's a man. Men can't multi-task, even when they don't have to hold their heads.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-30 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-30 09:07 pm (UTC)Think I have to agree about loving it but not being able to live there.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-31 12:08 pm (UTC)and i am also a fan of both windowseats and staircases that go nowhere. \o/
no subject
Date: 2010-03-31 01:30 pm (UTC)I think I'm just not a big city girl, you know? I'm comfortable in middle size cities. Though I wouldn't mind having good public transport.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-31 01:32 pm (UTC)I just like old houses. I'd consider getting one at some point in my life, but I'd have to make sure it wasn't haunted. It's a worry of mine. Because I'm a spaz.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-31 04:39 pm (UTC)When are we going to NY together? :D
no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 02:45 am (UTC)Did you want a window seat with a bench, like Arsenic and Old Lace?
no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-02 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 10:03 am (UTC)(I'm now 33 & have been with my man for nearly nine years.) ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-25 12:24 am (UTC)(& my dude just had his 36TH b'day!!!) Crazytimes.
Yup, can't get rid of him. You may remember--if I've talked about it when you were 'listening'--that I'd once rid myself of mine, cuz I thought our lives were irreconcilably heading in different directions, but we weren't so good apart, and it turned out that we could forge a path of overlappingness. ;p