First Weekend "Living" in New York City!

           "All our Dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them."  Walt Disney

            First weekend “living” in Manhattan for a year!  I went down after work on BoltBus Friday night. (I have booked BoltBus to try it out, 3 round trips worth of tickets for just about $100.  With BotlBus after 8 one way tickets, you get one trip free. So I have just 2 to go!) 

            Getting used to my late nights again in New York City. There’s truly something about that.  This city is just one giant night owl.  Saturday morning I headed out to take a walk along the East River and the skies opened up.  So, being right across from my new favorite market, Agata & Valentia, I went in for a cup of coffee (which came with 2 free mini-blueberry muffins!).  I picked up the neighborhood newspaper and happily read, while people watching. (Apparently I just missed a Robin Williams sighting as people right behind me were excitedly chatting about it!).  It continued to pour so I picked up some delicious chicken burgers stuffed with spinach and provolone, homemade tabouli and went home.   Read and visited with Kristi as she was beginning to stir from her night at work and we shared the bounty I had brought home.



"Some of the most bequiling paintings of fin-de-seicle Paris".  The New York Time..from the Jewish Museum website

            I then headed out for the day. First to the Jewish Museum (on 5^th and 92^nd), which is free on Saturdays.  There was an Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses exhibit which looked interesting.  I knew a bit about him, and I loved what I learned and saw.  He lived in the heyday of the Paris Salon world, and his benefactors, Misia Natansan and Lucy Hessel were two of the best “Society Ladies” of his times.  Oh my, how I would have loved to been a part of the Paris Salon world.  The company I would have kept: poets, writers (Colette), composers (Debussy, Ravel), theatre (Caruso), artists (Picasso, Laurencin, Cocteau), and designers (Coco Chanel)!   How much fun would that have been?!  (When I started Artemis Connections a few years ago, that was exactly what I envisioned, and dreamed of..)

          Leaving the Jewish Museum, I happily meandered the streets of the Upper East Side.  Oh, my, have you ever really just given yourself the time to do that?  The homes and buildings are truly magnificent.  I tried to get some pictures, but couldn’t capture any well with my trust-worthy IPhone (although, I must say, that little camera on my IPhone is pretty amazing!).  Passing a small gelato shop, Ciao Bella (E 92 between 5th and Madsion), I decided I owed it to myself. 

The Guggenheim Museum

Guggenheim Atrium

          Then I went to the Park and read for an hour while waiting for 5:45pm.  The Guggenheim (5th Avenue and 89thStreet) is pay what you want form then to 7:45 pm.  I was not alone with that plan, but thankfully the line moved quickly as the skies had opened up again.  The major exhibit was “International Abstraction 1949-1960”.  I finally decided, and accepted, that I am not a fan of abstract art.  I understand it’s blasphemous to not love Jackson Pollack, but there, I admit it.  There was also a major retrospective of a renowned photographer, Rineke Dijkstra, primarily of children.  Her work haunts and disturbs me, and makes me sad?  I did enjoy the museum’s own collection, a little of this, and a lot of Picasso, who I’m starting to like a bit better.  The Museum itself is something to behold, of course, being considered one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpieces.


The "Met" @ Dusk

                   From there I started walking down 5^th Avenue, truly content. 
Passed by the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) and continued to the Carlysle Hotel.  I had decided to treat myself to a glass of wine at Bemelman’s Bar in the Carlysle Hotel.  Ludwig Bemelman, the author of the Madeline series of books, painted a famous mural in the bar.  Beautiful.  I noticed a Woman sitting alone, so I asked if I could join her, and my one glass turned into a few.  But it was worth it, as we had a delightful evening together.  She is a psychologist with the Navy and works at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. (Thank you for that!).  She was in New York for a conference, and treating herself to a vacation her as she’s originally from the East, and went to college in Cambridge.



Bemelman's Bar from The Carylse Hotel website

              (At one point we both noticed an “elderly Gentleman” hanging around behind us…we had a good giggle acknowledging that with neither would he get lucky!  Full disclosure: I have always been boy crazy.  I remember chasing the boy next door when we were 4 or 5 and trying to kiss him.  His brothers would hold him down so that I could.  I have always been a boy watcher.  I now find myself checking out the 30 somethings..ewww, I know.  The 70-80 somethings may, or may not, be checking me out….so, there we have it!)

            After a wonderful day and evening, I happily went home!  Did I mention that this whole day was spent walking?! 



The King Cole Bar at The St Regis Hotel. Photo from Yelp

              My new Friend had another Bar she wanted to check out while she was in town, the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis, also adorned with a famous mural.  This one is by Maxfield Parrish.  Having been there I assured her it was wonderful.  We made plans to meet there Sunday @ 5pm before I headed home.  I enjoyed their tuna tartar as a light dinner before my bus ride.   We also chatted with another Lady, an ESL tutor living on Long Island.  I was able to make two lovely connections, sharing my business cards for Wild Berry Traveling, while having a lovely time!

TImes Square

Broadway on Broadway Stage

              Sunday was a gorgeous day and I didn’t want to waste a minute before meeting my evening date, so I willingly headed to Times Square as there was a celebration of Broadway on Broadway Hosted by Kathie Lee Gifford, excitedly pushing her upcoming show “Scandalous”, it was actually a great couple of hours!  Not too crowded, it was Times Square after all, but to be entertained with music and performance by shows such as Once, Stomp, Bring it On, Spiderman, Chicago, a Motown medley, and more on a late summer Sunday was wonderful.

                I then meandered home through a street fair that stretched for blocks in my neighborhood.  I used to be enamored of these, but now having been to a few, I realize that they all hawk the same stuff..jaded New Yorker already?!  I did, however, pick up a cute a bamboo plant for our new Happy Healing Home.  Learned that bamboo brings luck…definitely could use some of that, right now!