Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Hello from the Big Apple!
Up this morning about 6:30 a.m. and down for breakfast a few
minutes before 7.
And, while we were
able to grab the last table, I think everybody else had my good idea too.
It’s really amazing how many languages we
have been hearing at breakfast.
 |
Lobby of Empire State Building
|
Obviously this hotel must really have a great reputation with
Europeans.
In fact, at one point this
morning, we were talking as we walked into the elevator, and the other couple
in the elevator said:
“You speak
English!
We thought we were the only
ones here who could!”
They said that
they have been coming back to hotel for years, and gave us some tips about
laundries (!) and restaurants in the area.
How fun!
At any rate, breakfast
was fine.
R had a “real” bagel with
cream cheese; I had scrambled eggs, sausage and toast.
 |
| Brooklyn Museum |
 |
| Lobby of museum |
 |
Loved this picture!
|
 |
| Central courtyard 3rd floor |
Our principal destination today was the
Brooklyn Museum.
In fact, we
have concluded that neither of us has ever been in Brooklyn before!
However, first, we wanted to stop by the
Empire State Building and get tickets
for our visit with Brenda and Chris.
We
hopped on the
F train … and waited…
and waited…it turns out that apparently there was a medical emergency happening
on the train ahead of us on the tracks, so we had to wait until such time as
the emergency had been handled.
In any
event, we finally decided that rather than waiting interminably, we would walk
a few blocks to
Queensboro Plaza and
pick up a
Q train into town.
We found a few more interesting spots –
another laundry (!) as well as Greek, Italian and deli restaurants that all
looked very nice!
We are becoming very
fond of Long Island City!
Up the stairs
to the loading platform for the
Q,
and then shot straight into town and to the
Herald
Square stop.
 |
Liked this Chagall!
|
 |
Stunning gold lion from Assyria
|
A really interesting phenomenon is that we were looking for
a VERY tall building – it’s not named the Empire
State building for nothing! Yet when
we emerged from the subway, of course, we couldn’t even see it!! Finally headed in the right direction, and
went into the building and upstairs to their security and ticket
concourse. It probably took 20 minutes
or so, but everything moved quickly; lots of people wanting to see the
building! I think it’s on our agenda to
do tomorrow night after we have dinner at Tavern
on the Green.
 |
More Assyrian gold artifacts
|
 |
Sumerian necklace!
|
So…from Herald Square,
we caught the #2 (or the #3) train directly to Brooklyn, and exited at Eastern
Parkway. It was amazing! We came up from the subway, and voila, there,
directly in front of us, was the museum!
It’s in a lovely park and plaza; lots of people – families with kids,
etc. enjoying a really lovely day! (It’s
supposed to be 80 today!) The museum
opened at 11, and it must have been about 11:15. Short line for tickets, and this time – YEAH!
– I got to be a senior for a change!!
(Let’s hear it for the Brooklyn
Museum!!)
It’s really a lovely building, with a very nice
collection.
We were really only
interested in the third floor, where the
Kevorkian
Gallery of Ancient Near Eastern Art is located.
 |
| Assyrian huge panels |
But to get there, we had to pass through their
lovely courtyard of European paintings, which was very impressive.
(Suggestion to the museum:
You need to use anti-reflection “museum glass”
to cover your paintings!
In that lovely,
sunny gallery, there was way too much glare to be able to properly appreciate
some of the paintings.)
From the courtyard,
we found the Near Eastern artifacts, and while there was primarily one nice
sized room, they had a collection of 12 friezes from
Ninevah and
Nasirbanipal II’s
palace – similar to ones we have seen at the Hood and the MFA in Boston.
We had no idea that so many of these huge
pieces had made their way to the United States!
Some of their other pieces were superb – especially the beads from a
Sumerian necklace, as well as some stunning gold pieces.
We were very glad we came!
The museum also has a very large Egyptian
collection that we enjoyed seeing.
 |
Tree of life panel
|
 |
Minoan pitcher
|
By this time it was getting close to 1 p.m. and our plan for
the day is to get a good lunch, go back to the hotel and take a nap because we
have tickets to the Metropolitan Opera
tonight to see Turandot, my very
favorite opera! So excited! We sat in the museum’s lovely courtyard and R
suggested that we try the Carnegie Deli,
as that would give us not only a huge sandwich for lunch, but certainly
leftovers for later! So, took a 3 back
to Atlantic Avenue (in Brooklyn) and transferred to a Q train which took us right to Carnegie
Hall at 53rd and 7thAvenue. We were just a few steps from Carnegie Deli –
to find that they were closed up tight with a letter taped to the door. It turns out that, in April, the Deli got
caught illegally by-passing their gas meter to cheat on the gas bill (which has
probably been going on for years; the current owner of the Deli says he knew
nothing about it) and they have been closed ever since. Incredibly, they are still working on the
problem but why it is taking this long is a mystery.
Disappointing, but right next door was Premier
Deli.
In we went and both ordered
pastrami sandwiches – R on rye and mine on a roll.
They were great!
Super pastrami, but not nearly as much as you
get from Carnegie (which R always objects to, as he thinks it’s an obscene
amount and wasteful!).
Sandwiches came
with large pickles, and we bought chips and bottled water to go with them.
 |
| R's pastrami on rye with pickles! |
They have a really nice upstairs seating area
where we enjoyed halves of our sandwiches, and wrapped the other halves up to
take with us.
(Although I think I hear
mine calling me from our mini-fridge…yum!)
From the deli, we headed back to the Plaza Hotel and both
took nice naps. Now I’m blogging and
posting because we will be back really late tonight, and I will write about the
opera tomorrow!
Bye for now!
m
xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment