New York Street, Rainy Day

Woke up today to a downpour. Yesterday, my NYC friend said "you enjoying this little global warming thing we have going on here?" Indeed...

Mike and I only wished we looked like this...

Instead, we made a stop at our shop and really had very little to do so we decided it was the perfect day to spend in a museum... along with apparently every other tourist in NYC.

This was the line outside the Guggenheim that wrapped around the corner and down the block.

So we went to the Met.

This was the scene outside

And this was the scene inside... It looked like Grand Central Station.

but despite the crowding and chaos, it really is a most incredibly lovely museum. They have a huge Egyptian wing where they reconstructed an Egyptian temple (brought over in pieces from Egypt), the Temple of Dendur.

And while temple is incredibly cool and you can walk through it, the room it's in is even more amazing.

look at those windows!

And the whole temple complex is surrounded by a moat.

Remember that book From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler where the kids live in the Met? I would live in this room in a minute!

they've recently expanded their wing of Roman and Greek Art

with gorgeously preserved Roman mosaics

Greek statuary in their own hall

Cupid and Psyche (not a Greek original, I don't think. Maybe Rodin??)

An odd mermaid type creature

A huge display of medieval armor. There were some beautiful medieval stained glass windows but my pictures are crappy. They allow picture taking - obviously - but no flash (the guards main job, to all appearances, is to yell "no flash!" and give directions). And everything is all dimly and artistically lit, so my camera struggles to focus...

The modern art wing also had some beautiful sculpture

including this one called "Lillith." She's attached to the wall, facing down, crawling like a spider.

And I love this one by Lichenstein. I didn't know he did sculpture...

And paintings. This one, called "plastic wrapped dolls" is just mesmerizingly grotesque...

Some New york color... Please note the boxers and the green latex gloves. And the basketball was mostly flat, thus it only bounced up about a foot and kept going a little sideways. He was quite persistent, however, and maneuvered it down the block...

And another attempt at Times Square. I don't know if you can read that above sign, but it descibes my current life perfectly:

Traveling at the speed of awesome.

And tonight?? Don't know, many plans... We'll see what happens.