Real vacation: day 3 a day late

All the walking on Thursday caught up with me on Friday and I was too tired at the end of the day to write.  I managed to get Selim in the shower and into his p.j.'s before falling into bed.  I may have fallen asleep before the end of the bedtime song.

But what a great day we had!  In the morning, we checked out of the hotel, even though Selim wanted to stay and stay.  

Luggage trailed behind us as we walked the few blocks to Grand Central Station.  I made us stop one more time for a few more pictures on the steps of the NY Public Library. 

I just had to laugh as we walked along 42nd Street and Selim kept asking me if I knew where I was going.  "Have I gotten lost yet this trip?" I asked him.

     "No."

     "Have I ever gotten us so lost that you were scared...before this trip?"

     "No."

     "Then please have a little faith in my ability to get us where we want to go."

     "OK.  But are you sure you know where you are going?  I don't really think you do."

We went back to GCS because Selim had seen a cool gift shop that he wanted to revisit.  I told him the night before that he deserved a little extra something have walked over 6 miles.  But we walked around and didn't spot the shop he remembered.  I was willing to explore the shops some more, but after ten minutes or so, he said we should just get our bus and go up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to meet the rest of the family.  At least I got another chance to take a few more pictures of the awesome lighting inside.  

The buses going uptown are found on Madison, just two blocks away.  We hopped on the M4 and headed up Madison Ave.  Around 50th Street, we talked back and forth about getting off and going to see the Balto statue in Central Park.  That was on our original list of things to do, after Selim had spent a social studies unit studying the Iditarod in school.  We got off at 69th Street and walked over to Central Park.  The statue was a few blocks south and we found it no problem.

After taking some pictures we exited the park on 66th and walked back to Madison and got on the M2 bus and rode it up to 82nd Street.  Just as we were walking between Madison and 5th, Heather called saying that the ladies car was at the Museum.  We hurried to the street corner and met the car Ann drove.  Grateful to stow our luggage in the trunk, we waited for the boy's car.  Soon enough, Dan pulled up and we said goodbye to Selim as he joined Dan, Stan, Robert, and Joshua for a manly manly outing.

It was a bit strange handing off Selim to others, as we had not been separated since Wednesday morning.  At the same time, it was nice to be with the ladies, Mom, Heather, Ann, Jen, and Hannah -- seeing an exhibit entitled Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity.  

Since it was a new exhibit and the catalog for sale was $40, you could not take pictures within the show.  There were a few postcards in the gift shop, but not too many of my favorite dresses or paintings.  I really liked the paintings in the last room of the show, by Jean Beraud, A Ball, and Sunday at the Church of Sainte-Phillipe (they are on the back wall, on either side of the Gustave Caillebotte's, Paris Street, Rainy Day).  And of course, they are too small to see in this picture and they are not included in the highlight's on the web page.  I liked the smaller brush strokes and the fine detail.  There was something intimate about them that I responded to.  The other painting I liked was on the wall behind, A Windy Day at the Pont des Arles by James Tissot, I think and also not in this picture.

Somehow I managed to get separated from our group as we meandered through the rooms.  I walked through it faster than everybody else.  After I finished, I hooked up with Mom and Heather and strolled with them as they went through the last rooms.  My two favorite dresses were in different rooms.  I really liked the white dress with the roses in the picture above.  The waist is tiny, but it doesn't appear to be as abnormally cinched as some of the others.

The other dress was in both painting and in fabric.  In the painting, In the Conservatory by Albert Bartholome, the woman is wearing this great purple and white polka dot dress with fringe.  I just loved it.  The dress was in a case right by the painting.  So cool to see the painting and the real life dress at the same time.

Looking at the dresses, it is hard to imagine women being that tiny.  Included in the show were gloves and shoes.  Oh my goodness, it was like looking at doll accessories.  The dresses were intricate and lovely, but not calling out my name saying, "wear me, wear me!"  I wouldn't be able to catch my breath all tied up tight like that. 

After that exhibit, we stayed with the Impressionists, but moved to the landscapes to get out of the intimate and into the vast.  I had favorites there as well.  They were the usual suspects: flowers by Van Gogh,

interiors by Pierre Bonard,

"Scrumptious" Vuillard, said Mom,

the joy of Matisse,

And a softer style of Edvard Munch.

From that wing, we made our way down to the cafeteria for lunch and a much needed rest.  For some reason, I was having shooting pain in my ear, similar to last summer when I was in London.  At times I felt off balance and my shoulders were tired from wincing when the pain got worse.  I took a couple of aspirin with lunch and I think that helped.  Fortified, we went back up to the second floor and into the Islamic Wing.  On November 1, 2011 it reopened after an eight-year renovation.  Someone in our group called it "eye candy" and that is not a misnomer.  Stunning is what comes to my mind.

The area is set up so that you move through time in relatively chronological order and at the same time, by region.  The first pieces that caught my eye were incense burners, shaped as animals.  There was a big cat-like figure, and three birds.  The birds are from Iran, the 12-13th Centuries.

The rooms where I lingered longest were devoted to the Ottoman Empire / Turkish metals, rugs, and tile.  Are you kidding me, so gorgeous!  My photos do not do the rugs justice at all.

The nautical motifs on the ceramics reminded me of my hubby.

  

As I stopped at gazed, I was reminded of the time that we went to the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul.  I was so enthralled by the tile on the walls that I wasn't paying my full attention to the jewels and gold in the display cases.  Nedim tried to show me all the gold, but I kept showing him the tiles that made up the rooms.  He got exasperated with me.  Our conversations went something like this:

     "Look at this gold!  Isn't it amazing."

     "Look at the tile!  It is so beautiful."

     "No, the gold in the case.  You are missing the point."

     "But the tiles!" me, looking everywhere but inside the cases.

I must have been an Ottoman Empire tile worker in one of my past lives.  At the end of that gallery was a prayer room reconstructed from one in Damascus, Syria.  I wish I had a room like that in my house.  As I was looking and taking pictures, I sent a prayer to modern day Syria.  I hope that all the bombs and fighting don't destroy all the physical treasures that the country holds.  Obviously, I'm not meaning to minimize the human suffering at all.  The devastation of war is such a tragedy.

In the India / Pakistan / Bangladesh area was a jeweled Ram's head dagger.  Just what my little boy would love -- a combo of weapon and jewels.  What could be better?

Realizing that the afternoon was getting on and if we wanted to get out of the city at a reasonable time, we left finishing that exhibit.  We said goodbye to Jen and Hannah and got out of Manhattan before the real rush / crush of rush hour began.

We finished up our day with a sweet meal at Heather and Stan's.  The boys had enjoyed their trip to the American Museum of Natural History.  They saw the whale and butterfly exhibits and they revisited the big dinosaur skeleton. There were nine of us and then Nathan joined us just after 7:30.  After dinner, Selim and I followed Ann and Dan over to their house and spent the night.  We slept in Rebecca's room, surrounded by soccer photos and posters.  So sweet to see the one of Rebecca and Selim a few years ago, taken after the game in Boston.

It was a jam-packed, uber sweet day.  If we had still been in the hotel room, this would have been our view.