New York, New York

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I have been feeling a little jet-lagged and have not written a blog for a couple of day. Thursday was a travel day. I flew from Paris to New York City, arriving at JFK around 1 PM. I had anticipated the usual grilling at US Passport Control, but the fellow processed me much quicker than other agents have when I have returned from these long overseas trips. He didn't even comment on the page of my passport with the Arabic writing from Tunisia. I made it to my hotel in Midtown Manhattan and didn't do much the rest of that day except walk to Times Square and back. It has been a while since I was here and Times Square seems livelier and friendlier than I recall. For one thing, there are multiple people dressed as cartoon characters wandering around and posing for photos with tourists (see picture). I assume they then receive some money from the tourists. Friday I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its offshoot, The Cloisters. I have been to NYC several times in the past, but never to the Metropolitan. It was a revelation. First of all, it is huge. I spent about five hours there and didn't see everything. Secondly, it has an amazingly fine collection of art from ancient times to recent years. I kept stumbling across famous paintings and sculpture that I recognized, but never knew before that it "lived" here (see picture). And thirdly, I was impressed with how well-presented the art is. (Some museums I've seen on this trip have good pieces of art, but don't present them well - the Archeological Museum in Naples comes immediately to mind.) The Cloisters is a purpose-built museum way uptown with the Metropolitan's finest examples of medieval art. Having seen my fair share of such works on this trip already, I was impressed with what they have here. The Cloisters is so named because several actual monastic cloisters were shipped here and reassembled as part of the building (see picture). Before I left the Metropolitan, I went up to the rooftop garden - open on Friday and Saturday evenings - to enjoy the view over Central Park and Manhattan (see picture). Today, Saturday, I took the subway down to the site of the World Trade Center. The first thing one sees is the tallest building in the city called 1 World Trade Center (see picture). I didn't go inside nor up to the newly-opened observation deck because visibility in NYC was poor this morning. I did, however, tour the 9/11 memorial and the museum nearby. The memorial consists of two large square fountains where the twin towers once stood (see picture). The museum is underground and includes portions of the walls for the towers as well as many other artifacts, including two NYFD trucks (see picture). (That is the front of the truck in the left side of the picture.) It was interesting to be on the site, but I'm not sure I learned much. Afterward I felt I needed to do something lighter, so I went to have lunch at the Empire Diner, a New York institution for decades. (I read about it in the New Yorker magazine once.) I had a salad and fries (hey, it's a diner!) and it all tasted very good (see picture). And that about catches you up. Tomorrow I will undertake some more exploration of the Big Apple.

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