After Friday's free coffee and pastry for breakfast, Bookworm pointed out that she needed some actual protein in the morning, so she found an "unpretentious diner" for us on a street behind the hotel. Mom is never ready to eat until mid-morning, so Bookworm, Anabel and I walked over to the diner. Anabel's fresh-squeezed orange juice was so good that Bookworm and I wound up ordering a glass, and I had an omelet with terrible tomatoes, yummy basil and really really good mozzarella.
After breakfast, the four of us rode the subway up to Museum Mile. We stopped first at the Neue Galerie, where I had wanted to go to see the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (The Woman in Gold) and the multi-media exhibit on Weimar Berlin. Unfortunately, it was 10:25 when we got there, and the museum didn't open until 11:00. My lovely family would have been willing to stand in line with me, but it was chilly enough to be good walking weather and too chilly to stand still for 35 minutes. Clearly, I'll just have to go back. :-)
The four of us walked over to the Guggenheim, where we took the elevator to the top floor and then walked down. I was not that impressed with the Burri or Salcedo exhibits, but really enjoyed the Kandinsky. The last made me think "This is exactly the type of 'degenerate art' Hitler wanted to eradicate." I admit that I am not educated in art at all, so all of my reactions are emotional rather than reasoned.
We finished at the Guggenheim around 11:30, and then started walking around by Central Park. The street vendors were out in force, and Bookworm and I both bought prints from one artist. I loved the gates to the children's garden!
Anabel headed off to meet her nephew for lunch, and I took a cab to my lunch date. I arrived early, and was having a cigarette outside when I looked at the license plate of the car parked at the curb. Not only was it an Ohio plate, the plate-holder was from a car-dealer in Elyria, the place where both of my parents grew up! I had a mad desire to leave a note saying, "Hi stranger! EHS Class of '58, Woo-Hoo!" but refrained.
I met my Goodreads friend Jonathan at the bar of Cafe Luxembourg, and had to laugh at the thought that just like in a WWII spy movie, he could recognize me because I was carrying a copy of his book. I really need to get my head out of WWII (and the American Civil War for that matter) and onto some other subjects! At any rate, Jonathan did sign his book for me, and we had a lovely lunch full of conversation and opinionating and fun. It might have gone on longer if the bus boy hadn't knocked over a glass of red wine at the table next to us! I have to admit that I totally forgot that my camera was in my purse and so I didn't get a picture of the two of us.
I took a taxi back to the hotel and rested for a bit before Mom came in and told me it was time to get dressed for the evening. We had dinner at Sardi's like good tourists, people-watched a bit in Times Square, and then went to the Eugene O'Neill Theatre for Book of Mormon. Looking around, I thought that it reminded me of the Akron Civic Theatre and wondered if it also started life as a movie theater. It hadn't, but since the Civic was built four years later, it makes sense that the latter would have been modeled after fancy theaters of the time.
The four of us had a lot of fun with the fact that Anabel's wine came in a sippy cup, and then we settled down to watch the play.
I'm not a theater critic, so I probably won't do it justice, but Book of Mormon is blasphemous, true, shocking, sweet and hilarious all at the same time. Go see it if you can.
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