Thursday: I do NOT Art

The forecast for Thursday called for rain again. This wet stuff was putting quite the damper on my site seeing plans. I was trying to think of what I could do that would be inside, so I asked Whitney about museums. She suggested the New Museum downtown because they had a new exhibit. Bright(ish) and early(ish) I headed to the subway and downtown to check this thing out.

Well Whitney said there was a slide. Little did I know what was to come. When I got there I almost backed out and just went the other way. I’m not a big art fan. Give me photography, but other art I have little use for. I like reality. However, this trip is about jumping outside my comfort zone, so I went in. The lady taking money explained how everything would work and pointed me to the desk to sign the waiver.


WAIVER??? What was I getting myself into?


So I signed the waiver and headed to the fourth floor, where the excitement started. In the elevator there were flat panel televisions on either side with identical women (same woman? Twins? Not sure) saying “I say the opposite of what you say” then the other would repeat it, then one would say “I say the same thing you say” and the other would repeat it. To say I was out of my comfort zone was beyond an understatement.


When I got upstairs, there was a slide. And a mirror carousel. And some cages hanging from the ceiling with canaries in them. You couldn’t take bags down the slide, so I went back down the elevator with the creepy tv women and put my bag in a locker in the basement. Then I headed back up for the “experience.”


First I got on the carousel (after listening to the end of the docent tour, I still didn’t get the “art”). That wasn’t so bad. Next was the slide. It went from the fourth floor through the third floor and ended on the second floor. You had to use a mat and wear a helmet. I figured, when in Rome.


Yeah it was a slide. I mean it was a nice slide, but I just didn’t get the “art” about it. On the second floor, where you landed, there were flashing lights and large brightly colored animals.


Let me mention the third floor, which I did not visit. There was a “psycho tank.” You might ask what that is. Well I’m not going to give you a very good answer because I didn’t get it so much. Apparently it is a big tank that you can get into and it is 98 degrees and filled with a large amount of Epsom salt. You could only stay in 10-15 minutes because otherwise it could have ill effects on your health. You could not get in with clothes on, however you could check your clothes or wear a bathing suit. Clearly I did not have a bathing suit and I wasn’t really up for getting naked in an art museum, so I passed on that experience.


The last thing was the upside down goggles. I got in line, but they wanted a credit card as a deposit and I just wasn’t feeling it. I figured I had gotten my fill of “experiences” for quite some time.


I left the museum and the rain had returned.

I had to make a little post on facebook regarding this event to a friend. You see in high school my friend Katie got me hooked on a movie, If Lucy Fell. It is set in New York and has Sarah Jessica Parker in it and overall if just fabulous. In it she has to date anyone who asks and one of those guys is a character, played by Ben Stiller, named Bwick who is an artist. When describing himself to her he says “I…art…”. Well my comment was:

You remember in If Lucy Fell when Bwick said "I...art..." well today, much as I expected, I learned that I...do NOT art! At all!

She had actually messaged me the night before asking about restaurant suggestions for another friend’s parents who would be in the city after Thanksgiving. When I’m on vacation I tend to forget to eat (I had McDonald’s after On a Clear Day because I had forgotten about real food). I do snack, but rarely go sit down and eat. I turned to Whitney for suggestions and she suggested the Cubana Café. It just happened that it was down in Soho close to the museum. My favorite Cuban restaurant in Dallas closed or changed food type or something and I was quite sad, so I was all for this.
I headed that direction. It was such a cute little place.

And the food was to DIE for. Seriously. I had a Cuban sandwich and home fries. I could eat a bathtub full of those home fries. SO good.

Thursday was supposed to be the big protest day for Occupy Wall Street and it was supposed to go through NYU. Okay I’m a sucker for things like this, so I headed to NYU, just to see if there might be something.


There wasn’t, but there were lots of cops at Washington Square Park, just in case.

I roamed through the park, which was gorgeous.

By this point it was still raining and was getting cold, so I decided a trip to the subway was in order. I headed to one of my favorite places in New York: Bryant Park and the New York City Library.


The skating rink was already up and I just wandered through.

From there I wandered up 5th Avenue. Did a little souvenir shopping and just enjoyed it not being as busy as it has been before when I’ve been there. I do love New York at Christmas; there really is no better place to celebrate the holidays. However, everyone else thinks that as well. It’s kind of like loving Norman, but loving it more in the summer when the students are gone.


The Christmas tree at Rockefeller is up, though still behind scaffolding. The star is proudly displayed as well. The Rockettes have already started the Christmas Spectacular. Christmas is in the air.

I stopped in at Au Bon Pain, which we came to love on the last trip for hot chocolate and a scone.

From there I found the subway and headed back to the apartment. When Whitney got home we ordered pizza and chatted for the rest of the night. By the way, that pizza was so much better than anything I found in Times Square before!


I checked in on my flight and headed to bed before what was going to be an extremely jam packed day.