art
Okay, it's a little later and I guess I'm awake enough to actually blog about this a little bit. I never really did talk about the Quonochontaug Breakaway, which we went to on Saturday, the first real day of my vacation. You have to understand... the whole south coast of Rhode Island (the 'south county' area) is gorgeous. (In fact, I'm having lunch with some writer friends today and then heading out there to a part I haven't yet been to.) So after going to the fishing village of Jerusalem (which is right across Snug Harbor from Galilee, go figure) I drove west along the coast to go to one of the national preserves, a barrier island south of Charlestown. We made it as far as West Beach road... instead of turning back to the east to get to the entrance of the island preserve, we got 'stuck' in the Quonochontaug Breakaway.
This area is a huge tidal marsh. There's a boat launch and some picnic tables to apparently encourage more people to go there, but the way to experience this place is to just roll up your pants and wade out through the breakway. The mud was perfectly squishy, and it was a fairly easy trek to any of a dozen or so tidal islands, and one 'big' one covered with rocks and thousands of clam shells. Finally saw living horseshoe crabs and I have to say that they look really really funky when they're swimming. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait until paths4byzantium posts her photos... the only one I got was the one of the egret.
Okay, on to our trip. We left Wednesday the 20th for NYC, and after a brief detour through Queens, we wound up in our hotel in the Bronx and then in the Natural History museum, said museum which was fresh in our minds after watching Night at the Museum. (The real one was much quieter.) We grabbed Thai food in Midtown after that (really good, but not as good as the Malaysian place we hit in Chinatown the next day... 'Nonya', check it out...) and then wandered around the skyscraper district and did the tourist thing. Didin't go up in any of them, but I had to at least see the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building for myself. This was my fourth trip to NYC, but the first time I'd ever actually stayed there.
Okay, now I'm at Thursday, a day dominated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Normally, I can only spend two hours or so in a museum... a combination of allergies and other things. I'd rather go to a museum three or four times rather than try to see the whole thing at once... the latter option just gives me some serious information overload. Well, we easily spent four hours in the place, only leaving because we were getting hungry as hell. Saw most of the first floor, and only saw the second because I wanted to check out some of their impressionist masters. Absolutely incredible place.
The first four are from the recently opened Greek and Roman room. Even though I used to live in what was once Magna Grecia (the Greek colonies in Italy) I had to go here first. Not much commentary, except that I have a thing for cows. I also thought that it was cool that they had a big marble cat guarding the room.
After that... well, I was going to post more of my pictures of the Enlightenment Italian sculptors, but it would not do the room justice. Attached are pics of Count Ugolino's face (he was a Pisan general convicted of treason and sentenced to starve to death along with his children) and Canova's sculpture of Cupid. Oh, and death apparently rides a bronze horse. Thought this one was cool, too.
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