Curious Notions

Saturday (March 15th) morning, Stephanie and I set out for the South Street Seaport, munching pastries as we waited for the subway. We wandered through the financial sector a bit, scouted out the discount theater ticket booth, and decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge while we waited for the ticket booth to open.

It took us longer than expected to find where we could climb up to the bridge’s pedestrian walkway and start our trek across the bridge. I walked a little further than the pylon nearest Brooklyn, in large part to get this photo with the sunlight in the right direction. But all of the walking was well worth the view of the bridge and Manhattan. I came away with some pictures that I really love.

We got back to the South Street Seaport in time to find a pretty long line outside the ticket booth. We settled in and eventually got ourselves some (partial view) tickets to a matinee showing of Spamalot for the next day. After that, we walked along the waterfront to the the Staten Island Ferry station and caught the 12:30 ferry to Staten Island. Our motivation for this was a free, relatively close-up view of the Statue of Liberty. It was pretty crowded outside in terms of trying to get a photo, but I managed to get a couple. On the ferry back, we were clever enough to stand at the aft deck where fewer tourists were trying to get pictures.

By the time we made it back to Manhattan, we were pretty hungry. Stephanie grabbed a hot dog from a street vendor to tide her over, but I wasn’t too keen on the idea. We wandered back to the subway through the financial distinct, pausing outside the U.S. Custom House. The Custom House, which is now home to the National Museum of the American Indian, has four statues in the front, each of which personifies a continent. I had some fun playing artistic with those.

We hopped the sub then and rode uptown to Union Square, where we got off for a look around. I got excited over the Virgin music store there (though I didn’t go in); we took a walk through the Farmer’s Market; and we hit a Japanese restaurant, Haru, for a late lunch. We both had bento boxes and raved over the yumminess and (for lunch in NYC) affordability. I especially liked their tempura; normally, I’m not a huge fan of tempura (too much fried taste), but theirs was like a Japanese tempura version of a potato pancake with edamame beans, shrimp, carrots, etc. Quite tasty. Their sushi was wonderfully fresh, too. All in all, a great find.

After lunch we got back on the uptown subway and got off for a brief look at Grand Central Station’s main terminal. It’s surprisingly smaller than I would have thought and rather quiet for such a large and busy room. (Yes, I called it small and large in the same sentence. Get over it.)

Back on the sub, we rode to 86th St. and walked toward the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On the way, we ran across one of the Anonymous protests of Scientology. They even had V for Vendetta masks. I got a little Internet geek thrill, but I didn’t want to get mixed up in anything, so we took another route to the museum.

At the Met, we wandered through the Egyptian, Medieval Art, Arms and Armor, Fashion (we were trying to find the bathroom), and European Painting sections. It was a little odd entering the Egyptian section to find a reconstruction of a tomb originally located at Saqqara, which I’d visited in Egypt eight years ago. Nothing like walking up to an exhibit and realizing, “Hey, I’ve been there!”

We probably spent most of our time in the Arms and Armor section because it was of interest to both of us. The collection was very neat and included some artifacts the likes of which I’d never seen before, such as hunting swords, medieval armor made to look like a Roman infantryman, and some gorgeous katanas. I got more than a couple story-related ideas.

After all of our walking, we were too tired to hit the Greek and Roman section as planned, but I insisted on wandering through the European paintings (much faster than I normally would have). I was duty bound to take a look at the Rubens and Rembrandts, and, though I was disappointed with the quality of the former, I was pleased to find Rembrandt’s Aristotle With A Bust Of Homer.

Outside we sat down in the dim, chill of the evening to discuss dinner plans. Our guidebook recommended a Latin place that, from the address, appeared close. Twenty-three blocks later, our sore and exhausted selves found a full house with a thirty minute wait and no place to sit. Too tired to contemplate such a fate, we went took the sub back to Little Italy and ate at an overpriced club in SoHo. We plotted our next day’s route and schedule (including dinner this time) with our Internet connection and then collapsed into bed.

More photos.