Bright Lights, Big City: Part Two

Now, to continue my escapades around New York with my mom - on Saturday we headed to the New York Public Library where mom was able to acquire a very special card. Can you guess what kind of card it was? You're right! It was a library card! She was thrilled beyond belief that she was eligible for such a rare jewel and proceeded to try and use it the rest of the day to purchase things, much to her delight and my chagrin. Also, while we were at the library, we saw the original manuscript from Voltaire's book Candide, which was celebrating it's 250th year in publication. Mom was thrilled to see this because Voltaire is one of her favorite authors.

Then we headed to Greenwich Village, just to roam around and see what we could see. We walked by the NYU campus, stopped in Washington Square park and then saw the Washington Mews which are these quaint little homes that were once stables in the 1930s and were converted (for strange some reason) into residential living. The street is gated and still has cobblestone roads, a sweet little glimpse into the past. Apt. 14A was to home to artist Edward Hopper and several other notable people that have slipped my mind.

Washington Square Park Arch

The Washington Mews

After our little exploration, we headed back to the Upper East side (have I mentioned that this is my favorite part of NY?) to see the Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka the Met). Here was saw four more Vermeer paintings - which made a grand total of 7 on our trip which is really rare considering there are only around 34 known Vermeer paintings in the world! We also saw more paintings from Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir, Manet and went to my favorite room - the Temple of Dendur which is from c. 15 BC and has been reassembled to appear just as it did on the banks of the Nile. This room is incredible and I could sit and stare for hours.

A painting by Vermeer

The Temple of Dendur

But alas, we couldn't stay for hours because we had to head back to Times Square to see another Broadway show, this time a play. We saw "A View from the Bridge" by Arthur Miller. It was starring Scarlett Johansson (who is making her Broadway debut) and Liev Screiber (one of my new favorite bad guys - from Defiance and Wolverine). The play hasn't opened yet, so it was kind of like a rehearsal for them, and it was so good! Since it was written by Miller it was naturally tragic (Death of Salesman anyone?) but it was so dynamic and interesting that I found myself very wrapped up in the plot and forgetting to try to figure out what was going to happen. Liev was AWESOME and Scarlett was really good too. Being the big celebrity fans that we are, mom and I stood outside after the play to get photos and autographs. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get as close to them as I did to Paul Rudd (back on our first trip in 2001), but I did get Scarlett's autograph and Liev's picture. Here's an interesting fact that I learned about Scarlett (I learned this by going to imdb.com after we met, haha). She is one week younger than me! I'm so thankful that my worth is not measured by my fame, fortune and celebrity status, because I've got nothing on her. Another free fact is that she is surprisingly pretty short - 5'4. I know that's not really THAT short, but she was a lot smaller than I imagined that she would be.

My official autographed Playbill
(her autograph is over the word bridge)

If you look closely, you can tell this is Scarlett, I promise!

Liev Screiber

This was pretty much the end of our fantastic trip to NYC. We were up the next morning at 4 a.m. to make our flights from LaGuardia to Chicago to St. Louis to Dallas. Then I drove the three hours home and crashed. In case you can't tell, I had an awesome time. I am so thankful for my mom and our shared love of travel. We had a great time talking, laughing and enjoying the sights. I couldn't have asked for a better travel partner! Maybe we'll make this an annual trip!