Double Your Summer Friday Fun!

I've forgotten to report on my last two Summer Fridays - how neglectful of me! I've had a good time, walking around the city and looking at things with (hopefully) clear eyes. Here's what I've been up to:

After many years of vacillating, I decided it was finally time to go to the Neue Galerie - they're in the middle of installing a new exhibition, so the entry fee was cut in half (their enormous entry fee is mainly what kept me away all these years). I thought, hey, I can pay a discounted price now and if I want to go back, I can! At the moment, though, only the second floor galleries are open, so I'm not quite sure if seeing two rooms was worth even half price, but I did enjoy the beautiful art and decorative pieces (some of those beautifully-designed objects in silver were exquisite).

No, wait, actually, I guess it WAS worth it, just to see the room with the six Klimt paintings of women. They were all stunningly glorious and I spent quite a bit of time admiring them. Well, after the tour group left the room. Once they left me alone with the paintings, I was content. I especially loved the piece that was unfinished and you could see the underlying pencil drawings at the bottom. I wish they had been selling a print of that one in the gift shop, because I would've immediately purchased one. I did succumb to a postcard of the gold lady and a box of Kandinsky note cards, though.

But the best part of the afternoon was stopping at Cafe Sabarsky after checking out the art. It's an authentic Viennese coffee house on the main floor of the Neue Galerie. You stand in line for a few minutes and you're seated in order, which is very egalitarian. I didn't have to stand in line for long - I feared that because I was a solo, I'd have to wait around for one of the smaller tables, but the host seated me on my turn, at a four-top. So I had plenty of room to relax and enjoy my delicious milchkaffe (latte) and sachertorte (dark chocolate cake with apricot preserves). There was also a big dollop of fresh whipped cream, which was also delicious. I may or may not have put a little into my latte. I definitely want to go back to the cafe to try more deliciousness. I will consider another trip to the galleries...

In other Friday fun news: a friend of a friend gave me a ticket to the One World Observatory - the tourist site at the top of One World Trade. I don't go down there often, and I'm a tad afraid of heights, so I was a little wary. I guess I figured for free, I could live with it. I would never had paid for the experience.

I got off the subway in the World Trade Center, walked through the Oculus and went across the plaza to One World Trade. It wasn't very busy for a Friday afternoon in the summer, thankfully. I already had my ticket, so I could just take the escalator down to the security line. After you go through security that's the same that's in the airport, you go into a room with a huge video screen with an image of the globe, giving you all kinds of facts and figures, like how many people have visited the site, how many were from out of the country, and that sort of thing. Then you walk through a tunneled area that shows a video of the builders of the tower, then another hallway with beautiful mirrors, then you walk through an area where the sheetrock is exposed, with subtitles lit onto them as you walk by. It was pretty cool.

You're ushered into the elevators to take you up to the top and this is what I was most nervous about. As a person with a fear of heights, I was afraid watching the world move swiftly outside the windows would make me feel sick. Thankfully, when you're inside the elevators, you see an LED video showing you how Manhattan has changed over the last 100 years. The ride up only takes about a minute, so my ears did pop, but concentrating on the video took my mind off how high we were going in the elevator. You get off on the 102nd floor and walk into yet another room with a video. I was glad there was a railing, because my legs did feel a little wobbly after coming off the elevator. The video was another evolution-of-NY kind of thing, with lots of sound and movement. It was a couple of minutes long, then the screens raised and we could see the view of New York. That was pretty cool. The screens lowered back down and we were ushered into the observatory.

Well, wait a minute.  We couldn't get into the observatory until we stopped and watched a demo video about renting iPads to complete our experience. OK, I was grateful to have a free ticket. Looking online, it costs $35 just to go to the observatory. Then they want you to pay $15 to rent iPads?! What a racket. I watched the demo patiently, then went into the main observatory. Actually, I went into the cafeteria to have a hot pretzel and water before wandering around looking at the views.

I did enjoy wandering around and looking at the panoramic views of all sides. It was a bummer that I was there on a really cloudy day, so the views probably weren't as good, but I did have fun. I liked the borders at the bottom of the windows and it was nice and airy up there. I'm glad it wasn't too crowded, so there was lots of room for photos and window-gazing. I didn't stay up there too long, though. I felt as if once I saw the views from all angles, I was done. Maybe if I had spent a lot of money on the experience, I would've stayed longer.  I don't know.

After I left the building, I went back through the plaza, soaked in the 9/11 Memorial area, then went to the Oculus because they are having an exhibit of Michelangelo's art from the Sistine Chapel. The exhibit is called 'Up Close' and I was excited to get up close to that art, since I don't have any photos from my trip there (photography is prohibited, though a lot of people broke that rule; I am a rule-follower). After I saw it would be $20 to actually get into the exhibit, I decided I didn't need to get THAT close. Again, I may change my mind and go back, because it WAS cool, just not $20-cool-when-coming-off-a-rent-check-payday. I took lots of pictures regardless - the security guards kept giving me dirty looks, but oh well! I'm trying to think up something fun for this week's Summer Friday - if you have any ideas, let me know. In the meantime, enjoy some of the photos I got over the last couple of weeks, including a few I got yesterday on the UES, after spending some time with my beautiful goddaughter...