My fourth day in New York was a day that I had all to myself. All of the meetings were complete, and rather than fly home that day, I decided to stay an extra day to explore the city. My main reason for staying was to go to the Met to see their Greek and Roman gallery. I could have taken a cab or the subway to the museum, but I decided to walk. You can't exactly see much of a city when you are underground in a subway or in the back of a cab praying with your eyes closed. I wanted to walk and I wanted to look at everything around me. I walked up Park Avenue South then turned down 34th Street to make my way toward Fifth Avenue. The Empire State Building is on the corner of 34th and Fifth Avenue, and, yes, it is very tall. Like the typical non-New Yorker, I looked straight up at it and thought, WOW! Sure, there are some tall buildings in Denver but nothing like what you see in New York. And there certainly aren't many tall buildings in Boulder. In fact, I think a few years ago the city passed a law that prohibited tall buildings because they wanted to preserve the views of the mountains. Although the tall buildings are amazing, I do prefer the sight of mountains instead.
Anyway, after I had my fill of the Empire State Building, I started to walk up Fifth Avenue. Along the way I walked past the New York Public Library which was gorgeous. I then wandered around in Rockefeller Center but didn't spend too much time in that area, so I continued along Fifth Avenue. I walked past Tiffany's, and, no, I didn't have breakfast there. I kept walking along Fifth Avenue, and when I was close to Central Park I thought that I would be close to the Met. I was wrong. I still had about twenty more blocks to go. In the end, the distance from the hotel to the Met was about four miles. And, naturally, I didn't bring an extra pair of walking shoes, so my feet and legs were a little tired once I got there. But, the four mile walk didn't seem that bad because of of all of the activity along the way. And, walking four miles at sea level is much different than walking four miles at a mile high.
I arrived at the museum just a few minutes before it opened. Surprisingly there were already a lot of people there, and I was a little worried that these people would get in the way of my precious Greek and Roman collection, but I think most of them went to other galleries. Fortunately the Greek and Roman area was relatively quiet, so I had plenty of time to enjoy myself and to take lots of pictures without other people getting in the way. I think that by the end of the day I had taken about 250 pictures. They had a nice collection of work and a lot of pieces. And, yes, a part of me was really starting to miss school while I was looking at everything. I absolutely love working in publishing, but think I will always be a Classicist at heart.
I spent a lot of time in the Greek and Roman galleries, but eventually made my way to other galleries. I enjoyed the Egyptian and the Medieval galleries. And the Renaissance sculpture was quite nice, but, of course, a lot of their sculpture was based on Greek and Roman mythology. I had lunch in the museum's cafeteria, then looked briefly at some paintings. I was looking for the Rembrandt paintings but I had a hard time finding them. I didn't spend much time with the paintings because paintings of Ben Franklin and George Washington--though quite nice in their own right--don't interest me that much. I walked through the Greek and Roman Galleries one last time, took a few more pictures, then went to the gift shop to pick up a few presents for myself. By that time of the day, my feet and legs were tired, so I hailed a cab for a quick ride back to the hotel.
I had a wonderful time at the Met, but next time I would love to go with a friend. I would love to share my love of the Classics with some friends. But, on the other hand, I would probably drive my friends crazy with my obsession with the Classics.
All in all, I had a great time in New York and would love to go back. But, if and when I do go back, I would like to spend less time (or better yet, no time) in meetings and more time out on the town.
Here is a link to a small collection of the pictures I took at the Met.
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