Another vacation ends… we are now somewhere in Pennsylvania driving back to Cleveland from a green Washington to the areas where spring is not fully out.
The previous Friday we left home later than planned due to a D&D game, drove about 2 hours, stopped in some motel and woke early to drive all morning and get to NYC by noon. NY was under interesting fog that covered the upper half of the city from floor 40 and above. The rest of the gang was scattered so we decided to kill time and go to the Guggenheim museum.
We walked from the hotels for 40 blocks and the day warmed up and sun threatened to come out, the line was not long and we quickly got in. I have been to several museums of art and this place is totally and utterly not for me.
I don't get modern art, I don't get why people think its art; I only get that I don't get why they think its art, so I think this was my first and last Guggenheim visit. An hour and a half later (since my co- art critique likes this type of kids drawing that costs millions) we left the museum after a short stop to the Kandinsky exhibit. I only know the name since Seinfeld referred to in an episode, that room was packed, but for me it was total bore. They had 1 room of non modern art and I found 1 Pissarro I liked (next to a row on irrelevant Manet, Monet and Cézanne);
We walked back 40 blocks to meet everyone. My mom, Moti, my brothers shai, yaron and Michal and the kids then left to a Jewish deli on Passover week. The bread was good.
In the evening we walked by times square with its impressive neon lights and too many tourists (we of course were locals…).
On Sunday morning new York was planning for a special event, my birthday, and a secondary reason was Easter holiday. They Easter parade is not really a parade, it is more of a street party full of people dressed with weird bonnets. I don't know why bonnets are related to Easter but they are totally creative, they even have hats on dogs (poor beasts), so you walk around and fight the other vultures (tourist with cameras) on the rights to take a shot with someone wearing the house from the movie UP or a huge flower bouquet. Unlike Cleveland, new York got warm, which was great at first but we looked for shade quickly. We walked after to the intrepid, which is an air craft carrier, never been on one and took the tour , saw the black bird, the Israeli Kfir plane and lots of small interesting things than had a new York surprised.
We were in a hurry and there were no cabs so we took a paddy cab, I read on one of the guides that specify what not to do in new York is take one of those, since its expensive, but rush was drive so we took it ( a paddy cab is a bicycle driven wagon) we had a lovely chat with the driver but the surprise came at the end with the price. I guess if we had time we would have checked, bargained or something but we silently cursed they guy, paid and moved on. In the evening we went to my step 2nd cousins who live in Manhattan and shared a lovely home cooked meal and gift unwrapping ( I will send photos).
On Monday we said goodbye to the kids and my brother yaron and went down town to pier 17 to pick up cheap show tickets. They didn't have Wicked so we got Rock of Ages instead. We walked passed china town to SOHO where we did a phone based scavenger hunt.
When you walked in an area you don't know you miss a lot of small things, if you have a book or a guide you see the highlights, but with this game, you get small easy riddles and need to find specific things on specific building and receive interesting facts (we also learned about the Hebrew name for Darts 'מצלף' according to the new Hebrew by moti , another name for dart board is 'מחטא'). So we did it for about 4 hours and got to know soho real well. After that we went to a Turkish place with another 2nd aunt by shared experience Juanita and later went to the show.
Rock of Ages is a musical, based on 80's music which I like. The story line is not important, but it was nice; the key is the songs and we sang the whole show of over 2 hours. After that we took the subway to the village and went to a blues bar, listed to some live tunes and drank schnapps.
On Tuesday we woke earlier and did another scavenger hunt, this time in the Greenwich village and I may have spotted Juliette Lewis and later we had good Shawarma on McDougal street and shopped at a Mongolian store. We moved on to a tour of the UN. Since the UN is not a part of any country, I am adding it to the list of countries as a separate territory. The tour was ok and we felt our Italian guide was not the best guide, and later found that this was his first tour. I have a photo with bank E moon but that was just a carton cut out.
We went to Tribeka later and walked around, got bored because we didn't have info on the area so we walked to the Brooklyn bridge and walked on it till the half way point, then walked back to a not good Mexican place. After that we went to a comic club which was a lot of fun.
We left the apple the next morning and headed for DC.
I have been there before and was not much looking forward to it assuming I have seen everything, lucky I was wrong. We went to the national archives and saw the constitution , the declaration of independence and other documents, the interesting fact about it is that the documents are fading, which is fitting since rights are fading. After that we did a quick tour of the natural history museum and went to Taj of India for dinner in George town.
Both DC and new York are in full spring, the trees are green, flowers are in bloom and the air is clear, this is in contrast to cold Cleveland where spring has just begun but winter is still hanging on. The Indian food made Alla sick, so she sent the food back to India half the night. Next morning we left early to try a new mode of travel in the US. The local bus.
We went to the bus station and watch a bus pass us by and not stopping! (I have not been on a bus in the US since moving here, since Cleveland is not known for its public transportation. The bus we wanted didn't stop so we took another that goes to a closer neighborhood, we walked from there and miss our tour hour so we altered our plans and took tour tickets at Washington monument, then walked to the white house visitor center (not a must), then the national aquarium which had a nice jelly (medusa) display but not a must as well. After that we had 40 minutes to do something before our schedule Washington monument tour begins, so we went to the nearest place which was the American history museum, I didn't even plan to stop there but it was surprisingly nice since it focused (on the 1st floor) on science and inventions. The monument itself was ok, had nice city views of the city but I didn't see anything Dan Brown wrote about. Since the upper pyramid was closed.
After that we went to the newseum and took the tour, a very interesting place, filled with few stories covered to extreme and nothing on the rest. After that we went to the printing and engraving museum without tickets and found some there (these tickets are free but limited) and saw literally hundreds of millions of dollars a few meters away behind secure glass and other stuff, so close…
In the evening we went to meet Alla's former roommate in one of the suburbs here great shishlik from a waiter with an unidentified origin.- the shishlik here was on the bone, unlike the Israeli shishlik. We went later to a wine store and had wine (they had, I drank a diet coke) then to a sports bar (the last open place) for desert).
Earlier today we went to the congress and took the tour which was short but the rotunda is impressive, then walked to the library of congress which was the most interesting building of all , then to the supreme court where we found who Solon was ( a Greek law maker, I am ashamed to report that I never looked what or who solon was). We dined at the eastern market.
A few hours before on the cab over I pulled a regular trick and forgot my phone in the cab. Since then we are calling, but the phone is on vibrate and no one picks up, but we have left DC and I hope it will be found.
Its evening now, we approach the Ohio state line and have no real plans for this weekend with my brother and my mom here in the car, but I am sure we will do something.
Cheers from somewhere near Pittsburgh
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