The big (glittery) apple - day 2

Today at about 10am, we ventured off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Wow, that place is breathtaking.  I’m pretty sure that I could spend an entire day there, but that’s not exactly the best use of time when you only have 72 hours in Manhattan, so we only spent about 3 hours in the great building that holds so many treasures and beauties. 


We started in the European Paintings section of the museum, and I felt like I was back in one of Italy’s museums, all of a sudden I was nostalgic for Rome of Venice…although Florence was my favorite of the many Italian cities Crystal and I visited while there so many years ago.  It's very strange to go to a museum and see places that you have been depicted from the 1720. I was standing in the Met in New York and looking at the very familiar St. Marks square in Venice. It looked pretty much identical back then. Awesome!

While walking through the paintings we came to one room that just seemed out of place.  El Greco had a heavier hand than many artists in this day.  I was struck by the dark colors and morbid tones after so many rooms full of bright paintings from artists like Giovanni Tiepolo, Francois Boucher and Nicolas Poussin. Greco seemed like he was born in the wrong era, he was completely ahead of his time.   I enjoyed the View of Toledo in particular.

We eventually made it down to the Egyptian exhibit.  There was a large room with one entire wall made of windows, outside you could see the skyscrapers of New York City.  Inside the room were large portions of a pyramid with hieroglyphs all over the bricks.  It was amazing to me that I could see a  piece of building that was originally constricted in Egypt during the time of 2381–2323 B.C. in the same eye shot as a skyscraper.

After the Met, we took a stroll through Central Park with our new friend Herbert the Hippo.  I would spend entire days in the park if I lived in the city, no doubt.  

In the evening we went to Radio City Music Hall to enjoy the Christmas Spectacular show.  The Rockets are really great at what they do...but I don't know why it's necessary for them to cancan so much.  They reminded me of a very professional team of the Chatelaines (my highschool dance team).  We all agreed that the best part of the show was when all fo the Rockets were dressed as Santa Claus'.  The show started at 10pm, and in true Liane fashion, I fell asleep for the last dance, oopsies.