Art.

Up at 8 and out the door by 9. I wore one of the 2 outfits I brought, but when I wear my only green jacket and scarf it looks like I'm wearing the same thing I wore yesterday. Fantastic planning on my part.

We only made it a couple blocks before my mom got distracted by this guy selling bus tickets on the corner. She bought 2 tickets for a bus tour around NY for $118. It's basically an unlimited bus pass for tourists for x amount of days and she says it's a really good deal. After that we got a bagel from a vendor and ate outside the New York City Public Library. We don't have internet at our hotel because they're a bunch of fascists so I finished my blog post then and was able to get on the internet.

Here we have to be quiet like we're in church- Mom

Once inside the library, we headed straight towards the children's section for one of the libraries greatest items. The original Winnie the Pooh and friends were on display.

A bear of very little brain.

It made me very happy.

After that, we wandered around the library. The Rose Main Reading room (where that Ghostbusters library scene takes place) was closed, so we went to a map room where there is the worlds largest collection of maps. There's not much to say about it. It was a map room.

Then we went to an exhibit called Over There that was about WWI and, for lack of a better word, american propaganda. Lots of stuff about supporting our troops through buying stamps and whatever. Real Captain America, if Captain America fought in WW1.

Me finding out I passed the statistics 2 test that half the class failed.

Then we went to an exhibit called Public Eye. It's about photography, or specifically, "175 years of sharing photography".

No I'm in a mirror.

Everything from way old pictures to posting pics on the internet. It was alright. My mom got nostalgic around some stereograph pictures. When she was a wee little thing, she and her siblings would play with them at the library. If she hadn't told me what they were I would have thought they were weird postcards.

The library was very cool and so beautiful on the inside. Everything was white marble and just classy. I loved it but wished Cam or my dad could have been with us. They would have liked it more, and when you're with people who like things more, everything is that much more exciting and happy.

We left the library around 11:30. We were only going to be there for 5 minutes but we ended up staying an hour and a half. Then we did a bit of walking to the Museum of Modern Art. On the way we passed a pretty cathedral called Saint John the Divine that had several camera crews stationed around it. Perhaps someone important was going to go through the doors but we didn't wait to see because it was time to get some art on.

Saint John the Divine

The Museum of Modern Art is big with 5 floors. We started from the top and worked our way down. Unfortunately, the top floor was "Special Exhibit", which basically meant crap art. Jackson Pollack type art, which I hate. Stuff like some paint splatters and a neon bulb taped to a board has it's place on the wall. It was so boring. My mom said 90% of it confused her. She understood 10% more than me. At one point I saw a pile of garbage and made a mental joke about how it was art, only to find out it was actually art. Just hanging out on the ground looking like trash. Maybe that was the point of this exhibit. Sometimes something looks like it should be thrown away, but upon closer inspection... No, it should still be thrown away. That exhibit was a waste of time.

The next floor had the big names on it. Van Gogh, Braque, and Picasso (he has a lot of stuff) were there. Starry Night always had a crowd around it.

The Mona Lisa of MoMA

My favorite had to be Monet. I like his stuff.

We saw 2 Frida Kahlo paintings and that was exciting. There were several elementary school tours and the kids were so cute. They held hands. One of the kids pointed at a painting of a topless woman and said "Eww look at that!" and a little girl replied very maturely, "It's not disgusting." Little cuties.

Then we left and saw more weird art I didn't understand. But no one was making odd faces or saying "This is stupid" so I tried to act normal too. There was a black and white video of a naked man and woman hanging out on a couch. They would sit down and pass back and forth a big white ball.

It's not disgusting.

Most of the stuff didn't make any sense or leave any impression on me. There were security guards everywhere though. I wonder if they are dead inside.

Maybe this painting fell down and everyone thought it looked better that way.

We wandered around more. The crowd levels were very low. You barely had to wait to get up close to a painting. There was 1 room behind closed doors and that looked very edgy. It had a warning sign in front.

You had my curiousity. But now you have my attention.

But inside was a letdown. There was no violence or dead bodies. Just some exercise videos with the sound of metal hitting metal.

Art.

We saw some Andy Warhol stuff that my mom thought was cool. It was just more weird stuff. I'm not a fan of his soup cans work.

Art.

At one point there was a shovel hanging from the ceiling. A man took a picture of it. To get a second opinion on some of what I was seeing, I texted Cam a bit. His phone broke but now it's working again. I wonder if he would have liked MoMA.

We saw some more weird stuff. I texted Cam and Ian more. It would have been fun to have them there.

And then we left at 1:30. I'm glad we went to MoMA, but I will never go back. After leaving we wanted to find a place to eat. Some guy on the corner handed my mom a pamphlet to a place called Isadora's Cafe. Notice the trend of how my mom gets sucked into taking things from strangers. I won't even talk to people on the street.

We passed by a Lindors chocolate shop and bought a bag. The lady at the counter saw the pamphlets my mom had just gotten and said she loved that place. So we decided to go to Isadora's. The cafe was really nice and had a huge selection of food. I got a chicken ceasar wrap and my mom got a grilled tuna panini (each came with a soda and a bag of chips. It cost $27). It was good. We hung out there for an hour as we ate and I typed up today's events.

Lunch

After chilling, we left and wandered around Times Square for a while. Some guy on the street was selling tickets to a comedy club. I was all ready to ignore him, but guess who started talking to him. My mom bought 2 tickets for $40 for a show at either 8:00 or 10:00 any night. We also bought tickets to Lion King for $162 a piece on the main floor. They were the best seats we could get, not the best they had because they were sold out of those. We stopped in an Urban Outfitters and an American Eagle store but didn't buy anything. In Times Square there were a lot of people dressed in costumes. It was frightening.

The people's princess.

At one point there were 4 Elmo's just talking in a circle. Very scary stuff. Finally we got a plan and decided to get on the bus tour at 4:00. They gave us headphones that we popped in and listened to people tell us about New York. We went all around Central Park, saw the Dakota where John Lennon lived, went Uptown, went to Harlem. We saw so much that I've forgotten most of it. I really liked the tour though. Uptown was great.

Natural expression.

There's an M&M store that we went to after the bus tour. I don't care for M&Ms, so in hindsight I don't know why we went there. The floor was so pretty. It looked edible.

It was pretty touristy and generic. There were 3 floors and we saw the blue M&M and the yellow M&M. They did not give out free M&M's.

Doubt it.

We walked around more. On vacations with my mom, you clock a LOT of steps.

Around 6 we went to Bubba Gump's to eat. We were seated pretty quickly and ordered a mac and cheese for an appetizer, then ribs and pasta for the meal. The mac and cheese was really good. I ate it without thinking. My digestive system is... questionable around cheese.

Minutes after this picture was taken, the mac and cheese was gone.

Then our food arrived. I had ordered scampi linguini with capers. It was rich, too rich. My mom ordered ribs and fries. Everything was really good but my stomach wasn't having the best time. I tried explaining to my mom that there was a decent chance I was going to get the poops and stink up the hotel room. She laughed and laughed like I had told her a good joke. Jokes on her because I was serious. My stomach can't handle a grilled cheese sandwich and I had just eaten half a bowl of mac and cheese. It was only a matter of time.

Dinner

The dinner cost $61.26 and we didn't finish. We went back to the hotel. At one point I thought we needed to go one way, but my mom said it was the other way. We went her way and walked for a bit until I realized it was the wrong way. Then I led the way back to the hotel. I am such a grown up.

At the hotel I took a shower and we were going to go to a jazz club but we were too tired. Instead, we watched Food Network and went to bed around midnight to one. The mac and cheese didn't make me sick, hallelujah.