Beautiful Day in the Lower East Side

Sunday, February 7
I met Leena at her apartment and we walked south along the East River. Lots of cyclists, joggers, stretchers....but not us. We just talked and looked and enjoyed the sun.

From South Street Seaport there is a lovely view of Lower Manhattan. We people watched and then headed into Chinatown in search of lunch.

Here's the Eldridge Street Synagogue - once in the midst of the Jewish Lower East Side and now smack in the density of Chinatown.

We ended up back on Grand Street at our usual Vietnamese restaurant for a shared bowl of pho and summer rolls.

And a highlight of the morning was a straggely urban crocus (you can tell by the cigarette butt next to it) - a harbinger of a spring

that can't come any too fast

.

Metropolitan Museum on a winter's day

With Mitch in the hospital again, and a few days of nothing but snow, I was ready for a break. So I met Leena at the Metropolitan Museum for a mini-vacation. Bunches of forsythia greeted us in the grand entrance hall.

Our exhibit goals were two and I'd better mention them now because there are no pictures. The first was a series of Romare Bearden collages picturing a street in Harlem. The museum's web site offers a high-tech educational feature about Bearden and the collage series which is great. The actual works are hidden in the middle of the contemporary art galleries and not near as flashy as the web offering. The second exhibit we wanted to see was a charming exhibit of Victorian photocollage.

And to get to our destination exhibits we first travelled through classical Greece and Rome

Then a journey into Papua New Guinea

With a quick stop for a view of some elephant tusks carved in Africa -

That's the lovely thing about this giant museum - In your travels you pass the most beautiful scenery. Wonderful design and art and color and beauty from so many cultures. And so many time periods.

And of course we had to wander through the Impressionists, where one could spend a day or two. And we climbed around the contemporary galleries

looking at art and people And searching for a view of snowy

Central Park below.

What a wonderful mini-vacation with my best friend.

And back at the hospital by mid-afternoon!