Meeting the Met

I spent the day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Tuesday, quite literally. I got there shortly after it opened and stayed until they shuffled everyone out at closing time seven hours later. I think I saw maybe, maybe! a fifth of the exhibits -- the place is ginormous (BTW, I'm not usually a fan of neologisms that come from slang, but I think we need to go ahead and make ginormous a real word).

Every time I would walk to what I thought was the end of, say, the modern art wing, I'd turn a corner and find I was only at the midway point. And that the exhibit continued upstairs. It was quite incredible. I stuck with things I knew something about, so I missed out on ancient Sumarian coins or whatever, but still it was fun.

One thing I noticed in the museum that I don't recall seeing very often in the past -- they let you take photos of the paintings (although with "NO FLASH!" as the employees frequently call out to people). I guess it's understandable for famous things like Washington Crossing the Delaware or a Van Gogh self-portrait, both of which had crowds around them. But some people were taking picture of everything -- a 19th century cabinet, a broken Greek statue. Kind of defeats the purpose of going to a museum, I thought. Anyway, I took these of the exterior, an Egyptian Temple and a Jackson Pollock painting.

















Obnoxious New York people I've encountered: A woman walked by me in the subway carrying a stack of those free daily Metro newspapers. She asked if I wanted one, and I said sure and took it. "Ahem, that's 50 cents," she said. Since it was supposed to be free, I tried to give it back and she shook her head angrily. Rolling my eyes, I gave her a dollar, which was all I had. "Actually, I having a tough time. Could you give me some more money?" she said. "I just gave you a dollar for a free paper," I told her. She stormed off in a huff.

Today is my last free day before classes start tomorrow. It's been rather disorienting having no official responsibilities, so I'm looking forward to it. They always make a point of saying how intense the work is going to be, but I'm up for it. Wish me luck!

I (Heart) New York

The drama of moving now behind me, I'm really loving living in NYC. I've been to the city lots of times, but usually for some specific reason -- to visit someone, go to a museum or play, or most recently, to see like seven foreign movies in 48 hours. But I've never really had time to just poke around and explore the city until now, and it's way fun.
The weather (until today) has been gorgeous, perfect for walking around and playing tourist. I'm trying to do a lot of tourist stuff now, before school starts, because somehow going to the Statue of Liberty after living in NYC for a while just seems lame.
Given my limited financial means, I'm trying to do as much fun stuff for free as I can, and I think I've done a darn good job. Apart from food and subway fares, I've only paid cash money for the tour of the U.N. and the Statue. And yet I've done all of these things:
* Grant's Tomb -- Who's buried there? No one, as it turns out. U.S. Grant and his wife are in big stone caskets sitting on the marble floor, not underground. I never really knew what this place was before, I guess I expected a big headstone or something. But no, it's a *huge* marble dome, maybe 50 feet high, and looks like a cathedral inside. It's modeled on Napoleon's Tomb in Paris, which I've also visited. Very cool exhibit on Grant, who I didn't know much about, only that I didn't think he'd get such a royal treatment in death.
* Church-O-Rama -- Four churches so far. St. Patrick's I've been to before but is very pretty. St. John the Divine is right by Columbia, and is "the world's largest cathedral," according to the sign. Maybe it is, but it was hard to tell since it's under extensive renovation after a fire five years ago. The highlight of Trinity is the grave of Alexander Hamilton, where he ended up after that famous duel. St. Paul's is right next to Ground Zero, and is devoted to honoring the 9/11 relief workers. It's almost unbearably moving.
* Ground Zero -- I'd been here several times, but not since work began on the new tower. The site looks pretty much the same as it did six months ago, only with more construction noises.
* Brooklyn Bridge -- Here's something I've never been to before. It's worth the trip to walk across the raised middle part as cars whip by below. The walkway is wooden and feels like you're on a boardwalk, kinda precarious, but I guess it's okay if it's been there for 130 years.

I (Heart) New York II

* The Flatiron Building -- Designed by Daniel Burnham, main character in "Devil in the White City.



















* Wall Street -- After 9/11, you're not allowed in the Stock Exchange, so there's not much doing here really. Things I noticed: the street is really narrow, and the NYSE is right across the street from Federal Hall, the first U.S. Capitol. Seems more appropriate, or at least more honest, than what we have now.



















* Central Park -- I live about six blocks away, so we wandered a lot of it waiting to get in the apartment on Saturday. Today I went back to go further down and sit and read for a while. It really is an amazing place. One part I walked through was so dense with trees, that all the city sounds and sights were gone. I could have been in Maine.
* Metropolitan Opera -- Walking around Central Park, I came across a mob of people the other night -- the Opera was about to start a free performance of Rigoletto, so I stuck around. It was amazing, or at least it sounded amazing, from where I was the people looked like ants. All I knew about Rigoletto was that it's about an insane clown, and I only know that because there's a Seinfeld where they go to see it while being stalked by an insane clown. I feel much more cultured having seen the whole thing.
* The United Nations -- One of the few things I've shelled out money for, but it was worth it. The tour was really informative, and we got to go inside all the rooms you hear about, the General Assembly, Security Council, etc. I always love to have a visual reference for places that crop up in the news, like the U.S. Capitol and Wall Street. Because I am a dork. (This is the security council.)
















* Statue of Liberty / Ellis Island -- There aren't too many "big" NYC attractions that I've never been to before, but this was one of them. It was a fun time. You can't go into the statue after 9/11 (not sure why, given the security procedures that are more strict than the airport), but I enjoyed seeing her up close. Ellis Island was interesting, but I was kinda burnt out on the tourist scene by that point. I think I'll take it easy for a while now.

Incredibly close, yet so very far away

So, how did your move to New York go? you might be wondering, since you're reading my blog about moving to New York. Simply put, not well.
Everything eventually worked out and I'm perfectly fine now, but the day of the move on Saturday was pretty much a disaster. I don't really want to dwell on it, but it is a good story, so here it is.
I had talked to my new roommate, Aubrey, earlier in the week to tell him that I'd be coming down on Saturday. He said he'd be working in the morning but would be home in the early afternoon. Fantastic, said I, see you then. My friend Laurel had very, very graciously offered, without my asking, to drive my belongings and I to the city, so the plans were squared with her.
Activity for the rest of the week continued apace -- the aforementioned selling of furniture and putting of various items in storage. I had been run ragged by Thursday morning but things were winding down, when Aubrey called. He had just found out he was going to be out of town all day on Saturday -- could I come some other time?
This, of course, was not possible. I'd already made arrangements a days before with another person who could only make it on Saturday, and why should I change my plans because he flaked? I rather insistently asked him to come up with an alternative. Could he leave the keys with someone else to let me in?
A few hours later, he called back, having arranged just that. His friend Devon would meet me in front of the building with keys Saturday morning.
We were back in business. Laurel and I completed the laborious project of getting everything I owned and had not stored into her van (even my bike!) on Friday night. We shipped out Saturday morning and made great time into the city, arriving at 11 a.m.
Devon arrived and handed off the keys, of which there were three, each with a different-colored rubber ring around it. The pink one unlocked the front door. After walking up five (ugh) flights of stairs, the orange one unlocked the door lock. I inserted the blue key, the third and final one, into the deadbolt and turned.
Nothing.
So began our day-long purgatory-like odyssey. Laurel tried the key, to no avail, as it only went one-quarter of the way around. I called Aubrey, who didn't answer his phone, soon to be a recurring theme. We went to lunch to wait for him to call back.
After lunch the time was 12:30. We tried the key again, unsuccessfully. I called Aubrey again, unsuccessfully. We went to sit in Morningside Park to wait for his call.
Two p.m. rolled around, still nothing. We went to try the key again, with predictable results. Aubrey's neighbor Carrie walked by and we pounced. Is there a trick to opening these doors? She tried, but nothing. Before she left, she gave me the name of the building manager.
I called, but got some kind of weird voice mail login code system that didn't get me anywhere. Laurel and I decided to walk around Central Park, five blocks away.
After traversing a good part of the park, from the bike trail to the tennis courts to the reservoir, we headed back, and called Aubrey again, no luck. By chance, we ran into Carrie in the hallway, who called the building manager herself. He said he'd be over in five minutes. Hope!
Forty-five minutes later, Laurel and I were still outside Aubrey's door waiting. Observing that this seemed like a Twilight Zone episode (what if Aubrey doesn't actually exist? or if we passed through a time portal to a point where no one lived in this apartment?) we amused ourselves by relating stories we remembered from the show.
I tried calling the manager again. I got him this time, but rather than explain why he was nearly an hour late, he told me there was nothing he could do -- he only had keys to the front door. Of course.
By this point, it was closing in on 5 p.m. and we had no idea if Aubrey was even coming home. I'd left five messages and heard nothing. Laurel and I began considering insane alternatives -- drive back to Easthampton? Camp out in the hallway for the night? Cold call one of the few people I know in the city and ask to stay with them? Nothing seemed right.
We headed back to the van to retrieve my laptop, which had numbers for New York people in it. Before we got there, the phone rang.
Aubrey was very apologetic -- oh, that's horrible, etc. He had been catering a huge birthday party for the five-year-old son of some business hotshot in Connecticut, but would be home "within the hour." We were saved!
An hour passed. Ninety minutes. It was getting dark and starting to rain, our nerves were frayed, whatever reserve of patience I had was nearly gone. After 7 p.m., more than eight hours after we parked in front of my building intending to move in, Aubrey arrived, having been stuck in traffic.
He let us in and agreed to help move my stuff up to the fifth floor (ahem, after all that, he didn't have a choice, as far as I was concerned). For a split second at the door, it looked like his key wasn't going to work either, and I nearly shrieked, but then it turned, and we were in. (I apparently had a bad key, one which he didn't bother to test out before leaving for me.)
I quickly realized that the apartment is a sauna, and we were all drenched with sweat by the time everything was inside. Then Laurel had to drive home to Easthampton, exhausted and frustrated. She ended up being caught in city traffic for hours, I learned later. I will never, ever be able to thank her enough.
So yeah, that's how my move went. Like I said, it's all been fine since then, but that was my "welcome to New York" experience.

Closing Time

With apologies for my whining to anyone who's gone through it all before, moving is a total pain in the neck. I realized today that I've never "really" moved before, just from home to dorm room, and then to here, which is where I bought most of my stuff. I wish I didn't have to move again for a long time, but given the nature of my living arrangement in NYC (one room in someone's apartment while in grad school), it's inevitable.

I learned today that getting rid of used furniture is an almost Sisyphean enterprise. I had a perfectly fine La-Z-Boy recliner that I'd love to keep but just don't have room for. I put it on Craigslist, and got a few responses from people interested in it. I told them to call and set up a time to get it, but they never did. So then I tried to give it away to a friend, but she found she didn't have room for it.

So today I attempted to sell it back to the Amherst Trading Post, the pretty much literal hole in the wall where I got it. They said on the phone they'd it, so I drove all the way out there only to have the woman look at it and say "Oh, sorry, I'd only take it if it was in better condition." Never mind that it's in the same condition it was in when I bought it from them two years ago, their standards have apparently gone up since then.

She suggested I bring it to the Salvation Army, which I did, only to get surly attitude from the people who work there before they finally took it. All told, it took over two and half hours, just today, to give away a chair I'd have kept if at all possible. Don't get me started on disposing of old computers...

I've taken the last three weeks off from work, which seemed decadent before I did it, but I've just been working morning to night on stuff like this the whole time. Well, in between two Red Sox games (one Big Papi walkoff homer), Six Flags, two going-away gatherings, and my brother's band in concert in Boston. Okay, so it was a little decadent.

Anyway, enough of my moaning. Soon (Saturday afternoon) I'll be in New York, with no responsibilities until Aug. 31 except unpacking and exploring the Big Apple. Should be fun. Before long, I'll be able to concentrate on stressing out about readings and my thesis, while thinking about this Onion article.

Fun with digiphotos

I bought a digital camera in part with my accumulated "Gazettebucks" (two and a half years later, thanks Kristi!) so I thought I'd test it out. For anyone who never made it out here to visit, this is where I live in Easthampton:













And this is downtown Northampton. It's about as charming as you'd expect from a place that calls itself "The Paradise of America" with a straight face.

Entering the blogosphere

The Gazette's rival paper, The Springfield Republican, hosts a bunch of community blogs on its Web site. Most of the blogs are totally pointless, but the Republican runs an ad in the physical paper every week with excerpts from them. One week, the ad had quotes in it like these:

"Remember when you were a kid and you'd get new sneakers and suddenly it felt like anything was possible? You felt like you were running faster than ever before and no jump was too far. I've been reliving that feeling this week. I replaced the tires on my mountain bike."

"Today I saw a robin outside my house on Prospect Street. Spring is almost here!"

Someone at the Gazette cut out the ad and put it on the bulletin board with a note reading: "Why blogs will never replace newspapers."

That story somehow seemed appropriate for my first blog post. Since this is just a post about someone else's post about seeing a robin, it's doubly useless. And there's more where that came from.