between the rock and the cold, cold sea

I arrived home at 1100 hours on Saturday, and promptly crashed.

Today is the first day I've been properly awake during daylight. And even then, I didn't wake up till well after noon.

I believe I've already mentioned how fabulous are matociquala, stillsostrange, et alia, so I shan't belabour the point. (Except to say, guys? You're welcome in my home any time.)

New York is large. Also obscenely full of traffic, people, and rushing. Not a restful city. And bloody hell, hot.

It, and the hole I wore in my shoe from walking, was more than worth it for the museums, though. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is freaking incredible. The Greek and Roman and Cypriot galleries were so familiar they felt like coming home (the Dipylon vase! The Cesnola krater! A pillar from the temple of Artemis at Sardis! An entire room of wallpaintings in the Third Style!) and Asian and Near Eastern galleries which I managed to work through on my first, shorter visit were striking. The Buddhas - large, impressive, ancient. Shiva and Krishna and Brahma, fantastic in stone and ceramic and bronze, sculpted to seem alive and moving. Ceramics from China, included several of men and camels, whose essential camel-ness is vibrant, ornery, and pissed.

Two days later, my second visit started with the Egyptian galleries. My biases kept me looking for the Greco-Roman stuff, but I had sufficient smattering of knowledge to be seriously impressed with the breadth of the collection. Unfortunately, several of the more interesting pieces were acquired by purchase, but there is more than enough material with its provenance clearly marked to make me happy and wish I had months upon months to go through the collections. I was impressed by the display from a tomb which included linens and linen storage chests, and there were also linen hairnets and headpieces from the Greco-Roman period.

From the Egyptian gallery, I made my way through Venetian and Renaissance to Arms and Armour. The European medieval stuff is impressive, and clearly popular, but in the side galleries there are far more interesting displays from around the world. I approved especially of the Ottoman and Persian displays, but the Tibetan one, with its full set of armour and horse-pieces, and the some of the Central Asian and Indian ones, were also fascinating. So too were the Japanese samurai displays, but I was a little disappointed by the focus on the arms and armour of the upper class (well, I suppose it is a museum of Art, and not history proper). I was briefly enthralled by very decorative smallswords and an original 16th century fencing doublet, before starvation hit and I was driven to the lowest level for cafeteria food.

After food, I was disappointed to find the Islamic galleries closed for renovations. However, musical instruments proved fascinating, if not as well-provided with context as I, a muscial ignoramus, could've wished. But very pretty! A brief diversion through Actual Art and a visit to the gift shop meant it was 1400 and I'd spent nearly four hours inside (and more on my feet, having set out at nine with the intention of photographing the obelisk, which I achieved, although it might have been better at dawn). So, via the zoo (wherein I spent another pleasant, but foot-hurting hour, complete with exuberant snow-leopard) I walked back to the hostel and fell over.

I may have had dinner in the so-called "Irish pub" nearby first. Possibly that was after a nap. I'm not really sure.

Between my two visits to the MMOA, I went to the Museum of Natural History. That was Wednesday. I arrived shortly before opening, and left, again, about 1400.

The joy of discovery is negated somewhat by solitude. On the other hand, marching through the endless and fascinating displays - particularly the Peoples of the World exhibits and the Margaret Mead Peoples of the Pacific gallery - nearly killed me. I'm sad I didn't fork out the extra cash to see the Travelling the Silk Road exhibition, but, well. After Peoples, and Fossils, and Mammals, and chelonians, and birds, and and and! I was near death, and didn't even go into the Planetarium. Instead, I fortified myself with a hot dog in the basement café, and set out to find Barnes and Noble on Broadway.

The history section in that bookshop is a sad and desperate disappointment. On the other hand, I picked up four SFF titles and would have gone for more except for having to carry them back to the hostel. And onto the plane. As it was, my luggage was within .4 kg of its limit.

Broadway and Times Square were also disappointing. The billboards, the obvious police presence, and the crowds - not as crowded as I'd expected, actually: I've had more trouble trying to walk down Grafton St. in tourist season - the sticky heat, and the dirt that seems to smear everything made it all seem rather tacky, as though it was trying to go for Excessive and Overwhelming and coming up half-heartedly short.

On the other hand, I was tired and thirsty and pissed-off at my blistered heel, so my impressions may have been less than charitable.

From Times Square, I went to the New York Public Library, which matociquala had recommended. For which thank you! It is a fantastic building, in grandly neo-Classical style, with an inner silence which my by-then buzzing head sorely needed. I tried to look at the small exhibit on mapping New York, but sadly my energy gave rather out, and I had to find a chair to sit down for half an hour or so.

I didn't actually venture very far during my time in New York. I knew what I wanted to see, which were the museums, and I made sure to walk to them (except for the AMNH, which had a subway right outside its door), because you best see a city from on foot. Even if it does kill your feet, you get a feel for it a lot better than in taxis or on buses. My hostel was two blocks away from Times Square, and reasonably conveniently located to the museums (what's a couple of miles' walk, after all?) so I didn't actually need to go far.

And by the time I was finished in the museums and such, I didn't actually want to go far. Exhaustion does rather blunt the explorative instinct.

Friday I spent moving from one café to another, trying to stay relatively cool and keep my feet from screaming at me, until it was time to catch a shuttle bus to the airport. I think it'll take more than mere curiosity to get me to go back to New York the city. I didn't much like it. There is neither rest nor silence anywhere I could see. Also, rigidly straight lines in cities are seriously wrong. Inorganic. Cities should be organic, and twisty.

Yeah. I have biases.

New England, on the other hand? That seems to be a nice set of places.

I have come to the end of anything like energy and drive. The heat in this city is oppressive, surpassing anything I have heretofore known, worse for that it is a dead heat of buildings and concrete deprived of green things (save in Central Park) to lend it any semblance of movement.

And air-conditioning run the way some places here seem to run theirs, with drafts of icy air blasting out into the street? That has to be some kind of sin.

I want very badly now to go home. So it is as well that my flight is leaving tonight, and I am to catch a bus to the airport within the next two hours. To have visited the Met a second time yesterday, and also the zoo, proved very wearing: although I think I could spend a year in the Met, solely in the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian galleries and not be satisfied, to say nothing of the Asian and African ones.

The zoo held a snow leopard who deigned to nap up against the window of her enclosure, and a very graceful powerful creature she was.

Anyway. By this time tomorrow, by any grace, I should be home and hopefully within my own bed.

1. Hostel is passable, roommates reasonably pleasant.

2. City unnaturally large. This is not a selling point.

3. Museums unnaturally large. This is a selling point.

4. Metropolitan Museum felt like coming home. Hello, ancient artifacts! Alas that you are displayed as art and not history!

5. Feet hurt.

6. Barnes and Noble very tempting.

7. NY Public Library very impressive.

1. matociquala and stillsostrange are most excellent people.

2. So are matociquala's roommate Alisa and their friend Jeff.

3. They have variously between them taken me climbing outside (twice), inside (once), to a goth club, to a beach, caving, some strange river sport called tubing, and kayaking. I begin to think they are attempting to kill me off.

4. They are still most excellent people, though.

5. Also. America is strange.