What We Did in Manhattan

Remember that scene in "Cars" when Lightning McQueen is talking to the two SUVs from Minnesota and they just go "bloop bloop" because they had no idea what he was talking about? This happened to me as I talked with a friend at church about our trip to Manhattan on Saturday. Nothing we did seemed like something she would choose to do on a day in Manhattan. It was pretty funny actually. So here's what we did:

We went to the Chrysler building but couldn't go up it. But just seeing the exterior (see photo) was awesome. The foyer is amazing. We went to the New York Public Library (that's me with the lion) and channeled Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in the famous reading room. We both picked up a reference book and read. It's what you do in a library, right? We also went to the Empire State Building but didn't go up. It was very crowded and a bit chilly. I don't think it would have been fun. But again, the lobby was iconic. We also went to the Guggenheim but didn't actually visit the museum. It was packed and the big exhibit was Kandinsky. My apologies to Michael's sister who is such a fan that she named a cat after him, but I'm not that big on his stuff. The exterior and interior both were beautiful. There are details on the building which you only get when you see it up close. We visited the museum shop which was pretty intense as museum shops go. Then we actually went into a museum, the Cooper-Hewitt. Not on my top list of museums to go to, but we were on foot and it was close. It was totally worth the visit. It's the old Vanderbilt mansion. If you really want to see wealth, it oozes from every inch of this building. We also spent a fair amount of time in Grand Central Station (actually Grand Central Terminal but who's going to call it that?). We could have pretended to be lots of people here: Cary Grant in "North by Northwest" comes immediately to mind. Another incredible building architecturally. We ate lunch in a cafe in the Empire State Building and dinner at Grand Central Station. The food may have not been the best, but what can you say about the ambience. It was a wonderful day!