NEW YORK NEW YORK!

Hello everyone!!

Ashleigh and I are in London having a great time! We haven't much time to do any updates, so we're a bit behind on the blog. Here is what we did in New York.

We arrived at New York’s LaGuardia airport in the early evening on Wednesday. For those of you that don’t know, LaGuardia is situated right in the middle of the Queens, which, by all accounts, is a little rough around the edges. Our friend Mark has family in Brooklyn who agreed to put us up while we were staying in the Big Apple. Getting their proved to be easier said than done. We ended up taking the wrong bus through Queens, taking a round-about route on the subway, and then an unplanned walking tour of Brooklyn, which put us at the opposite end of the borough from Mark’s sister Rebecca’s apartment. We finally arrived at Rebecca’s around ten o’clock with empty bellies and achy feet, but grateful to have finally found our friends and a roof over our heads.

Rebecca’s apartment was a bit crowded when we arrived. New York apartments are notoriously small and expensive, and Becca’s was no exception. Not only were our friend’s Dan, Mark and Larsen staying with Becca while being on tour, but Becca’s old roommate Chris was moving back to NY on the day we arrived. Counting Becca, her current roommate Casey, ourselves, and those mentioned above, there were a total eight people staying in the already cozy one bedroom. No complaints though, Becca offered us the fold-out couch in the living room where Ashleigh and I slept comfortably our first night, the rest piling into the bedroom, which was a bit more spacious.

We woke up relatively early on Thursday to try and make the most of our first day in New York. Larsen, Ashleigh and I decided to take the subway to the Natural History Museum, where we spent most of the late morning and early afternoon perusing ancient artifacts of various cultures, dinosaur bones, scale models of some of the world’s most fascinating animals, and displays housing some of humanity’s greatest taxonomical achievements. Stuffed finches to polar bears, otters to water buffalo, storks to toucans, I’ve never seen so many stuffed animals in my entire life! The Natural Museum of History houses some truly remarkable artifacts from virtually every culture that has ever existed. We particularly enjoyed the artifacts from Central and South America. Here are some pictures Ashleigh took of our day at the Natural History Museum: 

After the museum we took the subway to Greenwich Village, where we walked around a bit, ate a slice of the best veggie pizza ever, and walked around some more. I made a quick visit to the New School, while Ashleigh and Larsen had a cup of coffee. That night, I played a show at a loft in Brooklyn, where we had a chance to talk to some of the locals and hang out with Dan and Larsen before they continued on with their tour.

The next morning, Ashleigh woke up with three mysterious bug bites on her arm, which we later determined were caused by bed bugs. EW! Apparently bed bugs are a huge problem in New York City; we kept seeing advertisements for bed bug exterminators on the subways and plastered on the sides of buildings. Regardless, Mark had another sister in New York, who happened to be out of town and had kindly offered up her place to Mark and a few lucky friends. Given that Becca’s place was crowded, and Ashleigh had suffered from a bed bug attack, it was a natural move downtown to the “spacious”, bed bug free, two bedroom. We spent a lot of our time hanging out on the roof of the building. It had an incredible view of downtown New York. It was nice to go up for some fresh air and take in the city in all its glory. Ashleigh took plenty of pictures with her fancy camera and fisheye lens. Keep in mind, most of these pictures were taken at night.

Earlier that day, Ashleigh, Mark, Chris and I took advantage of free target Friday at the Modern Museum of Art. Free admission began at four, and when we arrived at said time, there was a line already a line around the block. We had no problem getting in, but the museum was unbelievably crowded. There was an exhibition by Song Dong, where he put on display the contents of his Chinese mother’s house. I won’t go into detail about the artist’s purpose for creating the work (you can read about here), but Ashleigh and I both found the exhibition intriguing. We also saw other famous artworks from Andy Warhol (Campbell Soup Cans and Marilyn Monroe), a few Picassos and Pollacks, and one of Salvador Dali’s most famous pieces, the name of which escapes now. I was also pleased to see Giacomo Balla’s Street Lamp, which you can see a reproduction of here.

On Saturday, Mark, Ashleigh, and I took advantage of our new sleeping arrangements and slept until the early afternoon. We spent the rest of the day wandering around central park. We walked past the Dakota (John Lennon’s apartment where he met his demise that fateful day in December 1980) but didn’t realize it until later after we looked at a map. That evening, we walked over to Lincoln Center to catch Rhys Chatham conduct a 200 guitar symphony; it was utterly astounding. The guitar players were lined up around the audience on the ground level. Chatham stood at the front of a big stage, where he directed four conductors, who in turn conducted a section of guitar players. The result was huge walls of sound coming from all different directions. It was enough to give me goose-bumps. One man even stood up during the pieces climax, and raised his hands in the air in praise of the piece’s sheer sonic magnitude. Really… it was that intense.

Sunday, we decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Arriving later than expected, we were only able to see a fraction of the museums contents. I really enjoyed the Met because it is like a walking history of art. We saw artifacts from ancient Greece, Rome, Cyprus, Assyria, Sumaria, and Egypt. There were also paintings and sculptures from the medieval period, as well. I was a bit disappointed with the Byzantine collection, only because it did not house  as many painted icons as I was hoping for. Even then, the place is so huge, I may have just missed them. However, the collections ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary art are EXTREMELY comprehensive. We saw pieces ranging from Michealangelo to Chuck Close. Time was not on our side that day, and I feel like we missed most of the museum, which is amazing considering how much we got to see. It is definitely a place I would like to visit again. We forgot the fancy camera that day, so these pictures were taken from Ashleigh's phone...

While we were at the museum, we met up with our friend Elliot and his brother Austin, who just happened to be in New York at the same time we did. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and went back to the apartment to hang out on the roof, before they had to make their way back to New Jersey where they were staying. It was a great way to spend our last night in New York.

We flew to Birmingham, UK the next day. We had an hour lay-over in Dublin, which wasn’t too bad. We had no problems making our way to Coventry, where we had reserved a hotel to get over jet-lag. Our days in Coventry were pretty boring. We took lots of naps and ran little errands here and there. The town itself was very mundane: a lot of post-WWII buildings. There was an old cathedral in the city center, which helped give the town some character.  I made a quick visit to the University of Warwick, got a feel for the campus and left. No one was around to discuss the program I applied for. Overall it has been very relaxing and a great way to transition into the European way of life. We'll do another update of our adventures in London. Next stop Cardiff, Wales!!