New York - part II

Thursday evening I went to dinner at a restaurant called CraftBar with 175560, patrissimo and smileycynic. Highlights of the dinner included the 3 cheese plates we got, the seabass in black truffle sauce with sunchokes and leeks (and now I know what a sunchoke is!), and the appetizer consisting of warm pecorino with honey. After dinner, we went back to Brian's apartment and I fell asleep while everyone else did something much more exciting. (Played 'Ticket to Ride' I think.)

On Friday morning I headed to Grand Central Station where I met up with my friend Jim for lunch. Jim is someone I went to high school with, who I got back in touch with when I stumbled across an article online that he had written. (Ask the White House: Tommy Thompson.) Anyhow, we touched on gossip about other Madisonians, but talked mostly about politics and about Air America (he works for the Al Franken show). After lunch I went to the Met. It's a fantastic museum in that it's overwhelmingly huge. It was a nice day outside, and I wanted to walk through Central Park a bit before I headed back to Brian's, so I decided to pick a few specific things I wanted to see. I picked the Japanese art, the musical instruments, the modern art, and the 19th century European paintings.

The met is not only huge, it's also really laborynthine. Anytime I thought I knew where I was going, I ended up somewhere completely different. There are galleries that look like they'll go through in the right direction, and then they dead end. I found my way to the Japanese art first, which was primarily Buddhist statuary. In getting to the Japanese art, I saw a lot of Chinese art which was much more interesting. Next I set off to find the musical instruments, which involved getting lost in the maze which is the early European paintings. I discovered long ago that this particular era of painting just isn't that interesting to me. For one, it's mostly Christian (Madonna and Child, Jesus on the Cross). But subject matter aside, I've just always disliked the style in which they painted people in that era. I eventually found the musical instruments, which were well worth the effort. Then I got lost again trying to get out. At this point, the labyrinthine nature of the museum started to become pretty claustrophobic making. The 19th century paintings and modern art alleviated that someone. I like Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso and Matisse quite a lot and they had a lot of paintings by all of them.

I got lost again trying to get out, but once I did I took a leisurely stroll through Central Park which was lovely. Then I walked down 8th, past the Lincoln Center and the Trump Towers. I wanted to walk over to Times Square just to look at the ball since I didn't think anyone else was interested in it, but they had police blockades on most of the streets going in that direction and I was worried that once I go in, I'd never be able to get out because I'd be trying to go against the tide. So I decided to give up for the time being and instead I found a subway and went back to Brian's.

At Brian's, I was greeted by Dylan and Tarah, and Paul Berry arrived shortly thereafter. While we were sitting around discussing where to go for dinner, Greg Rae called Brian. We decided to all go to dinner at East of Eighth. While we were chatting, it was established that Tarah was also interested in 'just seeing' the ball. So we began making post dinner plans. The restaurant had all sorts of tasty sounding New Year's Eve specials, which included appetizer, entree, dessert, and champaign, so I got one of those. My entree was the highlight - rack of lamb in a port sauce. I also had two glasses of wine, a glass of champaign, and a bunch of brandied cherries on my dessert. I'm a lightweight, so I guess I got my New Year's even drunkenness in early in the evening. After dinner, we went back to Brian's where Brian and Greg partook in some scotch. Then we split off - Brian wanted to go to a New Year's party with one of his New York acquaintances, Greg had some parties he was going to, and the rest of us wanted to wander around the city and aim to catch a glimpse of the ball.

So, Dylan, Tarah, Paul and I walked up 5th until Broadway. They wouldn't let us walk very far up Broadway before they diverted us over to 8th. All of the cross streets along 8th were blockaded, so we weren't able to cut across to someplace where we could see the ball. I overheard someone say that they would open all of the blockades in an hour (it was about a quarter to 11 at that point), but that sounded like crazy talk to us. I mean, a crush of people right before midnight? Wouldn't that be more dangerous than just letting them into the square? We concluded that there must be some secret, sneaky way into the vicinity of Times Square. We weren't sure we were up to finding it though. At this point, we were almost to the apartment where Tarah's family was staying so we stopped to pick more members of our wandering swatch of tourists. We watched TV briefly, so we could at least see the ball on TV, and then we decided to go to Central Park. As we were walking to Central Park, at about 10 to midnight, they did start opening the blockades. It was not the mayhem I'd expected, people walked pretty calmly down the block until they couldn't go any farther, squishing over to the side of the street that afforded a view of Times Square. We were about 10 blocks away. I was looking all over the place, but still wasn't seeing the ball. Then I heard someone say, "It's changing colors!" and finally spotted it. It was this teeny tiny thing, and not as high up as I thought it would be. We counted down as its lights pulsed and then it dropped. I saw it drop and saw the 2005 light up! We watched the fireworks at Times Square for a little while, and then we walked across to Central Park to watch the fireworks there. As we were walking we could see those fireworks reflected in the Trump Towers, which was pretty. I called rgeorge from Central Park to wish him a Happy New Year. After the finale we went back to the apartment that Tarah's family was at and watched TV a little bit more while hydrating ourselves. Then I went back to Brian's and crashed.

I thought that seeing the ball drop wouldn't be all that exciting, but the energy and excitement were intense. Everywhere we walked in Manhattan on NYE was teeming with people. It felt like the whole city had come outside to celebrate. I do know that the crowds consisted largely of the tourists that had come outside to celebrate, and most native New Yorkers probably consider New Year's a good time to go someplace else.

Happy 2005 everyone!!