Adventure Day: NYC

On Saturday, May 1st, Mac and I had another Adventure Day and this time it was to NYC. We got a fairly early train out of Princeton Junction and made it to MOMA by about 11am. We were excited to see two current exhibits, one of photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson and one that we kept referring to as "naked performance art". The actual title of the exhibit was "Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present", and it really did involve naked people and performance art. It sparked a good discussion on the way home about "what is art?", which is truly one of life's unanswerable questions...

Our next stop was to head up to Harlem to see the Carolina Chocolate Drops give a free performance. This band is one of my favorite old-timey bands. What I really like about them is that they know the history of so many of the songs that they play and their concerts are always part history lesson and part performance. It was one of the highlights of the day.

On the way to the Jewish Museum, we decided to take the train part of the way, but to walk through Central Park for about 20 blocks. It was a beautiful day and the park was packed!

It was fun to explore a part of Central Park that I had never seen before, including the Conservatory Garden, which was blooming with tons of tulips and lilacs.

We finally ended up at The Jewish Museum, which is free every Saturday, to see the Curious George exhibit they have going on. It was interesting to learn the history of Margret and H.A. Rey and to see original drawings that were used to create Curious George and other books by the Reys.

From there we walked another 10 blocks south and had a nice Italian dinner before heading to the rooftop at the Met. Mac had never been to the Met before, so we did a quick tour (ha!) and ran through some of the most popular exhibit halls before making our way up to watch the sunset and have drinks on the roof.

We could see kites being flown from somewhere in Central Park (look closely in the photo below). I thought it was amazing how high they looked:

The exhibit on the roof this summer is called Big Bambu. It's an ever-growing structure made out of bamboo and hiking rope. It takes up the entire rooftop and I found it to be pretty impressive.

There are walkways that are only accessible if you get on a guided tour, which were popular tickets to come by on the first Saturday that the roof was open. We'll have to go back at some point and see if we can get a tour.

It was a beautiful night to be up on the roof and watch the sunset.

After enjoying the last daylight hours at the Met, Mac and I headed back to Penn Station and caught a train back to Princeton. It was a long, exhausting, exhilarating and fun day in the city!