Getting Reacquainted with New York

According to my previous blog, it has been almost 3 years since I was last in New York. This time around, I get to do all the things I missed out on last time. That means visiting different museums and exhibits, eating a variety of food, and watching new shows.

So let's begin with today. It was a full day indeed. At this point, I have been up for 40 hours (minus a few cat naps on the plane and in the hotel). Ivana and I left Los Angeles around 11pm Friday night, I was unable to fall asleep on the plane, and it didn't help that I had the middle seat. With all the stuff we did today, it's no wonder it truly feels like a long and full day.

Once we arrived at JFK around 7:30am (EST) we took a shuttle down to Grand Central Station. From there we traveled up to our hotel, dropped off our luggage, and dove in head-first to our New York Adventure (part 2). We got street food (Italian sausage dog and chicken kabob) and then went to the Guggenheim Museum. Last time, we didn't get a chance to go in because of their hours. This time, we made sure we had plenty of time. We admired the architecture as well as the artwork. The artwork was more modern than I had expected.

At this point, I hadn't eaten in 15 hours...

The Guggenheim Museum is a huge spiral!

After the museum we headed to Lincoln Center, the performing arts-hub of New York. We went to the Metropolitan Opera House and watched American Ballet Theatre perform Don Quixote. It was a great experience. Though I have seen them perform before, it is different to see them on their home stage. The athleticism of the dancers was just amazing- and so beautiful.

The Metropolitan Opera House

After the ballet, we headed towards our hotel. At this point, both Ivana and I were pretty exhausted and needed a little cat-nap. On our way, we stopped by a local pizza place and picked up a pizza to eat for dessert.

New York pizza!

The last performance of the evening was the Broadway musical Anastasia. It's a new musical, based off the 1997 animated movie. I grew up really enjoying that movie, so the musical was a treat. Plus, Ramin Karimloo, pretty much my favorite musical theatre performer, debuted the new antagonist role, Gleb. The last time I saw him perform live was when I was in New York 3 years ago- he was the lead Jean Val Jean in Les Miserables.

It took us a day, but I think I am refamiliarizing myself with the public transportation system here. "When in Rome..."