Upper East Side

This weekend took me to the opposite side of Manhattan – the Upper East Side. Typically, I spend the majority of my time on the west side or downtown, since it’s the easiest travel-wise. Getting to the east side requires a crosstown bus or finagling a few out-of-the-way transfers on the subway. If it was warmer, walking would’ve been a nice option. Not when it’s in the 20s. Of course, I dragged my roommate along again.

Our subway finagling took us up to the Bronx to take a peek at Yankee Stadium as we waited for our transfer downtown. Even though I live in NYC now, and pretty close to their mammoth ballpark, I can say with confidence that I’ll never be a Yankee fan. (Go Tigers!) I took a picture anyway.

Our ultimate destination was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’d been there before, about 4 years ago now, but it’d been a quick trip and I didn’t remember too much of it, so I thought I’d give it another whirl. Though you’re allowed to pay whatever you want to for admission, the suggested prices make you feel a bit like a jerk when you hand over your credit card and “offer” to pay a lower amount. That being said, I used the old student discount and paid just $12. (Adults are $25.) With so many great museums in this city, and most with a $15-or-more admission, it really makes me miss all the free museums in London.  Why is culture so pricey?

Let’s commence with my tour of the Met. We didn’t visit the entire museum, mainly because it’s humongous and we both got hungry about halfway through. I’m not one for art museums, and tend to go through them pretty quickly, so thankfully there are other things to gawk at here. We started in the Egyptian area, which is full of mummies and pyramid-like structures.

Both of us had been to this section before though, so there wasn’t much new to see. Next we stumbled into the New American section to enjoy some sculptures and other décor (and some paintings).

There was a bit of a Native American theme.

The Hall of Sculptures was interesting and a bit creepy. This statue below depicts a man from Dante's Inferno who is imprisoned with his sons and condemned to starvation. He is shown struggling with and resisting and his children offer themselves to serve as his sustenance. (Yikes!)

We went into an exhibit about Abraham Roentgen, who was one of the most successful cabinetmakers of the eighteenth century. Not realizing we weren’t supposed to, I took a picture of this awesome game table he designed

and a couple of other pieces before getting scolded for taking a picture of the informational wall at the end of the exhibit. A little bit of a delayed reaction on the part of the museum staff, but okay. (Sorry for taking pictures in there, Met.)

I did not take any pictures in the exhibit I really came to see, the whole reason we even made the “trek” to the UES in the first place, because we weren’t allowed and I actually noticed the sign this time. (You’re welcome, Met.) Called “Faking It,” the exhibit was about how photography was manipulated before Photoshop and other modern technology became available. It included everything from elaborate stunts to developing different pieces of pictures over other pictures. They also had a brief section at the end devoted to photos that have been manipulated with Photoshop-like technology. Also cool but a little less impressive. Overall, I’m glad I made it to the exhibit just in the nick of time. (It closed on Sunday.)

The only other section of the museum we saw was modern art. Now, I know I previously said I’m not the biggest fan of art, but modern art is probably the one kind that I consistently enjoy. Yes, it sometimes is amazing what people pass off as “art.”

 

This one reminded us of a color strip at Home Depot.

But some of it’s super cool. And I’m probably more likely to decorate my house/apartment with it than creepy old portraits. 

Then, hunger got the better of us – is it just me, or does this happen every weekend?  We ventured even further east to a restaurant recommended in my new Not For Tourists guide book. We chose Cascabel Taqueria because it was described as awesome, authentic food at “Taco Bell prices” and I love Mexican.  I’m not sure that Taco Bell prices accurately describes it (though Taco Bell is more expensive here than most of the rest of America), but it was still reasonably priced.

 

They had beer from Ithaca Beer Company!

As an appetizer we got a queso dip with chorizo, which was served with soft tortillas rather than chips. (I noticed that chips were nowhere to be found; a table nearby ordered guacamole and it was served with crispy tortillas that then you would presumably break apart for dipping.) We also happened to be there during “brunch” where they offer bottomless drinks for an hour and a half for $12. The choices were mimosas, sangria, bloody Marys, bloody Marias (tequila instead of vodka), and then fancier mimosas. We mainly stuck with the fancier mimosas, La Lola and El Capitan.

Oh, yeah, we also got tacos.

After lunch, we went down to Sprinkles between 60th and 61st for cupcakes, which is also apparently a running theme of these weekend excursions. NYC definitely has its share of cupcake shops, and I’ve obviously sampled a handful of them. So far, Sprinkles is my favorite. They don’t use too much frosting like most places do and, more importantly, their cupcakes are actually good. In my opinion, a lot of the trendy cupcake shops focus more on overwhelming you with frosting than with making an edible cupcake - too often they’re crumbly or dry or relatively flavorless or all of the above. Now I just wish there was a Sprinkles closer to the apartment...or maybe I don’t.