(no subject)
Hello lovelies. Long time no see, I think, but this will be the first of at least two posts from me today so you can rejoice about that. Or something.
NYC was very fun! Prepare to be TOLD ABOUT MY DAY YEAH.
We got in to Grand Central at like...11:20 or something like that. We were gonna walk from there to the Bryant Park station, and I THINK that one is supposed to have another entrance one block over but we didn't see it so we just kept on walking to Bryant Park. Then I got mildly confused about what train we needed...when I looked at the map earlier it looked like the stop for the museum was local only but I guess it turned out not to be...anyway, we didn't get on the first train that came and had to wait for the next one, but it wasn't too bad.
So then we got up to the Museum of Natural History. The museum was...nice, but honestly a bit boring. I just feel like they did not do a remotely good job of making the displays engaging in a lot of cases. There would be a rock or something, and we'd be all "uh, what's so great about this rock?" so we'd read the little sign and OMG those signs were so boring. The descriptions were just really dry, they weren't written in a way that would catch and/or hold your interest at all, and half the time they didn't seem to explain the stuff I wanted to figure out anyway. There'd be some cool-looking rock with a weird pattern so I want to find out how it formed and what caused that pattern, but...no, apparently the sign isn't about that.
But the museum was incredibly huge, there was a lot to see and a lot of it was pretty interesting, so we definitely had fun. I was disappointed that there was hardly anything Egyptian, though! We stopped for lunch in the food court at one point, which was quite disappointing. There was a ton of stuff that looked good so we really made some poor decisions. We got burgers and fries and a giant cupcake from Crumbs, and the burgers turned out to be pretty awful. The fries were good though, haha. And the cupcake was good, but it wasn't horribly exciting and it was wayyy bigger than we needed/wanted. We really should have gone with the salad bar or the pulled pork sandwiches instead. Oh well.
We ended up skipping some parts of the museum - we spent way longer than we'd planned on there and we didn't want to be there TOO late, plus we were getting a bit tired of the whole museum thing, so we moved on. We went into the park and were there for like an hour or so. We spent some time sitting by the lake watching the rowboats, then we went in search of a snack. I thought we were just a little bit above Strawberry Fields, and I figured there would be vendors at that entrance so we tried to head there. Turns out I was wrong and we were farther up than I thought, so we had to just leave the park and walk down along the street until we got to Strawberry Fields. Which meant we had to walk right past the Dakota, which...really wasn't something I wanted to do. At least the entrance to the Dakota is on 72nd and not on Central Park West, so I didn't have to feel like I was walking RIGHT THERE. But it's not like I could ignore it so I was definitely staring at the steps as we walked by and urggh I didn't really need that, y'know?
Anyway, we got to Strawberry Fields and figured we'd hang out there for a little bit. Apparently the guy who normally handles the flowers and everything wasn't there that day so he asked another guy to fill in, and I guess that guy hadn't brought as many flowers because he just had them in a really small, simple peace sign. And it must have been relatively soon after one of the times they cleared stuff away because there was nothing but the flowers, and last time I was there there was a ton of stuff. We were just sitting hanging out for a little while, and then a guy showed up with a guitar and started to play Imagine. <3<3<3!! I sang along with him, but not many other people did. I half expected it to turn into a singalong, but he was singing pretty quietly so I think if you were on the other side of the circle and/or didn't know the song perfectly it would have been pretty difficult to sing with him. But it was really, really nice and I'm so glad he played it. We moved on after that, walked back up to the 81st street stop, and got some ice cream on the way.
And then it was Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex time! The Annex was SO GREAT omg. First you go into this room that has little plaques around the wall for each person in the Hall of Fame. There's music playing and the plaques light up to show you who's playing. The songs start switching faster and faster and louder and louder and it builds and builds and builds to the point where it's just this immense NOISE and then it stops and you go into the little theater thing. The introductory movie was AWESOME. Besides the main screen there was also stuff playing to each side of the main screen and then on the two side walls. It basically just went through a ton of different musicians, and beyond showing them performing it would show posters from the shows, quotes from other people about them, stuff like that. There was some great footage of the Beatles' Shea Stadium show, you saw the boys playing in the middle and then video of the screaming girls on the sides, and of course your ears are just filled with the screams and it was awesome. There was a cute shot of David Bowie mouthing "who, me?!" when the fans went crazy for him. And possibly my favorite part - video of two girls somehow managing to get on stage with Bruce Springsteen. One girl just completely threw herself at him and kissed him, she actually had him down on the floor and the kiss went on for quite a while before security managed to tear her off of him, and Bruce was just SO loving it - he was 100% kissing her back and then after they pulled her off he was totally grinning and when he got back on his feet and back to the mic he just went "WOOOOO!" Hahaha.
So then after the movie thingie they give you headphones and let you into the main area. There are sensors at various places so basically your headphones will play music to match whatever case you're standing in front of. They had a lot of awesome stuff - the usual tons of guitars and clothes and handwritten lyrics and all that stuff. One of Elvis's sequined jumpsuits, a dress of Janis Joplin's, some jacket type thing of Michael Jackson's, tons of other stuff. They had one of Ringo's actual drumheads, with the Beatles logo on it, which was just incredible. They had some letters written from various people to fans which was really cute. Some from the Beatles and from the Stones. Somehow the letters from the Stones were just adorable - I always knew the Beatles wrote to their fans, but I was surprised the Stones did too. And they were so cute - there was one, I think it was actually from Keith, that was all "it was very sweet of you to send me a birthday present!" And another one, I forget who from, said something along the lines of "Yes, I can always use aftershave." Hahaha. A lot of them said something along the lines of "sorry it took me so long to write back" which is just so cute. And they all thanked fans for coming to concerts, hoped they'd enjoy the next album, etc. There was also a letter from Paul Simon to "Artie" Garfunkel, which seemed to be written while Paul was at summer camp. I think they were 16 or so at the time. So cute! In the letter he said something like "Say hi to Bridget and any other pretty girls" (I'm totally making up the name Bridget, I don't remember what it was).
And then came the John Lennon exhibit which was just SO SO SO SO good. It's curated by Yoko and if you know anything about Yoko that would be obvious as soon as you walked in because it's very much her style. Lots of white, everything very clean and stark. Among the highlights: John's "New York City" tee shirt (omgomgomg), a pair of the wire-rimmed glasses (ahhhh), his green card, a Grammy, lots of handwritten lyrics and stuff. Some other clothes, including the army jacket, the hat with the feathers and stuff, and the jacket he usually wore with that hat. A couple guitars and a piano...somehow I think the piano struck me more than the guitars! Maybe just because I've seen plenty of guitars belonging to various musicians in my life but a piano is a bit less common. Maybe it's just the fact of looking at the piano bench and going OMG JOHN SAT THERE. They had video screens playing various things, interviews, home movies with little Sean, some of the art films he did with Yoko, etc. And there was a big huge sheet of paper where you could sign your name in support of stricter gun laws. There was a telephone with a sign saying that when it rang you should pick it up and talk to Yoko, but she didn't call during the time I was there.
At one point I was walking towards one display case and then I got close enough to realize what it was - the paper bag sent home from the hospital containing the clothes John was wearing. As soon as I realized it I basically veered away asap and went to look at something else instead. Uhhh, I really don't need to see that. They also had a poster up with a huge picture of the glasses he had on, y'know the famous picture that Yoko took......again, things I really don't need, y'know? But I'm just thankful Yoko didn't send the actual glasses to the museum! If she even kept them. I'm weirded out enough by the fact that she even took them home and photographed them.
One thing I didn't really like about the exhibit was that I don't remember seeing Julian's name even once. Sean was all over it, of course, but I'm pretty sure you could have walked through the whole thing and never realize Julian existed. I'm not terribly surprised, especially considering who curated the exhibit, but ugh it makes me so sad.
Anyway, we finished up and went to the shop briefly...they had a lot of cool stuff, including a Beatles tee that I really wanted, but they didn't have it in my size. I ended up just getting two new buttons for my collection. Then we headed to Times Square...we were thinking of eating there but we were kinda short on time, it was much later than we'd planned on being there and we could either hurry for one train or wait an hour for the next one, so we went with plan A. Grabbed burritos from Chipotle and ate 'em in GCT and then took the train home. Still a late night!
Overall, MUCHOS FUN!
NYC was very fun! Prepare to be TOLD ABOUT MY DAY YEAH.
We got in to Grand Central at like...11:20 or something like that. We were gonna walk from there to the Bryant Park station, and I THINK that one is supposed to have another entrance one block over but we didn't see it so we just kept on walking to Bryant Park. Then I got mildly confused about what train we needed...when I looked at the map earlier it looked like the stop for the museum was local only but I guess it turned out not to be...anyway, we didn't get on the first train that came and had to wait for the next one, but it wasn't too bad.
So then we got up to the Museum of Natural History. The museum was...nice, but honestly a bit boring. I just feel like they did not do a remotely good job of making the displays engaging in a lot of cases. There would be a rock or something, and we'd be all "uh, what's so great about this rock?" so we'd read the little sign and OMG those signs were so boring. The descriptions were just really dry, they weren't written in a way that would catch and/or hold your interest at all, and half the time they didn't seem to explain the stuff I wanted to figure out anyway. There'd be some cool-looking rock with a weird pattern so I want to find out how it formed and what caused that pattern, but...no, apparently the sign isn't about that.
But the museum was incredibly huge, there was a lot to see and a lot of it was pretty interesting, so we definitely had fun. I was disappointed that there was hardly anything Egyptian, though! We stopped for lunch in the food court at one point, which was quite disappointing. There was a ton of stuff that looked good so we really made some poor decisions. We got burgers and fries and a giant cupcake from Crumbs, and the burgers turned out to be pretty awful. The fries were good though, haha. And the cupcake was good, but it wasn't horribly exciting and it was wayyy bigger than we needed/wanted. We really should have gone with the salad bar or the pulled pork sandwiches instead. Oh well.
We ended up skipping some parts of the museum - we spent way longer than we'd planned on there and we didn't want to be there TOO late, plus we were getting a bit tired of the whole museum thing, so we moved on. We went into the park and were there for like an hour or so. We spent some time sitting by the lake watching the rowboats, then we went in search of a snack. I thought we were just a little bit above Strawberry Fields, and I figured there would be vendors at that entrance so we tried to head there. Turns out I was wrong and we were farther up than I thought, so we had to just leave the park and walk down along the street until we got to Strawberry Fields. Which meant we had to walk right past the Dakota, which...really wasn't something I wanted to do. At least the entrance to the Dakota is on 72nd and not on Central Park West, so I didn't have to feel like I was walking RIGHT THERE. But it's not like I could ignore it so I was definitely staring at the steps as we walked by and urggh I didn't really need that, y'know?
Anyway, we got to Strawberry Fields and figured we'd hang out there for a little bit. Apparently the guy who normally handles the flowers and everything wasn't there that day so he asked another guy to fill in, and I guess that guy hadn't brought as many flowers because he just had them in a really small, simple peace sign. And it must have been relatively soon after one of the times they cleared stuff away because there was nothing but the flowers, and last time I was there there was a ton of stuff. We were just sitting hanging out for a little while, and then a guy showed up with a guitar and started to play Imagine. <3<3<3!! I sang along with him, but not many other people did. I half expected it to turn into a singalong, but he was singing pretty quietly so I think if you were on the other side of the circle and/or didn't know the song perfectly it would have been pretty difficult to sing with him. But it was really, really nice and I'm so glad he played it. We moved on after that, walked back up to the 81st street stop, and got some ice cream on the way.
And then it was Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex time! The Annex was SO GREAT omg. First you go into this room that has little plaques around the wall for each person in the Hall of Fame. There's music playing and the plaques light up to show you who's playing. The songs start switching faster and faster and louder and louder and it builds and builds and builds to the point where it's just this immense NOISE and then it stops and you go into the little theater thing. The introductory movie was AWESOME. Besides the main screen there was also stuff playing to each side of the main screen and then on the two side walls. It basically just went through a ton of different musicians, and beyond showing them performing it would show posters from the shows, quotes from other people about them, stuff like that. There was some great footage of the Beatles' Shea Stadium show, you saw the boys playing in the middle and then video of the screaming girls on the sides, and of course your ears are just filled with the screams and it was awesome. There was a cute shot of David Bowie mouthing "who, me?!" when the fans went crazy for him. And possibly my favorite part - video of two girls somehow managing to get on stage with Bruce Springsteen. One girl just completely threw herself at him and kissed him, she actually had him down on the floor and the kiss went on for quite a while before security managed to tear her off of him, and Bruce was just SO loving it - he was 100% kissing her back and then after they pulled her off he was totally grinning and when he got back on his feet and back to the mic he just went "WOOOOO!" Hahaha.
So then after the movie thingie they give you headphones and let you into the main area. There are sensors at various places so basically your headphones will play music to match whatever case you're standing in front of. They had a lot of awesome stuff - the usual tons of guitars and clothes and handwritten lyrics and all that stuff. One of Elvis's sequined jumpsuits, a dress of Janis Joplin's, some jacket type thing of Michael Jackson's, tons of other stuff. They had one of Ringo's actual drumheads, with the Beatles logo on it, which was just incredible. They had some letters written from various people to fans which was really cute. Some from the Beatles and from the Stones. Somehow the letters from the Stones were just adorable - I always knew the Beatles wrote to their fans, but I was surprised the Stones did too. And they were so cute - there was one, I think it was actually from Keith, that was all "it was very sweet of you to send me a birthday present!" And another one, I forget who from, said something along the lines of "Yes, I can always use aftershave." Hahaha. A lot of them said something along the lines of "sorry it took me so long to write back" which is just so cute. And they all thanked fans for coming to concerts, hoped they'd enjoy the next album, etc. There was also a letter from Paul Simon to "Artie" Garfunkel, which seemed to be written while Paul was at summer camp. I think they were 16 or so at the time. So cute! In the letter he said something like "Say hi to Bridget and any other pretty girls" (I'm totally making up the name Bridget, I don't remember what it was).
And then came the John Lennon exhibit which was just SO SO SO SO good. It's curated by Yoko and if you know anything about Yoko that would be obvious as soon as you walked in because it's very much her style. Lots of white, everything very clean and stark. Among the highlights: John's "New York City" tee shirt (omgomgomg), a pair of the wire-rimmed glasses (ahhhh), his green card, a Grammy, lots of handwritten lyrics and stuff. Some other clothes, including the army jacket, the hat with the feathers and stuff, and the jacket he usually wore with that hat. A couple guitars and a piano...somehow I think the piano struck me more than the guitars! Maybe just because I've seen plenty of guitars belonging to various musicians in my life but a piano is a bit less common. Maybe it's just the fact of looking at the piano bench and going OMG JOHN SAT THERE. They had video screens playing various things, interviews, home movies with little Sean, some of the art films he did with Yoko, etc. And there was a big huge sheet of paper where you could sign your name in support of stricter gun laws. There was a telephone with a sign saying that when it rang you should pick it up and talk to Yoko, but she didn't call during the time I was there.
At one point I was walking towards one display case and then I got close enough to realize what it was - the paper bag sent home from the hospital containing the clothes John was wearing. As soon as I realized it I basically veered away asap and went to look at something else instead. Uhhh, I really don't need to see that. They also had a poster up with a huge picture of the glasses he had on, y'know the famous picture that Yoko took......again, things I really don't need, y'know? But I'm just thankful Yoko didn't send the actual glasses to the museum! If she even kept them. I'm weirded out enough by the fact that she even took them home and photographed them.
One thing I didn't really like about the exhibit was that I don't remember seeing Julian's name even once. Sean was all over it, of course, but I'm pretty sure you could have walked through the whole thing and never realize Julian existed. I'm not terribly surprised, especially considering who curated the exhibit, but ugh it makes me so sad.
Anyway, we finished up and went to the shop briefly...they had a lot of cool stuff, including a Beatles tee that I really wanted, but they didn't have it in my size. I ended up just getting two new buttons for my collection. Then we headed to Times Square...we were thinking of eating there but we were kinda short on time, it was much later than we'd planned on being there and we could either hurry for one train or wait an hour for the next one, so we went with plan A. Grabbed burritos from Chipotle and ate 'em in GCT and then took the train home. Still a late night!
Overall, MUCHOS FUN!