pyroclastic

I had a lovely day in New York, although my main focus was decidedly un-American; rather than seeing anything related to New York or the United States, I went to the Cloisters, which is the Metropolitan Museum of Art's building of medieval art and architecture. But first, I should say that I slept until almost ten a.m., and then I spent two hours showering, dressing, and attempting to pack all my belongings with an eye towards a) weight and making sure that my bags would make it on the plane and b) organization so that I wouldn't have to unpack everything during my 48-hour stay in Ritu Rani's apartment. I think I mostly succeeded, although we'll see if I'm right when I try to get dressed tomorrow morning. After checking out of the hotel, I stowed my bags with the bell desk, grabbed a sandwich at the diner across the street from the hotel, and then took a v. long subway ride the 150 blocks from Times Square to the Cloisters.

The Cloisters is in a lovely setting overlooking the Hudson, located in Fort Tryon Park, which had some significance in the battles for New York during the Revolution. They've made a wonderful garden in the park that I would have liked to have shown my mother, if only so that she could tell me what the plants were. The Cloisters is reachable by a meandering 10-15min walk through the park, and is utterly lovely upon arrival; they built the museum to complement the medieval art/architecture so that everything feels like it might have felt in its original location rather than being surrounded by steel and glass. Of course, I had a total geeked out field day, taking photos, making notes, dreaming of stories, etc. I came up with an idea for a major plot point of my young adult book, and spent half an hour sitting in their garden cafe, drinking an earl grey tea (made with a tea bag in a paper cup, which is how low I've sunk to after a week away from my Breville teamaker), and writing a couple of pages of notes about the story and what might become of the characters.

So, overall the excursion was worth the distance traveled to get there, and I saw some cool stuff that none of you would appreciate, so I'll leave it at that. I went back to Times Square around five (and was subjected to some sort of v. loud flash performance of music/breakdancing in my subway car during a particularly long interlude between stops - damn kids and their music), picked up my bags from the hotel, and took a taxi to Ritu Rani's place, where I promptly called my parents and caught up. Then, I spent the evening alternating between looking at apartments in Berlin, catching up on stuff, procrastinating, eating pizza, writing several more pages of notes about my young adult book, and obsessively reading about volcanoes. Yes, I'm weird, but you knew that already. And now, I really need to sleep - goodnight!