and I decided to go down to the city today and check out the sites, mainly the Metropolitan Museum of Art or more commonly, The Met. The place is gigantic and imposing and labyrinthine and there is no possible way that a four hour visit can even give you a glimpse of what is contained inside. Still, we took those four hours and enjoyed them.
The drive down to Manhattan was simple and we avoided all toll-booths (don't ask me why I like this, but I do) and we parked the car at The Met's parking garage ($20). The museum is so big that words fail me, but rest assured that 'large' is not a big enough word. Entrance was $10 each (suggested donation) and as it was afternoon upon arrival we thought we'd check out their dining establishments on-site and feed ourselves. The food was fairly decent: rice bowl with spicy chicken and vegetables, fresh fruit, juice, tea, lemon bar and gummi bears ($34). A bit steep for cafeteria service food. Oh well. We were there for the art....

We started off just wandering around, knowing our goal would be the European masters (Rembrandt, Renoir, Manet, Monet, Pissaro, Courbet, Rousseau, Degas, Van Gogh, Rodin, etc) and I saw a small exhibit on the art of Easter Island (also known as Rapa Nui). As I had just recently read "Kon Tiki" by Thor Heyerdahl, I had to check it out. It was too little of a sampling, in my opinion, but cool nonetheless.
We continued the wandering, straying through the medieval section (briefly and in which I would have probably otherwise spent most of the time) and then checked out their Baroque Christmas Tree display (pretty cool) before encountering the stairs to the 2nd level and the goal of our trip.
The European masters are just wonderful. The range of styles and talents is astounding and humbling and emotional and we checked out most of the works on display in the gallery. Overload! A lot of the Degas we had already seen when the travelling exhibit came through Minneapolis last year. Still worth another look, though!
It came round towards closing time and on our wandering way back through the galleries I came across the Met's exhibit on Paul Signac, neo-impressionist. We were unfamiliar with this artist so we dodged into the gallery to try to soak him up before we were made to leave. Wow. I would have liked to see much more of his work. He was very talented and his progression was interesting -- going from 'regular' style of painting to very pointillized and even almost mosaic in shape and color of his brush strokes. I enjoyed the new-found artist very much. Not enough time to see it all before being ushered outside, however.
The further plan was to maybe check out Rockefeller Center and go up the Empire State Building but as it was around 6:00pm and rush-hour, wasn't too up on dealing with all the traffic and lack of movement so we bailed out on the that and headed back home for some dinner at The EverReady Diner (a great little diner) and then some rest and sleep (in fact, some of us are already doing so).