USA Adventure: Return to the Empire State (Redux)

In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.

Original Date: 15 November 2006

Hey all,

Turns out I forgot to mention a couple of NY things in my message last night. I was super-duper tired, so it's to be expected. I also got to check out the Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka "The Met") and the Guggenheim. I actually got into The Met for free, thanks to IBM's corporate membership, and it was amazing. My favourite part was an exhibition called "From Cezanne to Picasso", and consisted of a bunch of works that passed through the hands of an art dealer called Vollard over the years. This guy was super influential, often breaking these artists to the world, and the art on display was simply fantastic.

Unfortunately, half of the Guggenheim was closed due to them setting up for an exhibition. The closed half also included the world-famous spiral ramp, which was a real shame. It also had some good art, but the main drawcard for me was the architecture of the building itself. Still, we got in half-price and it was totally worth it.

Our final port of call before a mad subway hopping dash to Grand Central was Strawberry Fields, the part of Central Park dedicated to John Lennon. It was smaller than I expected, just a circular area just near the edge of the park with the famous "Imagine" tiles in the ground. Still pretty nice though.

Stay tuned for the follow-up email with today's activities!

For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I've geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!