usa: new york city
i admit i have a problem here. i have tried to winnow down my shots of new york (i know there are some of you out there with short attention spans, no names mentioned...jeremy :) but there is so much cool stuff to do in this city! so many fascinating people, cityscapes, museums!
so i ended up cutting out all my pictures of aston martins, lamborghinis, range rover limos and an awesome audi r8 that the owner kindly jumped out of so i could take a photo and i still have too many*...so i will try and cull as i write.
We arrived in new york after an all night bus ride, got briefly lost in chinatown before meeting up with louie (kenyan brother who we forced into being our guide - thank you!). after finding our new home, having a shower and a much needed nap, we were ready to hit the town. which we did by walking over the iconic brooklyn bridge.
brooklyn bridge was completed in 1889. interestingly, after it was completed rumors of its inability to withold weight were only put to bed when p.t. barnum led a parade of 21 elephants across the bridge. i dont have a picture of that so you'll just have to look at these pictures of interesting bits of the bridge instead.
apparently the dude who designed it planned for it to be 6 times as strong as it needed to be. a shady contractor subsituted cheaper quality steel for the suspension cables and thus its only 4 times as strong as it needs to be. no wonder its lasted over 100 yrs. sandi says this paragraph is boring and for nerds only.
at the foot of the bridge is pier 17 - formerly a functional pier but now gentrified (this is a word used often in connection with brooklyn) and is a touristy place with lots of restaurants and shops and even a live band. it provides a very pretty view of the bridge and the river.
one of the highlights for me was the metropolitan museum of art. wow. everything is a masterpiece and you could spend hours in just one section. some highlights...
there was a special collection of picassos on - i didnt really like most of them (he got wierd in his later years) but here is one of his earlier works. the reason i especially like this one is that during this period he was influenced by a french artist, toulouse-lautrec who designed posters with vibrant colors depicting the paris night life. the cool thing is that i have a poster by toulouse-lautrec hanging in my room and by sheer coincidence we discovered jeremy & tabitha have the same one (see J, it was worth hanging in there).
there were also several rembrandts - i think this is my favorite. rembrandt was brilliant in his use of light - to the point that photographers today talk about 'rembrandt light' as shown below - the light is dominant and from above on one side of the face but with a lower power light on the opposite side so that its not just a dark shadow. this painting is called 'the oriental'
of course, for those interested in bible history, there is a lot at the met. lots of things from ancient persia, babylon and rome. here is just one example - from ancient babylon with a corresponding inscription (obviously my pic is of the translation, seeing as they didnt speak english back then). this really reflects the bibles description of this proud ruler, nebuchadnezzer
alright...enough of the met. ok, maybe just one last picture...on the roof there was a really interesting bamboo structure as an exhibition...no, suzie wasnt part of the exhibition.
ok, thats the last one from the met. our next stop - times square. wow, what a sensory overload. and then, as if that wasnt enough, we went to a brilliant broadway show. i am not too enamoured by the idea of broadway, (i'd prefer car chase scene type of movie, yes i am shallow like that) but this was totally awesome with amazing music - a mix of latino and hip hop and i would recommend it to anyone over a movie any day (its was called 'in the heights' if you want to go). thank you sandy and wanda for expanding my horizons.
and of course at night everything is colorful and pretty...we had supper at dallas bbq - with about 20 people who had visited kenya! we had a great time and it was nice to see some of our old friends again.
(for any canadians reading this, yes there is a tim hortons in new york!) actually more than one because there was one in penn station as well.
so to wind up. just a couple more pics of the brooklyn bridge. one was from the 90 sands building - what an awesome view.
and heres another one from pier 17. this time its a panorama (click to see a big pic - i havent figured out yet how to get them to display across the page with blogger).
we sure enjoyed our time in the big apple, and this is one place i would still visit again, so maybe one day we will have a follow up to this blog!
*i showed these pics to some of my wifes friends and afterwards she told them, 'don't worry, i'll go through and select the truly interesting pictures and show them to you later'
so i ended up cutting out all my pictures of aston martins, lamborghinis, range rover limos and an awesome audi r8 that the owner kindly jumped out of so i could take a photo and i still have too many*...so i will try and cull as i write.
We arrived in new york after an all night bus ride, got briefly lost in chinatown before meeting up with louie (kenyan brother who we forced into being our guide - thank you!). after finding our new home, having a shower and a much needed nap, we were ready to hit the town. which we did by walking over the iconic brooklyn bridge.
brooklyn bridge was completed in 1889. interestingly, after it was completed rumors of its inability to withold weight were only put to bed when p.t. barnum led a parade of 21 elephants across the bridge. i dont have a picture of that so you'll just have to look at these pictures of interesting bits of the bridge instead.
apparently the dude who designed it planned for it to be 6 times as strong as it needed to be. a shady contractor subsituted cheaper quality steel for the suspension cables and thus its only 4 times as strong as it needs to be. no wonder its lasted over 100 yrs. sandi says this paragraph is boring and for nerds only.
at the foot of the bridge is pier 17 - formerly a functional pier but now gentrified (this is a word used often in connection with brooklyn) and is a touristy place with lots of restaurants and shops and even a live band. it provides a very pretty view of the bridge and the river.
one of the highlights for me was the metropolitan museum of art. wow. everything is a masterpiece and you could spend hours in just one section. some highlights...
there was a special collection of picassos on - i didnt really like most of them (he got wierd in his later years) but here is one of his earlier works. the reason i especially like this one is that during this period he was influenced by a french artist, toulouse-lautrec who designed posters with vibrant colors depicting the paris night life. the cool thing is that i have a poster by toulouse-lautrec hanging in my room and by sheer coincidence we discovered jeremy & tabitha have the same one (see J, it was worth hanging in there).
there were also several rembrandts - i think this is my favorite. rembrandt was brilliant in his use of light - to the point that photographers today talk about 'rembrandt light' as shown below - the light is dominant and from above on one side of the face but with a lower power light on the opposite side so that its not just a dark shadow. this painting is called 'the oriental'
of course, for those interested in bible history, there is a lot at the met. lots of things from ancient persia, babylon and rome. here is just one example - from ancient babylon with a corresponding inscription (obviously my pic is of the translation, seeing as they didnt speak english back then). this really reflects the bibles description of this proud ruler, nebuchadnezzer
alright...enough of the met. ok, maybe just one last picture...on the roof there was a really interesting bamboo structure as an exhibition...no, suzie wasnt part of the exhibition.
ok, thats the last one from the met. our next stop - times square. wow, what a sensory overload. and then, as if that wasnt enough, we went to a brilliant broadway show. i am not too enamoured by the idea of broadway, (i'd prefer car chase scene type of movie, yes i am shallow like that) but this was totally awesome with amazing music - a mix of latino and hip hop and i would recommend it to anyone over a movie any day (its was called 'in the heights' if you want to go). thank you sandy and wanda for expanding my horizons.
and of course at night everything is colorful and pretty...we had supper at dallas bbq - with about 20 people who had visited kenya! we had a great time and it was nice to see some of our old friends again.
(for any canadians reading this, yes there is a tim hortons in new york!) actually more than one because there was one in penn station as well.
so to wind up. just a couple more pics of the brooklyn bridge. one was from the 90 sands building - what an awesome view.
and heres another one from pier 17. this time its a panorama (click to see a big pic - i havent figured out yet how to get them to display across the page with blogger).
we sure enjoyed our time in the big apple, and this is one place i would still visit again, so maybe one day we will have a follow up to this blog!
*i showed these pics to some of my wifes friends and afterwards she told them, 'don't worry, i'll go through and select the truly interesting pictures and show them to you later'
