Metropolitan Museum of Art

My daughter and I decided we would be New York tourists and stay in Manhattan rather than at the house in Brooklyn during our girl's getaway. After perusing Trip Advisor, looking at what hotels go for, and its close proximity to Penn Station, we chose to stay at the LaQuinta on 32nd Street, aka Korean Way, so named for the Korean restaurants that line that particular block. If you like Korean food you will be in heaven, if you don't, like us (bad experience at a local Roanoke Korean restaurant) you'll probably wind up at the Japanese joint like we did. Great move on our part.

Unless you can afford one of the luxury rooms in an exclusive hotel, this hotel is what you would expect for Manhattan...small, yet functional. This was the view outside our window.



If we strained our heads towards the right and looked up we could see the tippy top of the Empire State Building.



Seeing as we hardly spent any time in the room, the hotel suited us just fine. The girl and I loved the Temperpedic bed. We both have bone issues and we found the mattress quite soothing. I've got to look into how much they cost because we both want one. The best part of the hotel is that we felt safe. This was our first trip alone in the Big City and we couldn't have picked a better location. The street was always bustling, but not with riff-raff. There was even a film crew from some show called White Collar taping in front of the hotel a couple of days.

On our first evening in town we went out to dinner with a good friend of mine. Seeing as you can't just buy a bottle of wine at the local supermarket like we can in Roanoke, she brought a bottle to the room. After we polished that off we headed to Patsy's for a nice Italian meal. Another bottle down. We then headed over to Eataly, a huge marketplace with restaurants that has gotten rave reviews. Not from me. I thought it was over-priced and under-tasted. The desserts looked amazing but tasted like the ones found at Fresh Market. The gelato was subpar and the price of cheeses were twice what they should be. Most people shop while drinking wine, as we did, which I think they promote on purpose so as you'll be drunk and not realize you're getting ripped off.

Needless to say I totally over-indulged our first night in town. Not too smart. It was tough getting up early and brutal walking around town the rest of the day. My cousin was our Docent for the weekend...



His precious Museum membership card got us into the Metropolitan Museum of Art for free.



Here's a fraction of what we saw...



















We loved it, and even spending four hours there wasn't enough to see it all. Outside the museum were typical New Yorkers spreading their talents...





One of my favorite works of art...the New York City hot dog cart...



Next up...MOMA.