The 2004 Winter Break

Vacation: a Time to unwind
Move away from the day to day grind
Being Peaceful and being sane
Only to face the routine again
- Saurabh


NJ - The Garden State :
Most of my time in NJ was spent home. I woke up ate great food slept ate again slept more!!!
Bhel, Pav bhaji, Pasta, Kalwan ……. you name it!!!!

Aahhhhh GREAT days!!! Pure joy!

The weather was chilly especially for a Texan like me! But here in NJ they were well prepared with the salt and the clearing of the roads when it snowed!

Coming back to food I noticed that the Shop-Rite has so many more options than the HEB in Austin. Also One good thing was the number of MOM and POP stores; I had great Bagels, Muffins, Cakes, Bread & Fish and chicken from such stores.


My Nephew Art:
That little Devil!! Only Three years old but full of mischief and fun!! So energetic!
He made the break very very enjoyable!
He wanted to do something continuously! If he had his way he would stay awake for 24 hours! And that brings me to the topic of making a child sleep. I had the privilege of making Art sleep a couple of times and it was fun!

I found that he was continuously fighting to keep off sleep at night; you have to conjure some story, tone your voice turn off the lights to make him sleep. Hats off to his parents!!! And all the parents in the world who do it on a day to day basis!!


New York City
Ahh New York.......New York City
The most striking feature of New York is that it just embraces you like no other city.
You feel like you are part of the city not a tourist.

We were a gang of Pradhans, my Uncle (Pramod kaka), Aunt (Nayna kaki) and Cousin (Pushkar) taking on NYC !

The first Day: we went to Times Square, Ed Sullivan theater (the place where The Late Show with David Letterman is taped), Rockefeller Center also where NBC studios are (Conan O Brien et al.) and yes a Christmas tree which people all around the USA come to see for some unknown reason !!! There’s nothing really special about it, I guess it is the hype around it that makes people flock to the place, and what do people do when they get there? They just stare at it!! Yup! Just look at it as if it's going to do a back flip any moment!

We also saw the Empire State Building (There was a huge line to get to the top floor!) so we skipped the idea of going in! Radio City hall, CNN, Reuters, Madison Square Garden, Macy’s, Saks on 5th Avenue, Trump Towers, Central Park ….. phew !! I could go on and on.

The next Day we went to see the statue of Liberty! Honestly it wasn’t as tall as I imagined it to be but it was good! Thankfully it was a bright sunny day so the view of the famous Manhattan was amazing.

Then we went to Wall street the legendary New York Stock Exchange! The Bull! And then..... Only a few blocks away “Ground Zero” The site of World Trade Center Twin Towers
All those images I had seen on TV of the planes crashing in the twin towers, then the towers falling and now to be near that very site was a different feeling. There was an eerie silence at the place! People silently observing! Some say that the magnitude of the disaster doesn’t hit you unless you had seen the buildings standing! I can only imagine!

We strolled around Times Square for some more time and then came back home. Then a few days later I went to the Metropolitan Museum (another post dedicated)

Overall this Winter break was one to remember!

see http://photos.yahoo.com/~sautya82
There are different folders

Saurabh

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

(This is the first post in the series of posts based on my winter break in New Jersey)

There’s only one word to describe the Metropolitan Museum "AMAZING"

Founded in 1870, the Metropolitan Museum is located in New York City's Central Park along Fifth Avenue (from 80th to 84th Streets). Last year it was visited by more than 5 million people spanning over 2 million square feet. It houses more than 2 million permanent displays as late as 300,000–75,000 B.C. It is such a prestigious institution that there’s a very long waiting list for being a volunteer (someone ready to work free of charge !!!!!)

The most heinous crime that one can make when going to the MET is not planning what to see within the museum !
Thanks to Sonali (my sister-in-law) we did not make that mistake, she planned out the day and we decided to focus on European Paintings, Egyptian exhibits ,Museum of Modern Art, European sculptures anything above that would be bonus.

After starting at 10:00am and stopping out at 5:30 a total time of over 7 hours! And let me tell you I am sure one will need atleast 3 full days to see all the permanent exhibits let alone the visiting exhibits.

I am going try to keep in short as I can just go on and on about the museum.

Now to the exhibits, Starting with the paintings it is just a great feeling to see original creations of the likes of Monet, Manet, Cézanne, Vermeer, Renoir and van Gogh amongst other elite artists. There it is ! The best work on planet by some of the best artists , masterpieces right in front of your eyes. WOW !!!

One painting I should mention was Still Life with Flowers and Fruit, 1866 theéodore Latour It was so real life that the objects and knife seem so very real !!!

This section also had short descriptions with each painting, it was very informative and crisp !

This kind of information was lacking in the modern art section and hear this there were a couple of paintings which absolutely nothing on it !!!!!! No even a dot just painted of one color !

Now what's great about that ??
Seriously I just don't get it !
But most other exhibits in the modern art section were very nice even though I am not sure I understood the theme and / or the title in most cases !!!!

In this section exhibits were not just paintings but sometimes series of pictures and objects.

Then there was the Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court, it was awesome, the most striking one according to me was Ugolino and his Sons by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux .(thanks to Mandar for noting the name down) It's about a tailor who was banished to an island with his sons and they were forced to starvation. At this point the tailors sons offered themselves as food !!!!!
The anguish on the face of the father and the different expressions of the sons well depicted and you can't help but keep looking at the sculpture for a long time just trying to figure out the nuances.

The Greek and Roman section was also good.

Now the Egyptian section:
WOW ! This was a huge section ! The exhibits included small items of use to an entire tomb ! and a BIG TEMPLE !!!!!!!! The Temple of Dendur, ca. 15 B.C.E.

They have actually transported and recreated entire buildings in the museum !!!!
words cant be enough to describe this section. There are statues, caskets and a lot of stuff giving a picture of ancient Egypt ! Its a peek at Egypt.

Touching a sarcophagus or walking through the Temple of Dendur makes a chill run down your spine. It’s like for a moment you are touching something so old with so much history.
That inanimate object has seen so many years of time, so much history associated with it!
It’s a whole different feeling.

A note about the Asian section
It was dominated by art associated with Buddha. There were some Ganpati's but one great exhibit was a very intricately carved roof of a Rajasthan temple!
We also had a quick tour through the Chinese and Japanese section, the musical instruments section and the arms section.

The day was concluded with a great dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant on 46th Street !

Summing up I would say the museum is a MUST SEE!!! and I must thank Mandar and Sonali for making sure that was realized.

it helps if you are a student you get the ticket for less than half of the normal admission cost.

You can also see the following website for all of the photos
http://photos.yahoo.com/~sautya82

I have compiled a small selection of exhibits on the MET website please go to
http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/gallery.asp

Key in
username: spp59
password: saurabh

For each exhibit please don’t click on "remove" but do click on any exhibit if you want some more information on it.

The metropolitan Museum :
A glimpse of history it offers is stimulation for the mind.
The passage of time depicted makes one ponder over the expanse of the universe of art and the life people once lived.

And one last thing worth mentioning the pleasure of seeing a museum with "ART" himself (my dear little nephew Art).

Comments ?

Saurabh

(My next post will be based on my stay in NJ and visits to New York )