A Boyhood Dream Fulfilled: Space-Geek Tour of the USA

[Human]

I just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying your trip report—looks like you're having an amazing time!

We're planning a similar trip to NYC and Washington this April, and your experience is giving us fantastic inspiration. We've been to the US a couple of times before, but never ventured to the east coast.

Out of curiosity, how are you finding the cost of everything compared to our major cities back home? I’ve heard it’s become shockingly expensive compared to just a few years ago. Would love to hear your thoughts!

Thank you so much for your very kind words. I've really enjoyed putting this TR together!

To answer your question: yes, the USA is expensive at the moment; I actually do think that "shockingly expensive" is about right. Expect everything to cost what you'd expect to pay in Australia, or more, but in US$. So for example: the medium-sized flat white that I bought from Starbucks in Houston cost US$6.95 plus tax which was pretty close to 10% from memory. That is, it was close enough to US$8 for a coffee, which in Australian dollars is A$12!

Another example: the coughtail menu from The Back Room last night. Those prices are about the same as what you'd expect to pay for a coughtail in Australia (in A$)... but then you add 9% state tax, and then you add a 20% tip which is pretty standard here, then you convert US$ to A$... do the sums and you'll get my drift.

So save your pennies before you come here -- the good news is that it's so worth it!

 

[Coathanger]

Really enjoying the NYC segment of the report too. The Le Brun’s are beautiful.

The Met is a fantastic museum, I’ve been lucky to visit on multiple trips but feel I’m still just scratching the surface. Not many museums have a Frank Lloyd Wright room and an Egyptian temple.

Given the multiplier for a membership is usually around x3, it’s worth buying one for the larger museums if you’re in a city for a week. I did that for the Met in 2023 and the Orsay/Orangerie last year, and enjoyed the flexibility of popping in for a couple of hours every day or so.

 

[RB001]

Given the multiplier for a membership is usually around x3, it’s worth buying one for the larger museums if you’re in a city for a week. I did that for the Met in 2023 and the Orsay/Orangerie last year, and enjoyed the flexibility of popping in for a couple of hours every day or so.

Not to forget discounts in the shop and dining!

 

[VPS]

I love NYC and The Met is absolutely amazing. I have been a few times and could keep going back again and again.

I honestly don't know how you can keep up the pace and the TR.

I'm very annoyed I didn't know about the toy store - I stayed about a 5 minute walk from there when I was in NYC last so putting it on my list for the next visit.

 

[RooFlyer]

Pretty famous piece of art, this:

Ha That and a couple other pieces you’ve illustrated in that post are exactly the same ones that I chose for my own trip report on a visit to the Met a few years ago.

Another one greatly enjoying this trip report. Just the right balance of illustration, commentary and personal experience.

 

[Coathanger]

Not to forget discounts in the shop and dining!

Speaking of which, The Met Dining Room is a great spot for a more leisurely lunch with views of Central Park and Cleopatra’s Needle.

 

[Human]

The Le Brun’s are beautiful.

Ah, now, see, you shouldn’t have said that. Because now you’ve got me started.

This is the first Vigee Le Brun painting I ever saw, in 2002, and I was immediately entranced. It’s a self-portrait of the artist with her daughter.



At the time, I was the father of very young daughters, and this painting didn’t so much pull my heart-strings, as yank at them with all the force of a rugby team playing tug ‘o war.

I have seen nothing in the decades since that so perfectly, so beautifully, and so powerfully captures the affection between mother and daughter – between parent and child. I just love the way that Vigee Le Brun’s paintings are, in their own way, so uplifting, so life-affirming. They expose the subjects' vulnerability in the best way possible.

In early 2022, just after COVID, I found myself in Paris once again, visiting family. I went to the Louvre and the painting had been moved into the same room as the Mona Lisa. It was amusing that in the middle of the room were hundreds of people queuing to take a selfie with the Mona Lisa, and there I was, to the side, on my own, with all the time in the world to spend with what I considered to be the real star of that gallery.

I hope the Mods are ok with this post even though it’s somewhat off-topic!

 

[VPS]

Ah, now, see, you shouldn’t have said that. Because now you’ve got me started.

This is the first Vigee Le Brun painting I ever saw, in 2002, and I was immediately entranced. It’s a self-portrait of the artist with her daughter.

View attachment 426629

At the time, I was the father of very young daughters, and this painting didn’t so much pull my heart-strings, as yank at them with all the force of a rugby team playing tug ‘o war.

I have seen nothing in the decades since that so perfectly, so beautifully, and so powerfully captures the affection between mother and daughter – between parent and child. I just love the way that Vigee Le Brun’s paintings are, in their own way, so uplifting, so life-affirming. They expose the subjects' vulnerability in the best way possible.

In early 2022, just after COVID, I found myself in Paris once again, visiting family. I went to the Louvre and the painting had been moved into the same room as the Mona Lisa. It was amusing that in the middle of the room were hundreds of people queuing to take a selfie with the Mona Lisa, and there I was, to the side, on my own, with all the time in the world to spend with what I considered to be the real star of that gallery.

I hope the Mods are ok with this post even though it’s somewhat off-topic!

It is your TR - you can write what you like as long as it's not political or foul language

 

[Human]

It is your TR - you can write what you like as long as it's not political or foul language

Thanks — I’ll try not to let it go to my head!

 

[drron]

Ah, now, see, you shouldn’t have said that. Because now you’ve got me started.

This is the first Vigee Le Brun painting I ever saw, in 2002, and I was immediately entranced. It’s a self-portrait of the artist with her daughter.

View attachment 426629

At the time, I was the father of very young daughters, and this painting didn’t so much pull my heart-strings, as yank at them with all the force of a rugby team playing tug ‘o war.

I have seen nothing in the decades since that so perfectly, so beautifully, and so powerfully captures the affection between mother and daughter – between parent and child. I just love the way that Vigee Le Brun’s paintings are, in their own way, so uplifting, so life-affirming. They expose the subjects' vulnerability in the best way possible.

In early 2022, just after COVID, I found myself in Paris once again, visiting family. I went to the Louvre and the painting had been moved into the same room as the Mona Lisa. It was amusing that in the middle of the room were hundreds of people queuing to take a selfie with the Mona Lisa, and there I was, to the side, on my own, with all the time in the world to spend with what I considered to be the real star of that gallery.

I hope the Mods are ok with this post even though it’s somewhat off-topic!

Indeed it is your TR and this post is not off topic.
It provides an insight of you as a human and why things can be so uplifting and amazing for you.

 

[I love to travel]

Thanks for the tip regarding the Met tours. I assume you had to pay to get into the Met though

 

[RB001]

Thanks for the tip regarding the Met tours. I assume you had to pay to get into the Met though

$30 for adults, $22 for seniors, $17 for students and free for under 12.
You can visit the Met Cloisters facility on the same day with the same ticket.

 

[VPS]

$30 for adults, $22 for seniors, $17 for students and free for under 12.
You can visit the Met Cloisters facility on the same day with the same ticket.

And the Met cloisters it amazing as well but it would be a sensory overload to do them both in one day and you wouldn’t do either of them justice

 

[RB001]

And the Met cloisters it amazing as well but it would be a sensory overload to do them both in one day and you wouldn’t do either of them justice

Agreed - estimate by @Coathanger upthread of a 3x multiplier is spot on here - $90 for the Global membership - perfect if in town for a week or more.

 

[Human]

I had always wanted to see a second Broadway show, and two that I particularly wanted to see both had tickets available last night: Gypsy, and Sunset Blvd. I wanted to see Gypsy for the great music and it’s star, Audra McDonald, and Sunset Blvd because of its great reviews and its intriguing minimalist, avant-garde production. Whichever one I chose, I would have regretted not seeing the other. In the end, tickets to Sunset Blvd were cheaper and the seats were in a better location in terms of the stage, so I went with Sunset Blvd. Yes, I regret not being able to see Gypsy. But I absolutely don’t regret seeing Sunset Blvd.






The performers were outstanding – stunning. Again, there was nothing even approaching a weak link among them. And as for the production itself, well, I don’t want to give anything away but the first five minutes after intermission were worth the admission price alone: it was a triumph of … I don’t know how to describe it, really … a triumph of staging? Of choreography? Of performance? Of direction? Of the cast holding their nerve? Probably all of the above.

Almost the entire performance was in black & white: apart from a couple of very brief, climactic moments, the only non black & white features of the stage and the costuming were the skin tones of the performers.

As for the music … well, it’s not Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s best score but I did find myself humming and singing the tunes all night afterwards and the next morning as well. That’s a pretty good indication of the quality of the music.

After the performance, my head and my body were telling me to take the subway straight back to my hotel. My heart was telling me to walk, and to experience Times Square one last time. For better or worse, I went with my heart. I walked north to the end of Times Square, stopping for an iconic NYC late dinner along the way which tasted considerably better than the photo may imply...



Then I headed south to my hotel, turning and taking some final photos of Times Square at night as I walked.




I went to bed with exactly 24 hours remaining in NYC.

 

[Human]

… and woke up, once again, in pain – I should have listened to my head and my body last night! My hip pain, which went away as the day progressed yesterday, has come back with a vengeance. And as I write this (11am) it hasn’t gone away.

So my time in NYC is ending anticlimactically, with packing and giving my body a rest in my hotel room. I was planning to cross Brookyn Bridge and/or go to Central Park and/or take the Roosevelt Island Tramway today. But I’d rather take it easy, pace myself, and hopefully not be in too much pain during the long, long trip home. I really have nothing – absolutely nothing – to complain about. I’ve been pushing my body hard!

Late last year I decided to finally upgrade to Hilton Honors Diamond status: a one-off benefit of being Velocity Platinum which I’d never used. I did so on the off-chance that it might come in handy during this trip, and it has: they’re giving me a 2pm check-out. My flight leaves at 12:45am, so that will still give me some time to kill. But it’s better than nothing.

 

[Human]

Well that certainly escalated quickly! Or should I say, “deteriorated”?

By 3pm it was clear that the pain in my hip wasn’t going anywhere. By 4pm, with just under 9 hours remaining until my first flight home, I was finding it very difficult to walk and could only do so with extreme pain. I was also beginning to feel quite distressed that I would not be able to enjoy my flights home. So with 8 hours until the flight, I called my travel insurance medical hotline. Two medical histories and three holds later, I was advised that there was a medical centre about a block away from here, and that I should visit it. I was seeing a doctor within 30 minutes after that.


He took my history, and poked and prodded, and carefully noted which pokes and prods resulted in screams of agony. He then diagnosed me with “trochanteric tendonitis of the left hip”. Knowing that I was a few hours away from (spoiler alert) 28 hours of flying, he took the bull by the horns and gave me a steroi_ injection. He also prescribed a much stronger painkiller than the ibuprofen and paracetamol which I’d been taking, and an oral steroi_ as well.

The pharmac_ was even closer to my hotel than the medical centre, and I’m now back at the hotel (they’ve let me sit in the dining room since I checked out), feeling the effects of the steroi_ injection and the oral painkiller – feeling human again.





It’s all part of the adventure!

 

[Quickstatus]

By 4pm, with just under 9 hours remaining until my first flight home, I was finding it very difficult to walk and could only do so with extreme pain

I was going to propose another cure:
100% cure rate

Edit: I think you should still get the wheelchair treatment - allows preboarding.....
You ARE still in pain......

 

[Human]

Time for some reflections on my time in NYC (though actually this post should be titled “Reflections on my time in Manhattan”, given that apart from 5 minutes on Staten Island and the trip to JFK, that’s where I’ve been). And I’m putting the medical episode to one side: I’m so grateful that it’s happened late in the trip.

• When I wrote my post after I left Washington DC, I stated that I’d run out of adjectives to describe this trip. Well, I have a new adjective to summarise my time in NYC: Fun. Whether it’s the shows, the food, the sights and sounds – I had a huge amount of fun here. Some of that fun was “high-brow” (eg. my time at the Met), and some – a lot! – was more low-brow (hot dog and pizza, anyone?), with most in the middle (Broadway shows and speakeasys). Some has been impossible to categorise (Ellen’s Stardust Diner). But fun has been the common denominator.
• NYC, obviously, deserves multiple visits – as does the USA in general. I’ve had three nights and two-and-a-bit days here (not counting my day as an invalid!); that’s clearly nowhere near enough but I’m more than happy with what I have experienced.
• I can’t begin to imagine how stressful it would have been here if I’d had to navigate the subway the old-fashioned way, using printed maps. Many times, I’ve been grateful for the wonders of modern technology, namely the Maps app on my phone, which tells me where to get on, where to get off, and which subway station exit to use. (In a similar vein, I’m grateful for modern phone cameras that do an almost unbelievably good job of taking photos in low light. Over the course of this trip I’ve taken probably hundreds of photos where the photos came out clearer than in real life).
• I’m so grateful that I finished my space-geek tour with an art/food/culture/music-geek visit to NYC. This place is definitely worth visiting!

Now it’s time to come home. Fear not: I do have some indulgences planned for the long and very roundabout return trip…!

 

[Quickstatus]

Time for some reflections

Did you do any shopping? AUD/USD under the thumb....