Blogging from NYC, Day 5

The last day.  The day to end all days.  The day built in to the trip so that we could do anything we wanted to do.  We started off by walking three blocks to Central Park.  We saw a guy doing yoga, and we got a sweet guy to take a picture of all of us.  Then we decided to hop a bus to go to the bottom of the park so that we could see Strawberry Fields. We walked quietly through the Strawberry Fields, took some photos and continued to the southeast corner of the park where New York suddenly became magical.  The Friends fountain, the Plaza Hotel, Tiffany, and everything else that makes New York famous. 

We headed down to South Street Seaport again to try to get show tickets.  The line was down the street so I got in line and sent everyone else to get drinks in the shade.  I stood behind a couple from Florida and they gave me the scoop on all the shows.  They had already seen Once and were in line for tickets to ClybournePark.  This was their third trip to New York in the past year to see shows.  I made it fairly close to the front of the line and alerted the girls that they needed to come make a decision about what show they wanted to see.  But the allure of the show had faded and the group decided to skip it.  We went to Red for lunch, but two other girls went with me to Brooklyn to meet with RobNadeau.  Rob is a friend of Jay’s from high school, and Jay had just seen him in January.  I wanted to meet him and see his studio, and a couple of the girls wanted to go too to check out the life on an artist.

It was a wonderful decision.  Rob was fascinating to all of us, and gave so generously of his time to talk to us about his life and work.  All of us had been so amazed by the cost of living in New York, and had been having casual conversations with people all week about how they live in he city given the expense.  Rob gave us yet another glimpse into city life, and gave us so many insights about living simply and being true to one’s calling.

Those who hadn’t gone to Rob’s house went shopping, and we met some of them at the Museum of Modern Art for Free Friday.  I never made it off the fifth floor.  I was a little surprised at the number of people who were taking photos of the paintings.  They didn’t stop to read or really look.  They just shot by and took photos.  It was a little strange. But the museum as a whole was beautiful and I’m so glad we went.

After MOMA we all went to Dylan’s Candy Bar, and I’m pretty sure everyone bought at least one thing.  I bought plush pillows for my children, and then we went down to Serendipity 3 for dinner and frozen hot chocolate.  Unfortunately, at 9:00 o’clock, the wait for dinner was still 2 ½ hours.  So we backtracked to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner and a debrief of the week.  Each of shared what we learned about God this week and what we learned about ourselves. Then we moseyed back to the hostel to pack up and go to bed.