Impressions of New York

I recently traveled to New York City for the first time about a month ago, as you may have noticed from my King Tut blog. With the Yankees in the playoffs yet again (hey, I'm a Cardinals fan, but we fell out awhile back), I figured it was high time to update this page with my trip and impressions.

Abrah and I arrived in the city mid-day Saturday after a direct flight from LAX. She had not been feeling well due to the plane, but I was ready to get out and explore the moment we had landed. It's important to note now that Abrah has been to the city several times almost every year since she was born due whereas this was my first trip. Throughout the next week, she would start to feel better and do her own things, but most of my time was spent meandering without any real purpose or direction through the city. Anyway, we took a short taxi trip from JFK to her friend's apartment that would remain our basecamp for the next few days.

The ride was interesting, to say the least. It's hard to describe someone's first thoughts of Manhattan. It looks essentially what you would expect from countless movies and television shows. The skyline is nothing but skyscraper after skyscraper. What makes it unique, however, is the feel of the city, and emotion that is rather difficult to put into words. As we came out of the tunnel and into the city itself, I was immediately hit with a sense of scale from both sides. I began to realize that, while you are surrounded by these massive buildings, you are still on a limited island. It's one thing to read that, yes, Manhattan Island is only 8-miles long or whatever, but to actually be in the middle of it for the first time is what really puts that scale into perspective. I would be taking advantage of this on my walks later on through the week.

We arrived without problems to our host's apartment and, after getting settled in, the three of us set to work on a theme that would quickly become my favorite throughout our vacation: food. While the girls weren't terribly hungry, I was starving and, for whatever reason, I was craving an authentic NYC meatball sub. I have no idea why this came into my mind, but I had decided I wanted to just walk into some small hole-in-the-wall place and get a sub. So, that's just what we did. I can't remember the name of it (I think it was PJ's Pizza, on 52nd and 10th), but it was, hands-down, one of the best meatball subs I had ever had. It really set the tone for our culinary experience the rest of the trip. And of course, this was only topped by the rooftop view we had from our basecamp:



It was a perfect way to start our journey.

The next day, we each set out for our own separate trips. Abrah still was not feeling well, so I got an early start on walking around. I certainly looked and acted like a stupid tourist, but getting out into a new city is always a rush. I had no idea where I was, but thankfully NYC is set up in such a way that it's hard to get lost. Labor Day weekend was approaching, so the city was still fairly crowded (although I guess it's always crowded) in the touristy areas. I managed to run right into a huge street festival on Broadway, which was a massive timesaver with no traffic to worry about. It was here that I managed to get my legs for the city and approach the idea of jaywalking. In Burbank, that will almost always net a ticket, but in this massive city, it was everyday life. I had no fear here, and was able to get around with my camera to feel out the city easily enough.

Eventually, I made my way into Central Park. It was certainly massive, although I'm not sure if it's exactly what I had always thought. To be honest, after growing up in Missouri my whole life, a park is a park until it gets funded on a national level in my eyes, and CP was not much of an exception. It was certainly fun, and large, but not what I had imagined after seeing it in so many areas. The shade was a relief, to be sure, and I did enjoy watching a couple softball games with the city towers as a backdrop. Perhaps I need to take that "movie tour" that is offered to get a better sense of place. Also, I got lost in the Ramble. Never again.

I eventually met back up with the girls near the street festival and, unknown to me, I had completely passed by Times Square without even noticing. If there was one place in the city that I felt was smaller than what I imaged, it was Times Square. We ate at the Sbarro's nearby (apparently much different than the others), and went off to do some shopping. The night was rather quiet, and we ordered delivery to watch the Emmy Awards in the evening after meeting up with yet another friend in the city.

We awoke early the next day for what would be one of the highlights of our vacation: attending the Late Show with David Letterman. Now, it's important to remember than both Abrah and I work in the industry for George Lopez and Ellen DeGeneres, respectively. We knew the process of a live-taping and were here mostly to see Dave and to see how they run their show. Well, I was there to see Dave anyway. It was a fantastic experience on the whole, and seeing a living legend up close was a dream come true. We were placed front row and both spent a good while figuring out how their audience coordinators handled their seating. Their staff was amazing, and we were happily informed that it was the start of his 17th Season. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested. just remember you have to answer a trivia question before the tickets are granted!

The rest of the trip was spent between museums and shows. I had made the Museum of Natural History one of my major stops, with the King Tut exhibit being a spur-of-the-moment event. You can read about the latter in the blog. The MoNH was really interesting, at the least, and I fell in love with the dinosaur exhibit. The girls mostly stayed behind to chat about girly things or to make fun of how much of a kid I was being. I had never seen many fossils in my time, but the T-Rex made the 8-year-old, Jurassic Park-lover in me delighted. I spent as much time on the upper floor as I could. The other floors were ok, but I have to admit to being a little let down overall. Most of the displays were dioramas, which isn't much after having grown up going to the St. Louis Zoo with real animals everywhere. I also felt there was a ton of emphasis on different tribal cultures, which isn't much of a natural exhibit at all, cool though they were. On the whole, I enjoyed it, but felt the King Tut exhibit was the better of the two museums on the trip.

We also managed to wrangle great seats to American Idiot. We caught up with one of our LA friends and coworker of Abrah's who happened to be in the city as well. Somehow, the girls managed to get front-row Mezz seats via Rush seating. I'm am an avid hater of stage theater after having lived it since the 6th grade (give me motion pictures or give me death), but I had to admit that i did not hate the show as much as I thought I would. They sounded like Green Day, which was the only real requirement I had, and I only disliked the portrayal of St. Jimmy out of the cast. It was the play I had imagined after first hearing the album, and I would consider one of the very (very) few musicals I would be able to tolerate again. After the show, we managed to go onto the stage thanks to some connections our friend had with the guitarist. He was a gentleman, and it was extremely cool to be on a major Broadway stage, if nothing else.

Overall, the trip was incredibly enjoyable and I know what others mean now about falling in love with the city. I felt like there simply was not enough time to see all that I wanted, but I guess it would take lifetimes for that anyway. The city is definitely one-of-a-kind, with its own culture, layout, sights, smells, etc. Just seeing a picture of the city now brings up a ton of different memories (mostly the smell, but you get the idea). I doubt I could ever live there and am happy with the city, but I certainly would not mind a job that sent me over to their coast on occasion. Most of all, regardless of any positive or negative opinions a person might have, New York City proved itself one thing of all others: unforgettable.

Meeting King Tut

In 1922, a group of British archaeologists were working diligently in the Valley of Kings near Luxor, Egypt. The valley had become a veritable goldmine of artifacts from the age of the pharoahs. Located near the ancient capital of Thebes (now Luxor), the site had been used for centuries as a burial ground for kings and other nobility from the legendary Egyptian Empire. Thinking the tombs of the past had been nearly expired, Howard Carter and his employer, Lord Carnarvon, were exploring. In those early days of treasure hunting, young locals were often hired to bring buckets of water from off-site to the expedition teams. Due to the nature of the sand and winds of the area, these buckets were often dug into the ground for stability once brought. One such local boy had brought in water to the team outside the tomb of Ramses VI, and as he positioned his bucket into the sand, he hit the hard edge of stone. The nearby Carter immediately focused a dig team at the site and so found the hidden tomb of King Tutankhamun, the Boy King. Covered for thousands of years underneath the larger tombs of the area, the tomb was nearly pristine and untouched, one of the most complete discoveries out of any of the tombs of the valley. The find has become one of the most famous stories in archaeological history, fascinating the world and creating one of the lasting legacies of Egypt. The pieces found with the body of Tut are some of the most well-traveled of any pieces of the ancient world.

In cooperation with the National Geographic Society, several of the items from within the tomb are touring yet again. Upon my first visit to New York City, I noticed banners in Times Square mentioning the current tour, "Tutankhamen and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs." I had previously been unaware of the exhibit and had been planning instead to visit some of the other staples of NYC museum touring. While the Met, Guggenheim, Whitney, and the others all sounded well and good, I simply could not pass up the opportunity to see not only another National Geographic Exhibition, but pieces from the Egyptian era that I had only hoped would exist somewhere in the city. So, while my girlfriend went to one of her frilly Broadway-musical-dance-show-things, I took the quick jaunt down to the Discovery Times Square Exposition and slapped down the $30 entrance fee. Going in, I knew very little about the exhibit other than "Egyptian stuff from King Tut and National Geographic." As our hosts gathered us into a small room for a 90-second introduction video, I had doubts in the back of my mind that this would be a small display that used additional audio guide and film entrance costs to cash in. However, as the short clip ended, the doors in front of us swung open to reveal dramatic lights beaming down on a granite bust of the pharoah himself. With booming music introducing us to the actual pieces, my doubts faded and I was able to enjoy an absolutely wonderful gallery with everything I had hoped for in an Egyptian display.

One important element to the exhibit that I found interesting is that it deals not only with King Tut but most of the rest of his family the comprised the 18th Dynasty. With over 130 artifacts available to view, it followed the family from at least Tut's great-grandfather Thutmosis IV to the Boy King himself. The first of the galleries dealt with the early dynasty and Egyptian life at the time, and each of the subsequent sections followed the family timeline through generations. While I did not keep an exact count, I would guess there were at least 15-20 rooms total, each of which had several items on display. The pieces chosen were genuinely interesting, and it was one of the few museums were I made a note to read the descriptions of everything available. Many of the other participants (and there were many on the day I went, especially for a Wednesday), were doing the same from what I had noticed. The descriptions were usually short and simple, but educational and in line with what I read in the cover article of the September 2010 issue of National Geographic dealing with recent DNA tests regarding King Tut's family history. Even the basic items like bowls or spoons had something insightful to offer about life of the era.

Of course, when talking about ancient Egypt, the first image that springs into most peoples' minds is gold. Indeed, Tut's death mask and sarcophagus have practically become the national symbols of the country. While the mask and coffin themselves are not allowed outside Egypt's borders (and thus not included in the exhibit), there was no lack of gold within the Exposition hallways. All of the item descriptions mentioned what the item was composed of, and well over half of them had "gold" somewhere in the makeup. Sometimes, it was only a gilded necklace on a tiny model. Other times, the pieces were huge, including the gilded death mask and golden coffin of Tut's great-grandmother Tjuyu. Extravagance abounded in every room in surprising detail. I was quite surprised at how well most of the pieces had been preserved after thousands of years of burial (Tjuyu's mask still had remnants of its original cloth wrappings). Looking through the glass cases, a person would be hard pressed to admit they had been created by a people long since gone.

I was slightly disappointed about the inability to take photos, understandable a policy though it was. I was also unaware that the mask and coffin of Tut were not on display, though it made sense once I realized it. They did, however, have one of the canopic coffins that contained Tut's internal organs for mummification, and it was essentially a miniature version of the main casks. Out of my entire NYC trip, the King Tut exhibit was among my favorites. Even the dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum have hard competition against such a comprehensive, complete, well-planned gallery. The website estimates nearly 3 million people will view the current tour. While the $30 entrance fee was somewhat pricier than the other museums in city, I highly recommend being one of those 3 million before these pieces before they head back to their home country. Their next stop should be Denver, CO.

Official Exhibition Website