Art and Bikes in NYC

Yesterday Mom and I went to New York City for a fun day that I had been looking forward to for awhile! I wanted to visit the Guggenheim Museum for a long time and we decided that we were going to go sometime this summer. My Mom kept saying how she wanted to ride bikes in Central Park...so we did both! 

We took the train from Brewster to Grand Central and arrived at the Guggenheim around 1. It was so cool from the outside! Frank Lloyd Wright was the designer of the building (which I have studied in the past). 

Outside of the Guggenheim 

The inside was so cool looking too! There were (I think) 7 atrium's with different pieces of art. Outside each level were visiting collections. We saw lots of work from famous artists including: Alexander Calder, Pablo Piscasso (one of my favorites), Paul Gauguin,  Paul Cézanne, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre Auguste Renoir, and Vincent van Gogh. It amazes me how some of the art was considered art. A canvas painted in solid blue? But I'm no artist! We had earphones with a guided tour (included with admission), which was helpful in learning something new!  

One of the visiting exhibition's was Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective. It was a collection of photographs and videos. I thought they were all very interesting. She took photos of people all over the world and all ages. Some of them were the same people throughout the years and those were quite interesting. There were about 10 pictures of man showing how his looks evolved since serving the military. 

Inside. The mobile hanging is by Alexander Calder called Red Lilly Pads. I studied that one in art class and it was neat to see it in person! 

The one on the right is by Jackson Pollock 

Yellow Cow by Franz Marc 

Me outside the museum

After spending a couple of hours in the museum we left for our next adventure! By the way...we weren't supposed to take pictures of the artwork so shhh, don't tell anyone ;)

Next Stop: CENTRAL PARK! 

We walked about 30 blocks from the museum to the shop where we picked up our bikes. Little did we know, the shop was a few blocks outside of Central Park. How did we get our bikes to the park you ask? Acted like real New Yorkers and rode the bikes on the crazy streets! We just went for it, but quite dangerous if you ask me. We made it to the quieter streets of Central Park where there are few cars and actual bike paths. We rode the ENTIRE park which is a 6 mile loop and did it twice! It was a beautiful day outside- sunny and low humidity! 

Hey Mom!

Taking a quick pit stop for a drink

I've been to Central Park several times, but I've never seen the entirety because it is so huge! Usually I visit the south end of the park and don't make it all the way to the top. Here are some places we saw along the way...

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. It was beautiful and had a really nice running/walking path around it. 

Lasker Pool. This was a shot taken while zooming down a hill. This pool was huge! I just found out that it becomes an ice skating rink in the winter time. COOL! Anybody want to go ice skating this winter?

I saw a Kentuckian wearing no shoes riding a bike...wonder who that was?! Any ideas? 

The Great Lawn

I saw lots of other places including ball parks, the Loeb Boathouse, and  the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Next up: DINNER! 

So we were planning to eat at Serendipity 3 because we heard it has the best ice cream and is also famous in NYC. Unfortunately, when we arrived the host told us it would be an 1 1/2-2 hour wait. Boo, so we had to find somewhere else to eat. 

We spotted an Irish Pub walking around and checked it out. Once we stepped inside we discovered that it was called Pig 'n' Whistle, how cool is that! 

It was a looong fun-filled day, drinks to end the day!

Considering the name of the restaurant, some of the workers were wearing pig shirts that said "Pig on 3rd" (street it was located on). We asked ourselves, hmmm I wonder if they sell those shirts. The waiter said they do and yes of course I just had to get one! I personally thought it was really cute and I'm ready to wear it! 

After dinner we headed back to Grand Central for a train ride back home. It was a GREAT day with Mom in NYC! 


On another note, I started using a photo editing program so I used that on some of the photos, that's why some may not look "normal." Do the pictures look ok?