THe Intrepid and the Museum of Sex

In case you couldn't tell by the title, today I went to the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum and the Museum of Sex. As with the other museums, I'll do a separate post with all of the photos from each.

The Intrepid so far is my favorite museum I've been to on this trip, if not my favorite museum of all time. It's a retired aircraft carrier that originally served in WWII, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War, and was part of the NASA space craft recovery program. The ship has a beautiful history, and the museum staff do her and her past crew great honor with the program they've created.

You can tour almost the entire ship, which as been preserved to almost the exact condition that it served in. Glass panels are the only thing that separate you from the crew's quarters, the galley, and the satellite equipment. The flight deck is covered in restored war planes, and there is a covered space pavilion that houses the Enterprise space shuttle. You can also tour a submarine and ride on several different flight simulators. There is a heavy focus on education, as well as honoring our veterans, which kept it from feeling too touristy or gimmicky.

The day that I went honored the Fire Department of NY, so they had some special extra exhibits going on featuring and honoring firefighters. They had all of the different emergency response vehicles, CPR training, and best of all, an all-firefighter battle of the bands.

I stopped for lunch/dinner at an amazing mac and cheese place called S'Mac. Literally all they serve is mac and cheese, albeit some daring and gourmet varieties. They also have a decent beer selection, although I opted for their draft root beer instead. There were simply too many good options, so I tried their sampler platter, which comes with a small scoop of 8 different kinds of mac and cheese. I couldn't even eat half of it, so I boxed up the rest and took it home with me.

I also happen to spy the Empire State building on my walk about.

I ended my day at the Museum of Sex. I was sort of sent here on a mission by a good friend of mine to track down a limited edition lipstick, but the museum was very well done. It was comically small after visiting the MET and the AMNH (it's only 2 floors, and more of a art gallery), but it was worth the price of admission. It's definitely not for prudes - lots of penises and vaginas and porn everywhere, albeit tastefully done.

I was successful in my hunt for lipstick, and I took home a delightfully useful but inappropriate souvenir for myself.

(It's a mug, you bunch of pervs! A mug that says "Sex makes me thirsty", but just a mug)

All in all, a very fun weekend. Back to the grindstone tomorrow!

Another sandal bites the dust...

I had originally planned on going into NYC today after work, but some severe thunderstorms put a damper on that plan.

Instead, I decided to check out Greenwich Avenue, which is supposed to be a very posh shopping district in Greenwich CT.

I unfortunately was not very impressed.

First of all, upon stepping out of my car, I broke a strap on my sandal. This means I am now down two pairs on this trip! This also made it very difficult walking around the avenue, which is situated on a long hill, until I bought a shoestring at the local CVS and jerry-rigged a strappy solution.

Second of all, it was their annual sidewalk sale, which made it very difficult to walk around. The sidewalk is already not very wide, and the little tents they had set up made me feel a bit claustrophobic. The prices of the few things I stopped to look at were not very good either.

It's also a very pricey district. Part of this is just my problem - I'm on a college girl budget, and I've inherited my mother's thrifty-ness. I'm just never going to be one to spend $500 on a purse. But there were some flagship stores that I've seen before (Lucky Brand, Ralph Lauren, etc), and there was a definite markup.

Everything closed down very early too - most stores were completely shut down by 6 pm on a Friday night. This doesn't exactly make it easy to do some real shopping when you get out of work at 5, but I guess a lot of the women who shop here don't really work a traditional 9-5 job.

I will say it was a very pretty area, and once I got my shoe fixed, it was fun walking around. I spied some fun yarn-bombing on a local statue.

Annnnd there were some really good looking guys walking around with cute dogs. So, I might try coming back here when I have a little more time and there's not as much sidewalk chaos.

Best Worst Fabric ever!!!

Did a little shopping today, and found the most hideously amazing fabric ever.

I'm just trying to imagine the thought process that goes into not only making this, but actually buying it.

"Uh, yes, I would like some cheap cotton with badly drawn half-naked teen werewolves. Bonus points if they have really obvious pawprint tattoos. And throw in some bats for good measure. Wha-Why? I'm making curtains*."

*This is what my friend L always says she's making when fabric sellers ask her about her project.

Tuesday 2.0

This post was taken from my Ireland Travel blog: britandsadiegotoireland.tumblr.com

Hooooo boy…today was a fun busy day!

So, after getting all ready this morning, we bussed back into the city center. After grabbing a pastry for breakfast, we hopped on the tour bus and were on our way.

Our first stop was the National Gallery. LOTS of paintings. Unfortunately, the keynote piece, Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ, was on loan to Rome, and we couldn’t justify flying out to Rome (well, we tried…who needs spring semester anyway?). At any rate, it had a lot of neat art and a few statues, a great Irish art section, and lots of very old depictions of Christ.

The second stop was Trinity College. Sadie and Brittney are now enrolled. Okay, maybe not, but we wish! The college is absolutely beautiful! We walked around for a good while, and then went to go see the Book of Kells. We almost didn’t go, since there was a hefty entrance fee, but after learning it also included the library tour, we gave it a go. BEST DECISION OF THE DAY. The book of Kells was neat, and the tour had a lot of old books and some grave markers (that you could touch!), but the best part was the Long Hall library. It gave us chills. It was absolutely gorgeous, and neither of us wanted to leave.

Stop three was Nassau St and Grafton St. Nassau St is kind of like the Irish artists’ lane…lots of fun little shops, which everything Irish. Grafton St is your very posh, upclass shopping. We went into a store called Brown and something, and omigosh, did we ever feel out of place. The first 2 levels were normal enough…kind of like Macy’s, or Saks 5th Avenue. However, the 3rd floor, well, floored us. Vera Wang wedding dresses, a bath shaped like a stiletto heel, and A HOT WATER BOTTLE COVERED IN ALPACA FUR. We pretty much ran out of the store at that point.

At this point, we grabbed lunch at a cute little cafe and hopped back on the bus.

Stop four was the Christ Church Cathedral. We originally picked this over St. Patrick’s because we though there was no entrance fee, but there was a small one. Oh well. Best part was at the beginning where, upon learning there was a fee, Brit swore “God dammit!”…in the cathedral. Luckily, no lightning bolts hit us or anything. It was a lot of fun…Sadie was a bit creeped out, but Brit loved it and dragged Sadie through the entire place. The Cathedral itself was pretty neat (lots of pretty architecture), but the real highlight was the crypt. Old graves, grave markers, costumes from the Tudors, and neat stonework.

Unfortunately, by the time we got done with that and got on the bus, the last Guinness tour had just ended. So that’ll be tomorrow. However, we rode the bus back into the city center and caught a showing of Alice in Wonderland at the Savoy Theatre. The movie was okay but the theatre was gorgeous! It was probably the original theatre, going back to when people actually dressed up and movies were silent. It had a red velvet curtain that actually covered the screen until the movie started. In a word, classy.

After the movie, we grabbed dinner at Cassidy’s. Unbeknown to us, it was famous! Bill Clinton ate here a while back…which apparently makes it famous :P At any rate, it had great food, a great atmosphere, and a really good bartender who served Brit up her first Irish Guinness (she decided she couldn’t wait for the factory this time).

And now we’re back at the hotel! Tomorrow’s plans include the Museum of History, the Museum of Modern Art, St. Stephan’s Green, and the Guinness Factory.

Cheers,

Brit and Sadie