Wet, Wet, Wet - 15 Oct

And I'm not referring to the Band! Today as it was the first day we really thought it might actually rain, we decided to combine a couple of museums - Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum (part of the Smnithsonian) and Guggenheim Museum which is alongside Central Park in the Museum Mile.

Cooper-Hewitt was in the process of changing over exhibitions so we only got to see the Sustainable living show but that was very well put together, and of course the beautiful interior of the structure itself. The property (http://www.cooperhewitt.org/) is a late 19th Century mansion and also has 2 other nearby townhouses which house the exhibitions and offices. The interior furnishings are spectacular.

Walking back into the persistent rain, we wandered over to the Guggenheim, seeing plenty of people huddling outside the gift shop. Thinking everyone else had had the same idea, we thought we had a big queue ahead of us, but no...being a Thursday it was closed and obviously several other people didn't read their guidebooks. We checked out the store and plan to come back another day.

We walked around the area and then took the subway towards the fabled and highly recommended Century 21 department store not far from Wall street. It was like the Boxing Day Sales in nearly every department. The men's area was crazy and people had trolleys with them from the get-go which we didn't understand until later. It reminded me a little of a place we visited in Sweden nearly 4 yrs ago - Gekas Ullared. To see just how crazy Gekas is, read this Blog post, its absolutely true.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/309441/swedish_tourist_traps_shopping_at_gekas.html

Mark was in heaven -Tyson, you were right again although I was the one to buy Calvin Kelvin underwear (socks to be exact), and that was all I bought, whilst Mark got some jeans, shirt and several t-shirts.

Back out into the rain, we decided to head home and because we got out the wrong exit at Union Square & 14th Street subway station, we found a cinema which we didn't notice previously. I saw them advertising Whip It (new Drew Barrymore film which I wanted to see) and it was on only 30-mins later. Great idea - it was lots of fun, high energy and I really like Ellen Page (loved her in Juno) and Juliette Lewis and Drew Barrymore were also good.

Now back home after I found a Mavi store further down the road and got some new jeans myself very cheap. We're going to check out a freaky sounding New Futurist play tonight. Should be different!

Yes the play was different! It was an off-off-Broadway show and we probably travelled the longest and shortest distance to see it. Longest via Australia but shortest as it was probably 200 meters down the road in an old church we have walked past every day.

Laika Dog in Space (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e1IMGmrgr8 or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MannRcIBH4&NR=1) as it turned into part game show, part musical, part play, part re-interpretation of the book "The Little Prince', part theoretical discussion about fantasy and reality, oh, and some borscht which was cooking on stage for us all to share at the end - we didn't partake. Interesting!