All air travel stuff went fine yesterday. Phyllis was waiting at the baggage carousel when I arrived and we got a taxi to Manhattan in no time. Traffic was terrible but we arrived at the Upper West Side apartment of some friends of Phyllis. The accomodations were great and this morning we traveled across town by bus to the Neue Gallery. That's the gallery owned by Ronald Lauder, son of Estee lauder, and the permanent home of the painting which is the subject of the recent movie "The Woman in Gold". We had breakfast at the museum before the gallery opened and we were among the first to see the painting. It's quite amazing in person. The pictures you see of it here, including the with me are not pictures of the original painting. They don't allow photography but the have a "print" that you can photograph.
We went on to do a lot of walking along Central Park (see the Plaza Hotel picture) and 5th Avenue followed by a subway ride back to our nice accomodations. The New York Subway system is every bit as dirty, loud, and creepy as it appears in the movies. There are some nice moments like the woman playing the violin in our subway car. Picture to follow on a later posting.
Tomorrow were up early and off to Ellis Island and tomorrow evening we fly to London....
