Thanks to all of you who commented on my photos. I couldn’t bring my proper camera due to weight restrictions so all these photos are taken with my iPhone 12 mini.

Today marked the start of my husband’s intention to preserve his legs for the marathon on Sunday. In practice that means that I headed off on my own for a potion of the days. My plan was to take advantage of this time by myself to visit some galleries. I actually prefer doing this by myself because I can look at what I want to see for as long as I feel like.

We started the morning at the United Nations. This was a bit of a stressful shambles. They want you to arrive one hour before your tour time to go through the security screening but the security screening doesn’t open until 9 am. Since we had a 9:30 am tour we arrived just before it was supposed to be open. The problem was that they didn’t let anyone in for screening until 9:15 am.This meant that we didn’t finish getting screened and then across the road and through security at the UN until close to 9:45 am. At the speed they do the screening they couldn’t get everyone finished who was on the tour in less than 20 minutes. My husband wondered how they could get the complicated logistics of their food and aid projects right if they couldn’t even get a simple thing like opening the office on time done.

Anyway, once we arrived they took us and the five or so others, up to the Security Council Chamber where the rest of our group was. We also got to see the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly. Our guide explained how the various UN missions work as well as talking about the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and some of the artworks around the building that are all donated by member countries. The guide was from Peru and was very good.

After this my husband went home and I headed to MOMA. I used the Bloomberg Connect app, which had a guide for the museum. I started at floor 5 and just picked one or two items in each gallery that took my eye to find a bit more about. I spent a very pleasant few hours strolling and looking at the artwork. There was a massive scrum in front of Van Gogh’s starry night, but hardly anyone looking at his other paintings, there weren’t many people in the Monet gallery. We have seen one of Monet’s large scale waterlily paintings in the Musee de L’Orangerie in Paris. That is a much more immersive experience with the paintings displayed on the purpose built curved walls, but the room in the MOMA is probably a next best. Since there were not too many people hanging around it is a good place to sit and immerse yourself in Monet’s paintings.

After seeing the museum I went and had a look at Grand Central Station before heading back to the hotel for a rest.

In the evening we had tickets booked for & Juliet. Beforehand we had an early dinner in the lounge at Gabriel Kruether. We both had duck confit and it was excellent. Our son loves musicals, and had seen & Juliet in Melbourne. We got his advice on the best seats. His advice, go in the stalls so you can really get good base. Now, I’m not that fussed about getting really good base but we took his advice and got tickets in the middle of the fifth row. I feel like they were just about perfect seats. The show is such good fun and being so close you feel drawn into the action with the actors. Also they let off confetti and it rained down on us as well as the stage and really upped the party atmosphere. Everyone seated around us looked like they were out for a good time and we all got up and danced to a couple of songs. It was just a really fun night and the singing was excellent. The bass was good too!