I LOVE New York City!

Now, don't get me wrong, I would hate to live there, but I LOVED visiting and it was exactly what I expected: crowded, busy and diverse, with people from all walks of life, side by side.

After fighting traffic and paying $44.oo (gasp!) to park our van, we headed to Central Park to eat lunch. Being tourists, hot dogs and pretzels from the street vendors were on the menu and we enjoyed them completely! Then we headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was the main reason we were in New York. The museum is amazing! We stayed for three hours and I think we only saw 1/10 of their collection. The highlight of my visit was seeing this painting:

Vermeer is my favorite artist; his paintings of domestic life are full of life, light and expression. Beautiful!

Here are a couple of others that I liked:

Pissarro is an artist that I have not paid attention to before. The museum had a number of his paintings, and I am definitely interested in learning more about him.

And this sculpture:

Degas' paintings and sculptures of dancers are amazing, the light and shadow in the paintings is breathtaking, and this sculpture is wonderfully life-like.

The next time I visit Pennsylvania, I want to stay overnight in New York City and spend the whole day at the museum so I can see more of their amazing collection. For now, I will be content with visiting their website, which is impressive, and remembering that while I am still a small-town-girl, I love New York City!