New York
Day 1

New York Day 1

We pulled into New York harbor at 6:30 am with the chef from the cooking classes giving a commentary as she is

 a New Yorker. For once, the weather was with us as the sun was shining. It was pretty cool at 39, but you can

always layer a little. I don't think many people had packed for the weather we had encountered, assuming that it w

as Spring and we had seen the end of the cold and wet.....surprise! There was a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship in

the berth alongside us, part of the constant stream of one-week cruises to the Bahamas or Caribbean.

We were meeting our friends, Frank and Maria, for the day (although for Frank the day starts about noon) but took

our time getting more into the middle of the city. We docked at Terminal 90, which is at 50^th Street and 12^th

Avenue and they have their office/weekday home at 38^th and First, so we strolled over to Times Square and saw

the thousands of weekenders and Spring Break visitors, then headed for a Starbucks break in Bryant Park, behind

the New York Public Library at 5^th and 42^nd. By the time we turned up at their place at 12:15, he was almost

ready to go. We took a cab up to Fifth and 70^th, to the museum area, and took them to the Frick Museum. They are

native New Yorkers but had never been to this smaller museum, which was once the family home of the Fricks,

whose money came from steel in Pittsburgh. This man not only had money, he had great taste, and filled his home

with wonderful pieces of art which included paintings, statues, furniture, clocks and a lovely large organ in his

stairwell. Some of the rooms have complete walls painted by well known French painters and lifted whole to the

Frick home. We also visited a special showing at the Whitney Museum of Modern Art.
 

When done with our art fix, we jumped on a bus to explore a newish park, the High Line Park, which is build on

an old railway line above street level. We walked its whole length back and forth and then headed down to street

level to walk over to a restaurant in Greenwich Village that Frank and Maria have found and are going to

regularly. It took us an hour or so, but we finally got there before our feet died. The restaurant is called Peasant

and the chef, Frankie, cooks over a large wood fire which is visible as you sit in the dining area. It is a rustic

place, which means noisy with uncomfortable seating. The food is generally Italina in theme and the wine list is

great. So by the time we got back to Frank and Maria's from dinner it was 11:30 and we were pretty tired. They

gave us 6 bottles of Italian wines to drink on the rest of the cruise. So we grabbed a cab and our wine and got

back to the ship and into bed about 1am.