Ok. So today I arrived in New York for an Easter Weekend jaunt. Once past LaGuardia and my very angsty cab driver it was up 5th Avenue to the Met. That place is in fact a maze. You think you are headed for the 19th Century Masters and bam! a towering portrait of Mao Zedong by Andy Warhol looms at the end of the corridor. No, really, it’s pretty scary.
I probably come up to Mao’s collar at the most.
There are two nice exhibits up right now, Richard Serra Drawings and Room with a View
The latter of which I plan to return to and sketch.
So today in the Met more than taking in works of art I was on the lookout. For Italian people that is. If you aren’t familiar with the constant buzzing noise of New York it is a beautiful din that becomes background noise to locals, innumerable languages and car horns (though slightly better since the $350 honking fine). While in the Met there are no car horns, there are definitely languages.
I followed a disappointingly large number of Spaniards and South/Central Americans around the museum galavanting dangerously close and fielding the occasional strange glance upon which I would super stealthily glare at the closest painting. Until….”pizza, pasta, gelato”, ITALIANS!
I proceeded to chat them up for about a solid five minutes of which I am quite proud to say I barely fumbled on my words. They also happened to be from Florence where I studied in college which made the 007-style run-in even greater.
Now the reason this title says Friendly Non-Italian people is because for the rest of the evening I struck out twice. First at Serafina’s which I will get to later, with a red-headed Peruvian named Henry and then at Duane Reade with someone who was maybe playing dumb or actually Portuguese. I guess I don’t go running up to talk to people that also speak English. This is something to consider when assaulting the nearest Italiani.
Serafina’s! What a great spot. Well it seems there are several but we chose the one Madison between 79th and 78th. Check them out here!
RUNS WITH MARKERS 