DDC Day XXIV; Playground, Culture, Playground (updated almost 6 years later)

Everything below was originally published in September 2010...

The summer vacation is almost done and we had a great day.  The plan was to go to the MET to show the girl the Big Bamboo exhibit then off the the playgrounds of Central Park.  But randomness made it more fun.

We stopped along the way at the Ancient Playground.  The kids said it is the best place to play hide and seek.

When we went into the MET we found we had perfect timing to get tickets to the inside tour of the Big Bambu.  However,  my daughter was wearing on her feet, the bane of my existence; open toed shoes.

So I figured we would get tickets for the tour that was 5 hours away.  Maybe we would go home, or we would go shopping.  Notsomuch. (But about a half an hour before we were scheduled to go on the tour I call the MET and told them we would not make it.  That is only fair since we were gonna be 40% of the tour.  They were glad I called.


Anyway, I love to wonder in the Met.  So did the kids.

I learned something about my twins.  My son likes "classic" art.  ( I don't really know what classic means, but) he likes Monet and van Gough.  My daughter really enjoyed the works of Sydney Pollack and Alexander Calder.

It was nice to sit back and let the kids enjoy the art.  One of them said something like, "I saw something like that in a book once." "No", I added, "You did not see a picture of something like that you saw a picture of this, this is the actual thing they take a picture of to put into books."  I felt like a snob but were were in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, not the lobby of our library.  This was the real deal.

We did not even spend 5 minutes in the Big Bambu exhibit because we were hungry and I wanted to get to my go to place to eat in Central Park; The Boat House.  The kids had hand made burgers with fires that were hot and I had a Cuban that was made to order.  Why eat crap or street meat when you can sit in pretty place and eat good food.  The only problem is that the place is inundated with tourists.  I don't like to eat with tourists.  They smoke.  WTF.  People are eating here.  New Yorkers know better.  I did not want to fight but WTF.

We meandered around Central Park and enjoyed the Bethesda Fountain.  We met the least unpleasant mime in the world.  He actually scared the poop out of my son.

Then off to our final destination, the Hecksher Playground.  First of all, if there is a university course in designing a playground they guy... the team that put this on together must have gotten an "A+".  Graduated with honors from the playground design program and the fanciest college.

The photo below does absolutely not just to the view I had.  I loved to look past the kids playing at that little triangle of sunlight through the trees.  It also came with a great audio track

Kids laughing
Swings squeaking
Birds chirping
and a far away huckster playing his trumpet.

I told the kids that there are an infinite number of places on earth that are tied for most beautiful.  This is one of them.

If only the tourists would not smoke in the park.  WTF.