People in the US are amazed we in Australia have a holiday in honour of a biscuit!
Seems as if there’s only one thing better than seeing the Cloisters on a cold and rainy day, and that is seeing it on a day when the sky is a vivid blue and the sun is shining warmly. It was a totally different building and the gardens, although not yet quite at their summer best, were spectacular. After a very pleasant lunch in the cloistered garden with magnificent views out over the Hudson River to all the way across to the Palisades, I set off to visit ‘The Treasury’.
This is the place where all the gold and silver things are! There was a silver gilt reliquary shrine (one of only four to have survived), a silver gilt reliquary arm (where the arm bone of a saint would be kept) and the Cloister’s famous Cross of Bury St Edmunds. And not far from the ‘gold room’ were the two cloisters bathed in a different gold. The espaliered pear tree and its blossom were a fragile beauty in one of the cloistered gardens.
We vowed two things that day. First to come back in the summer and see Tryon Park and second never to catch the bus again! Our driver finished his shift half way through the ride and so we were ordered off the bus at 155th Street, right in the middle of Spanish Harlem and told to wait for the next bus to arrive. Well as it turned out the driver of that bus was also finishing his shift and set off his passengers too.
So the stop was a swirling mass of 40 passengers jockeying for front position on the next bus, including the two electronic wheelchair people who had originally been on our bus and who took nearly 10 mins to negotiate their vehicles into their allocated spaces at the front of the bus and a further 10 mins to get off.
The next bus to arrive saw the ‘tourists’ all rush to get on first but by NYC law, the wheelchair people are always supposed to go first. And so we waited for the old guy who was new at being in a wheelchair to negotiate the space again while his wife who was obviously an experienced wheelchair driver hollered at him!
When the next bus arrived the ‘tourists’ rushed there but too late – Peter and I claimed the remaining spots and left them to wait ‘patiently’ for the next bus! Unfortunately the only remaining seats on the bus were in front of a ‘spoilt little rich girl’ talking loudly on her phone….for 45 mins! Trip home took 2.5 hours. Drinks please!
After this harrowing experience I’m thinking of starting a blog – ‘Things that should be invented’……first recommendation would be an oxygen mask to put over the mouth of people who insist on speaking into their ‘cell’ phones in public places like on the bus or the subway … like I want to hear their personal business?
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