Today was MET Day!
In a pleasant reversal of the beginning of the trip, I managed to figure out each train's direction. I also managed to look like I knew what I was doing, so no cousining vagabonds sidled up to me with schemes to offer local guidance in the hallways of the Port Authority Terminal. The subway corridors weren't that confusing and only had a few proselytizing Christians. It was if the day conspired to be an advertisement for Friendly New York City: the woman I asked for help with the 7 train (I normally take the S train) and I had a friendly chat; and the engineer of the 6 train was looking out for me when exited at 77th street (I guess smiling when asking, "Does this train stop at 77th street?" and shouting "Yay!" when the answer is yes goes a long way).
There was a long line to get into the museum when I arrived before the doors opened... and then we were off! To Egypt! It's true, I'm a sucker for Egyptian stuff. It's been two years since my last visit, and I visited all of my MET Friends. What was strange was that various objects had moved around. On one hand this is good, because you can see things in a new light. On the other hand, I thought a few pieces were no longer shown to their best advantage.
This box caught my eye because it looks like something from the arts and crafts movement.
This sarcophagus always confounds my camera's ability to take up-close photos of the hieroglyphics covering. Something about the lighting and the flat matte color confuses the heck out of the auto-focus. 
After traipsing about for about two and a half hours, it was time to leave the land of Egypt. I took over a hundred pictures and it's hard to include them all in a single blog post.
I nearly died (twice) from sticker shock at the MET's cafes; I remember that their food is always on the spendy side, but my goodness prices have jumped in the last two years.
I wandered through the American Arts and Sculpture. At the clearance sale I picked up an iridescent tie based on a Tiffany peacock feather.
At the Fertile Crescent Wing, the displays looked wrong because The Elamite Cow was on loan! I wandered into the Medieval Wing at the right time for the sunlight, because my camera seemed less confused by the low lighting during this visit.
At the far end, there was a giant, way-over-the-top painting from the 1500's by a self-taught Mexican painter. Smaller paintings by him were exhibited in a back gallery.I wanted to go to the Music Wing, but it was closed for renovations. Overall, the museum was not crowded, although there were a number of times when other patrons would step right in front of me as I was looking at the art.
Near the end of the visit, I went to the Gift Shop to look at the Sale Books. I could easily drop $300 on art books there, but my main limit was the knowledge that I'd need to haul any finds through the airport on my return. I restrained myself to some family gifts, a monograph on paleolithic cave art and a book on 3D pop-up construction. In a continuation of Friendly New York, the clerk was from Oregon, and we chatted about living in different states.
After a short traipse through the exhibits under the grand stairs, I ended the visit in the Roman sculpture garden. This time around, the visit was more about seeing favorites again, and less about finding new objects to learn about and appreciate and photograph. While it was fun to go to whatever gallery I wanted and linger as long as I wanted, I did miss the banter Mark and I had had yesterday a Bear Mountain. The guards threw everyone out.
So I went to buy chocolate.
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