It’s over

Four days in New York goes pretty bloody fast.

This morning we’re heading to the airport for an 8am flight to Charleston. Working backwards, that means getting up at 5.30am. Yawn.

I remarked to Husband that I think we’re getting too old for short, long-haul holidays. We just don’t have the stamina anymore.

Yesterday we took a day trip up the Hudson River to a town called Beacon. Beacon’s old Nabisco factory has been turned into a contemporary art gallery called Dia.

It’s HUGE and filled with the sort of artworks that make Husband giddy with excitement and make me roll my eyes a lot.

Top of the “he’s having a lend” list was Fred Sandberg. Fred and his estate had contributed all these “artworks” that consisted of single strands of wool being attached to the ceiling, pulled taut and concreted into the floor. Occasionally he got really daring and suspended three strands of wool from the ceiling. (See below.)

Deep.

Husband was totally blown away by Richard Serra, who’d created these massive, rusted iron sculptures that were like tall orange peels that you entered and walked around.

There was also the obligatory room of white canvasses, which were all about “the way the paint was applied”. Seriously, there were eight blank canvasses hung in a row. And, for the life of me, I couldn’t tell the difference in how each one was painted. They were just white.

Easiest way to make half a mill ever. I should take my hat off to him and wool boy. Geniuses.

I am so not a contemporary art girl. Although there are occasional exceptions, like the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the MCA, it’s cool.

Bits of wool, not so cool.

But it was a great adventure, seeing a new part of New York.

We farewelled the city in style last night with a drink – passionfruit vodka and champagne cocktail – at Bemelman’s Bar at the Carlyle Hotel (Woody Allen plays jazz there) and dinner at Bar Boloud – amazing peekytoe crab salad with avocado, coconut and curry aioli, with a dessert of whiskey ice cream and some salted caramel thingy, followed by a little basket of complimentary and completely divine mini madeleines.

Heaven.

It’s bittersweet, though, because I get the feeling we won’t be back for a looooooong time.

So long New York and thanks for all the lox.

PS do you like cocktails? What’s your favourite?