A rainy day in New York. What to do? Indoor activities were clearly called for, so I headed to the Museum of Modern Art.

What is it about rainy days and line ups? Why haven’t I had to line up on nice days? I have indicated on my photo where the entrance to the Museum is. Fortunately, the line moved pretty quickly.

The MOMA is beautiful. Large airy spaces absorbed the rainy-day, like-minded crowd. The only place that needed more space was the umbrella storage. See the header of this post.

There was an exhibition of Georgia O’Keeffe early water colours and drawings. I was reminded of a line from the play Summer, 1976 – something along the lines of “Let’s not be those people who go to an art gallery where you can’t see the work for all the other people.” The situation was not the same for the sculpture garden baristas.

The O’Keeffe exhibition was interesting and happily the crowd thinned as I moved through it.

I also looked for exhibitions of photography and thought I had found one but I couldn’t wait for the late afternoon screenings.

I grabbed a quick lunch in a pub and headed for my next line up, this time for Leopoldstat, a play by Tom Stoppard. This is from Wikipedia: According to Stoppard, the play “took a year to write, but the gestation was much longer. Quite a lot of it is personal to me, but I made it about a Viennese family so that it wouldn’t seem to be about me.”  All four of Stoppard’s grandparents were killed by the Nazis in death camps.

The play is beautifully written though heart breaking, and even more beautifully presented. There are 38 actors including six children. It ran for two hours and 15 minutes with no intermission, but the time flew; I never thought to check my watch.

I took advantage of sunny weather the following day to walk though Central Park, emerging on the east side. The City is ever present during these walks. What amazing forethought on the part of the early planners to they save this huge chunk of the city for a park.

On my way to meet my sister Shirley and my niece Becca for lunch, I found 6th Avenue blocked off for a parade. So exciting – what kind of parade would it be? I was early for my lunch date so waited with great anticipation for floats and marching bands and creatively costumed participants, iPhone camera at the ready.

As you can imagine, I felt somewhat deflated as the no-marching-band, no-floats marchers passsed by.

This afternoon, Shirley, Becca and I went to Prima Facie, a National Theatre presentation. We had all seen it at the cinema, and were excited to see it live. Prima Facie is a one-hander starring the truly amazing Jodie Comer about a barrister who has built a career defending men accused of sexual assault and is then herself raped, and her experience of being a victim, of being on the other side of the British legal system she has supported and believed in. A stunning production in every way.

I said goodbye to Shirley and Becca following the show, as I will not see them again before I leave. Thanks so much to both of them for showing me such an excellent NYC time!