6th day 06/25/22 - Guggenheim Museum - Brooklyn

Today was supposed to be another hot day, around 30 degrees Celsius was forecasted. Pauline had a seminar today from Volunta, the organization she wants to travel to Ecuador with in 6 weeks for a half-year project. That meant getting up shortly before 03:00 am and then having online meetings until 10:00 am. So she wanted to take it easy today and explore Brooklyn. Anne wanted to join her. Marie had planned to visit the Guggenheim Museum today. I found that interesting too, so I joined her. Marie and I went to the Upper East Side, to Museum Street. On the way to the museum, there was a short but heavy rain shower, but there were enough awnings on the houses to take shelter. Then we continued and arrived around 11:09 am. We bought the tickets on-site and went to the exhibition. It's already an impressive building when you arrive, with its circular 'wrappings' that resemble a wasp's nest. It looks the same on the inside. So you walk up the circular 'wrappings' from the entrance. It starts with an exhibition by a Colombian artist, with various wool wreaths. Then it continues with her paintings, which seemed very abstract to me, always with facts, violence, and ambiguous materials. Then on the 1st floor, you can find the paintings that were interesting to me, Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, and Pecane. I really liked all of them, and we stayed here a little longer. Then we went further up, where only artworks by Kandinsky were on display. I didn't like them at all. They were mostly paintings with circles, squares, and triangles. So it repeated a lot. It's always a matter of taste. After about 2 hours, we were done and went back down the circles. Ultimately, it was rather disappointing for me, it was not enough for $25. But now I know it. Marie was not disappointed. She thought everything was wonderful. After refreshing ourselves with a drink from our water bottles, we went to the opposite street, to Central Park. It was now 32 degrees Celsius, and the whole city felt like it was burning. So we went under the trees and enjoyed the shade. We walked past the large lake towards the south and sat on a bench at a large meadow, observed the hustle and bustle, and rested. It was astonishing how many people were on the lawns and doing sports (at 32 degrees Celsius). Then we continued past a concert venue, where there was a lot of excitement (it was the weekend of the Pride Parade in NYC), past the zoo to Rockefeller Center. Marie really wanted to have a Ben & Jerry's ice cream. :-)

In the late afternoon, we made our way back. It was scorching hot, and we enjoyed a refreshing tomato salad and a cold beer on the terrace.