the tudor house: What I Learned on My MLK Day Vacation

As you know, Evanshine and I made the journey up to NYC to celebrate MLK Day a little bit ago. Actually, it was a long bit ago - one month ago from Monday, to be precise. We had a great time, even though I've put off blogging about it because the idea of e-mailing me iPhone pics to my computer has been a bit overwhelming, and because Evanshine has been commandeering my laptop at home to work on a trailer video for his March Madness pool. (More on that later, never fear).

ANYway, I thought I'd write a little photo-essay on my assigned topic of The Top Five Things I Learned on My MLK Day Break:

1. Beware of booking hotels you've never heard of on Priceline; they may actually be brothels.

I found our hotel on Priceline and selected it because it met all of my criteria: 1. 4 stars!, 2. within walking distance of Times Square, and 3. not a chain so that my coupon code applied. I ended up really liking the hotel and the people that worked there ... however, I'm not 100% sure that we weren't staying in a brothel. The proof is in the pictures:

Hotel by day:

Pretty normal, right?

And, hotel by night:

CLUBBIN'

And our palatial hotel room:

Yes, that is the bed, shower, desk and bathroom sink all in one small area. Hey, it encouraged us to get out and explore!

Now here is where things start to get weird. Our "do not disturb" sign:

And finally, just a little hotel humor for you. The hotel bar was called "Haven." So here is the stairway up to the bar:

Hilarious.

2. I don't understand art.

Like classy adults do, we took a little tour of the Museum of Modern Art (or MoMA, as all you art snobs call it) on Friday afternoon. It just so happens that admission is free on Fridays at 4, so we technically earned $50 that afternoon in free admission. I then spent that $50 that we "earned" numerous times on other things the rest of the weekend, so this may have been a net loss.

Anyway, I just don't understand art. Again, see the photos below.

Ferris Bueller contemplates this lovely painting.

Astronaut over luggage display in the lobby... What does it all mean??

And my favorite. Art that the recipient is responsible for creating. Or something. I will be selling this type of art in my etsy shop soon.

I simply cannot wrap my head around this.

3. I am a trendsetter, and my influence reaches even to NYC.

If you happened to drive past my house this past Christmas season, you may have been blinded by our display of Christmas lights, and I apologize. Evan is INTO Christmas lights. It seems to run in the family. Before decorating the first year, he called his dad for advice. His dad's response? "However many lights you think you need, double it." And like a good son, Evan took this advice to heart.

Exhibit A:

And imagine my surprise when we got to NYC and found this eerily similar display:

I think our influence has reached the Big Apple.

Speaking of how our influence has reached the Big Apple, remember my sexy outfit from the Bengals game in December? If you recall, I was rocking some skinny jeans tucked into ug boots. (And by "ug," I mean ugly and not the popular Ugg brand).

Well, look who else is rocking this look. A total stranger!

And finally, I'm sure you aren't surprised that Mabel's likeness has made its way to Chinatown statues.

4. Don't wear your cute coat and leave your nice warm puffy coat at home when said cute coat is the thinnest and not-warm-est thing you own, and when you are traveling to a freezing cold city in the middle of a polar vortex.

If I can comfortably wear my coat buttoned up inside, imagine how uncomfortable I was outside!

Even the homeless dogs had to bundle up:

5. If you've seen it on SVU, steer clear.

Pictured above is Evan the crime victim in the Central Park tunnel where the SVU detectives find most of their victims. As you can see, he's been murdered. Kind of put a damper on our vacation.

And because my photo-dump is not yet complete, here are a few bonus pictures for you to peruse on your coffee break.