It took almost 32 years to get me there, but I have at long last visited New York. My mom's Christmas gift to Hermione and me was a long weekend in the city, and while I rather thought that wouldn't be long enough, I'm glad my exposure was limited this first time around. We saw the 9/11 memorial, hiked around Soho, ate dinner in Little Italy, visited the public library and Grand Central Station, walked along High Line park, and narrowly avoided spending money in Macy's---after we'd already spent too much in Times Square. But my favorite part was exploring The Cloisters.

The Cloisters are part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but they're a completely separate building in the rather distanced Fort Tryon Park. The building is medieval with medieval gardens and bits of original medieval stonework and ceiling worked into its design, and it houses, unsurprisingly, a significant amount of medieval artwork, furniture, jewelry, books, and other artifacts.

I *loved* it. Fort Tryon Park is beautiful to begin with, and The Cloisters are built on a rise that allows for a view of the Hudson River. And all that medieval ambiance...the gigantic fireplaces, the unicorn tapestries, the wardrobes and benches and chairs. The windows! And delicate memento mori carvings and stunning illuminations. The frescos and rib vaults and statuary. Aquamaniles, triptychs, reliquaries. And the gardens....

I always find gardens to be wonderfully sensuous, but these gardens, so small and so neatly defined, each plant within a purposeful plot---for dyes, for medicines, for cooking, for household use---and each with name attached. I'd read about plants like quince and pennyroyal and heartsease and vervain and indigo, but I'd never seen them. Just as I'd never seen an espaliered pear. All the textures and scents and names...I could've stood in the sunlight in that garden all day and imagined myself in another time and another place.

And as if all of this were not enough: I met Jesse Spencer as we walked in the front door. Though I'm not sure I can really call it meeting him. I held the door for him, and since he looked as though he dearly wished to go unrecognized, I simply smiled and followed my mom and sister up the stairs to the foyer, trying to convince myself that, yes, that really was Jesse Spencer following me up the stairs.

I think if I could live within close proximity to The Cloisters, I'd find New York a very pleasant place. But it's definitely too big a city for me, otherwise. And I don't think I'd ever really be happy living someplace where no one bothers with little courtesies like please and excuse me and thank you. If I'm big-city bound, I'm much better suited to Chicago. Still, I'd like to visit again someday.