and nice weekend

[hatam_soferet]

livredor and self went to MJNH's for nice lunk, after sleeping until nearly 11am. These five-hour days really set the program for Shabbat - sleep, daven, eat, sleep, sleep, sleep, daven, eat, sleep, etc. After lots of sleeping we did some learning, which was nice. livredor thinks interestingly and hasn't been moulded into the yeshivish mindset, so we not only talked about Torah but even about God!

Today we went to the Cloisters, which is high up Manhattan, in Inwood. It's the part of the Metropolitan Museum which holds its mediaeval sculptures and random bits of churches, and what's cool is that the building has basically been constructed around the artefacts, so it's designed to look like a lot of bits of monastery strung together, and houses various lintels and capitals and other architectural features, and some interior furnishings. It's kind of funny, because I'm rather used to just having that sort of thing around at home, so seeing a mediaeval door in a wall isn't so exciting as all that - likewise, some of the windows basically looked like parts of college - but some of the interior stuff was very funky. There were some completely cool bits of devotional carving, notably a representation of the Trinity which had God sitting down, resting an occupied cross on his lap, biting the tail of the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove sort of pecking Jesus' head. Various other things, but that was the most memorable. Oh, and a picture of pregnant Mary in her house, with some funky rainbow angels around the place. A blue-and-white fringed stripy thing hanging up, which I think is supposed to be a tallit, but livredor thinks isn't. Churches visible out of the window (?!), and generally rather lovely.