it's the little things

I was walking through the Met today after attending a gallery talk on art from ancient Greece, and I found my way into the impressionist wing. I was titillated by a work of Seurat's and decided to take a macroscopic shot to capture the discrete brush strokes of pointilism. The photo came out wonderfully, and eagerly skipped away into the next room. There, I saw another girl ease up closely to a painting and place a camera a few inches away, poised to take a macro shot. The staff person in that room walked over and told her that was not allowed--if she wanted a close up, she would have to zoom. Whew, lucky me! I felt half ashamed and half proud of my sneakiness.

Coming home to my hotel, I waited in line with a small group of people for of the two elevators to take my up to my suite on the 18th floor. As the elevator door opened, I was taken aback by an unexpected act of kindness. A little child ran into the car first, and then a man started to walk in. However, upon seeing me behind him, he quickly hurried back out and both he and the man on the other side of me extended their arms to indicated that I should go first. Talk about benevolent sexism! Most people seem to be under the impression that the southern U.S. is hospitable and the northern is... not. I do not claim to know whether that notion has validity or not, but I will say that we can rest assured that hospitable gentlemen can be found even in New York City (although you may have to go to a hotel to find them...). ;-)