The hire car was due to be dropped back in to Hertz ( http://www.hertz.com/ ) at State Street New Haven so I dropped Sue off at the Yale Nursing School and headed there. Just as I arrived I realised that I needed to top up the gas tank. So I went to Mobil on Sargent Drive. After some attempts I realised that pre-pay is the only way to obtain gas, so I went in and paid $10.00. After the $10 worth was in I checked the gauge and noted that more was needed, so I went in and offered another $10.00. It required only $8.00 to top up, so I had to go and retrieve the $2.00 change. By the time I returned the car to Hertz I was 20 minutes late, so the receptionist was going to charge me for another day. I complained so she let me go with no extra charge.
From there I walked up to the T-mobile ( http://m.t-mobile.com/ )shop to have them look at why my phone didn't ring when called. The only thing she could find was the ringtone. When that was changed to a default tone, it worked. I then walked up to Radio Shack ( http://m.radioshack.com/radioshack/index.do?op=http://www.radioshack.com/home/index.jsp? ) to buy a cordless mouse and a microphone for Sue's laptop.
I then called in at Claire's Corner Copia ( http://www.clairescornercopia.com/ ) for a coffee. It turns out that this has a mostly vegetarian menu. The coffee was out of a vacuum flask, as most black coffees are prepared here in the USA. From here I walked further west along Chapel Street, calling in to browse at the Irish shop and a menswear shop. I then went up to the Yale Center for British Art ( http://britishart.yale.edu/ ). This has 4 floors of British art, although not all were open.
I took the elevator up to the 4th floor, which is divided into 27 separate galleries, featuring either styles (Pastoral landscape, The conversation piece, Distance and separation, etc) or specific artists (Turner, Constable, Gainsborough and Wright of Derby). There was also a temporary exhibition of artworks associated with William Shakespeare's plays, but I didn't look at those as I am not familiar with his plays. On the second floor there were modern British artists' works, but I didn't like any of them. After a quick browse through the gallery shop I went out and over the street to the Yale University Art Gallery ( http://artgallery.yale.edu/ ).
The Yale University Art gallery is one of the oldest College Galleries in the USA, appropriately, as Yale itself was founded in 1701. The special exhibition, titled The Place We Live, on the ground floor, was of black and white photography by Robert Adams who has photographed changes in the urban landscape across America, especially Colorado and more recently Washington State and surrounds.
From there I took the elevator to the second floor where they housed the African, Asian and European art. I skipped the African art and went straight to the Asian art. They had some very good pieces of Chinese, Indian, Japanese art from several centuries BCE to about the 18th C. There were some nice Buddhist pieces from other countries too, such as Viet Nam, Nepal and Cambodia.
The next section covered European art from about the 15thC through to the 19thC. Then there was a section on Christian art - Madonna, Christ mainly - before modern European masters - Matisse, Gauguin, Monet, Manet, Pissaro, van Gogh, etc. Some truly wonderful works. From there I walked back to the centre elevator and went down to ground level. Here were multitudes of busts from many eras, and some archaeological recoveries from Iraq of an Assyrian king. Truly mind-blowing stuff!!
After sitting and browsing through some of their tomes on the Yale Galleries, I headed off to meet Sue. Unfortunately her mobile was flat, so I ended up waiting in a park until she had reached the suite and could ring me. I walked down to Union Station and caught a cab. The guy was really good, having picked up a couple of Australians earlier in the day. He also knew a few Australian movies, such as Chopper and Tomorrow the World Began. I was glad to be at 'home', as my foot was killing me.
We had dinner in - rissoles - and then set up the new mouse and microphone. The mouse worked straight away after changing the battery, whereas we had some difficulty with the microphone. After some testing on Skype we decided to call Sue's mum and brother in Melbourne, Australia. The mike worked well, so we had a lovely conversation, catching up with the latest news. We were really pleased to hear about our footballing nephews awards and possible futures.
Just before going to bed we watched the Democrat convention, especially the speeches by the VP Joe Biden and President Obama. Very interesting, especially as the election is held the day we fly out of LA, on November 6!!
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