Girls Weekend 2026. Monday, October 12. New York City

Girls Weekend 2026 New York City Monday, October 12

Lori writes:

We woke up to a beautiful day despite the weather forecast yesterday showing today to be another rainy day.  We are so often blessed by glorious weather on Girls Weekend and we are very grateful for that.

The morning began, as so many Girls Weekend mornings do, as a slow morning filled with coffee, journaling and talk between two old friends.  No doorbell ringing, no smoke alarms this morning.  It was peaceful and pleasant.

We finally got our bodies moving to shower and clean up and get ready for our day.  Today we are visiting the relatively new Arte Museum as well as meeting up with Kathi’s old friend Aisha, who has lived and worked here for decades.  We made ourselves sandwiches before leaving so we could have lunch on the go since we were going to have a pretty full day.

We actually ate those sandwiches in the lobby of the museum before we began our walkthrough, so that we wouldn’t find ourselves hungry part way through and also so we would have some appetite when meeting up with Aisha for dinner later.

The Arte Museum is a multi-sensory, digital art museum that engages all of the senses. You step into rooms that have mirrored walls, floors and ceilings that reflect the digital art that is being projected all around you and it makes you feel as if you are actually part of the scene.  It can actually be a bit disorienting at first because it is hard for your mind to comprehend where the actual physical boundaries of the room are.  The first room we entered was a waterfall room where not only was the visual available to the senses but also the sound of falling water.  Quite beautiful.  The next room was probably my favorite, because it was a room filled with blooming flowers on all the walls that moved with the touch of a hand and the floor was covered in scattered, digital leaves that moved the same way that real leaves do as you walked. The room was filled with the perfume of flowers and was amazing.  The only sense not engaged in this room was taste.  In keeping with the Halloween season, one room projected and displayed pumpkins, while another displayed a graveyard with friendly ghosts frolicking around the headstones.  Another room I really enjoyed was the ocean room where waves crested and broke on the walls, water rushed around our feet and whales swam in the depths.  We colored like little kids in a room filled with an enchanted forest with magical beasts.  Once we finished coloring our own magical beast, we scanned them in so that they could be part of the display!  Kathi colored a dragon, while I colored a Phoenix.  

The final room had three different displays shown consecutively.  One of New York, one of Paris and one of the artworks of several different artists.  Our final stop in the museum was in the Arte Cafe where we got iced pumpkin spice lattes that absolutely satisfied our sense of taste.  They were delicious! 

From the museum we meandered our way to the designated meeting place for our rendezvous with Aisha.  We met her in the Spanish-themed food court in a very high end mall in mid-town.  Kathi knows Aisha from her Chicago days.  They met in 1986 while in a production of Little Shop of Horrors at the now defunct Candlelight Dinner Playhouse and later became good friends and roommates.  As always, it was good to catch up with old friends.  We sat and chatted for quite some time and eventually, I went to get a salad for dinner and Aisha got some Spanish potatoes and chicken croquettes.  Aisha convinced Kathi to taste the Spanish potatoes, assuring her that, while they were seasoned, they were not spicy hot.  Kathi, who is highly averse to anything with even a HINT of heat, took a bite and immediately realized that her sense of spicy hot differed greatly from Aisha’s. Our talk wound down and Aisha took us on a shortcut through the mall and through a Whole Foods store to the Moynihan Train Hall where we caught the A train back to our home away from home in Brooklyn.  Another delightful Girls Weekend day in the books.