Gotta love this place

Just going to post some pics for now as I am soooooo tired. Will rewrite the post tomorrow (hopefully) with details.

Started my day at The Museum of Natural History. Then strolled around Central Park for a few hours, then walked to Empire State Building. Wandered the streets, ate at a diner and back to hotel some 9 hours later. Am exhausted.

Experienced the Subway, unwittingly standing between an angry black man and idiot teenager who started to fight, nearly got run over by a dick head taxi driver, just got out of the shower and heard an almighty crash down below my room – a car crash. Does it make me a bad person that I didn’t even look? Heard sirens about a nano second later.

Click on the images to see them larger.

Not sure what I am doing tomorrow (besides writing my blog detail) but I’m sure it will involve more photos.

Are you sick of them yet???

Ok, Let’s see how much I can remember…

Figured it was stupid to walk everywhere when they have such a good subway system here in New York so I found a nearby station and hopped on board the first train I saw. Problem was, I had no idea which colour it represented on the map. I asked a lady who set me straight and then, when I got to my destination, I took some time to check out the huge map on the wall and understand the legend and system so I would know for next time.

First stop was The Museum of Natural History. I’ve always wanted to see it and, after the movie The Day After Tomorrow and the life size woolly mammoths, it was definitely on my list. Guess what though…it’s not true. All Hollywood, so the guard tells me. After searching the entire building, no woolly mammoths – only their skeletons. Bummer. Still, lots of other interesting things to see.

After a few hours browsing I wandered down to their cafe with my stomach grumbling. I wasn’t expecting much but, boy was I surprised. Real food. A self serve salad bar and proper, healthy food. I had a lovely lunch

Next stop (of sorts) was Central Park. A certain daughter of mine, who shall remain nameless, lost all our photos of our last visit to New York’s Central Park so I had to take some more. It is such a beautiful oasis in the middle of this bustling city. Being Saturday, and disgustingly hot (it was still 32C at 7.30pm that night) the park was swarming with people. Was fun to people-watch but not so much fun for photos without someone walking into my shot. Still, I enjoyed it.

After spending a few hours there, I decided to just wander my way back Downtown. I zig zagged between 5th Ave and Madison Ave until I hit the Empire State Building. The queue was huge and the wait to buy tickets and get to the observation floor was nearly 2 hours long. Ah ha! Express ticket. More than double the cost of the normal ticket but who wants to stand in a queue on a hot, stinking evening? I got to bypass everyone and they even held up the line to make sure I got into the lifts first – hilarious (well for me but not the grumps who paid the normal entry and had to wait). It was worth the price to be treated like royalty LOL. I made it up in 5 mins but, unfortunately, the express didn’t include getting rid of the nongs who hogged the view and it took ages to get what I did. Would have preferred to get the sunset but, no luck.

After leaving the Empire State, I wandered around the area for awhile before deciding I should eat. On the way to look for somewhere suitable, I got in the middle of some lunatic black guy who turned, just as he passed me to abuse a guy who was standing directly in front of me. They were yelling at each other with arms flailing with me being the only separating them by 1 metre. I’m glad the little guy turned away (smart thinking as the other guy was HUGE) as I did not want to be in the middle of either’s fists.

I ate at a little Hollywood diner and then continued on my travels. It seems taxi drivers the world over are morons – must be a prerequisite to get their licence. One stopped smack bang in the middle of the crossing to let off passengers and made all the pedestrians walk around him and the other figured the light wasn’t quite the right shade of red and nearly drove into me – missed me by about 1cm I reckon. His window was down and I politely asked him if he would like me to teach him the rules of the road, “Mate, would you like me to educate you on the finer points of road rules in New York?”. His passengers laughed – I could still hear them as he gave me a disgusted look and drove off.

I was almost back to the hotel when I met Marcus (or Marv if you know him really well like I do LOL). He was selling his CDs and figured I’d like one. When I thanked him but said I wasn’t really interested, he said “Where you from?” I said “Australia” and he said “Fairdinkum” I had to laugh at that as he said it so well…and bought his CD for $5. Sucker born every minute. Although, I haven’t listened to it yet. He might become famous and he did autograph it for me LOL.

Finally made it back to the hotel and the rest, as you know, is history. Blisters on my feet and exhausted – slept like a baby.

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