EVEN more from NYC

Okay… today was a much bigger day… So, Kev (Irish) and I had talked about going on the walking tour of Greenwich Village this morning – a guided tour around that part of the city departing at about 10am… so I got up (groggily) at about 8, and wandered around until about 9.30 when I made a mad dash in a T-shirt down the street to the ATM cause you can only take $100 out at a time at the one here and they charge you an extra $1.75 on top of it… stuff that… plus the tour cost $10, and they only take cash. Anyway, 10.15 rolled around and we were advised that the guide had called earlier and cancelled due to the fact that it was freezing cold outside and there were only 2 names on the list… nice of them to tell us earlier (by the way, most of the people working at this hostel are from New York… it’s a shame… but they’re rude, boring, and have very little personality… real shame)

Anyway so Kev and I were sitting around with nothing to do, so we decided to get the City pass book which gets you into all sorts of city touristy things, and start the day by taking the ferry tour around Staten island and the statue of liberty etc… all well and good… we took the tram to times square (Helped by some locals who told us that the 2 and 3 trains are express and only stop at a couple of places – one of them 42nd which is Times Square) finally figured out which direction we were meant to be heading, walked the 15 odd blocks to the dock, and found out that the tour during Jan and Feb isn’t running on Tuesdays or Wednesday s… funny… ha-ha… yeah. So the next closest thing was the Empire state building… so back we trudged towards the towering peak – that’s one thing about New York… If you do happen to get lost, you can generally always see the tip of the empire state building sticking up above you somewhere… which is sort of comforting in an overpowering sort of way. So we found it, and we found the entrance and we headed up to the start of the tour, where we found out that because we got the City Pass book, we got the “Sky ride” for only $10 instead of the usual $25. The sky ride is like a virtual helicopter ride around New York… on like a hydraulic platform that seats probably 30 something at a guess… and after some initial problems (that were apparently solved by closing a door properly and asking the dude what time he was heading to lunch – the answer was 2.30 by the way for those of you interested… I know we weren’t) we were taken on a fast paced stomach lurching virtual tour of the city. Pretty cool, but I’d feel mighty pissed if I’d paid $25 for it, even if it was commentated by Kevin Bacon…

From there we headed to the lift. Those of you who either know me or have read my blog at all in the last week or so would know of my fear of heights and of my recent visit to the Provincial Tower lookout in Boston. At a mere 50 stories, I was not afraid at all and quite comfortably looked out over the edge of the building to the streets below… The Empire state building is a building that a month or a year or 10 years ago I could have quite comfortably told you that I had no intention of ever going to the top of. But it was part of my city pass book, I’d paid for it, and it’s really only 46 stories higher than what I’d been in in Boston… only twice the height, HA! Nothing… a Piffle… and on top of that I was strengthened by the fact that Kev from Ireland is even worse with heights than I am – to the point of burying his face in the corner of the lift as we went up… Pretty funny… *coughs* anyway, we got to the top, and once again, I surprised myself by being OK. I mean… not fantastic, and no where near as comfortable as I had been in Boston, but OK. I even went outside and got right up to the edge (eventually) and took some pretty amazing photos… Very proud of myself… it’s something that a lot of people would not believe I could have ever done… but I’ve changed guys… I even talk to girls now! I know… amazing…

So after another hilarious lift ride down to the bottom we decided that the next stop would probably be the Museum of natural History, so we went there, had a look around, there was an awesome show in the planetarium which would have been awfully romantic to take a girl to… and there I am with an Irishman… *frowns* something wrong with that picture… but it was a 25 minute presentation on collisions – from the collision that formed the moon, to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs to a few other ones that I cant recall right now and hosted by a voice out of the darkness that although initially I thought was going to be introduced as God, was actually Robert Redford… after the show Kev was bored and decided to come back to the hostel for a nap, and I continued to loose myself in the museum. No, really… I got lost… its an amazingly huge place… but I got some great photos of the exhibits… really pretty cool… and Huge… not something you can really do in half a day, so I figured that Id look at a couple of floors and promise myself to come back at some point, with a romantic interest and do the whole thing properly… with someone who appreciates that kind of stuff…

So I eventually found my way outside – fortuitously on the side where central park is – which is where I wanted to be, just as the sun was beginning to go down – and looking like it might have been a really cool sunset I decided to find some places to take some good photos… I think I did alright – played with the shutter settings on my camera a bit and got a couple of what I think are probably alright shots… some of you will see them at some point… *shrugs* some of you might not… some of you will if you want to ask me nicely. Anyway, I killed a good hour wandering around Central Park towards the city (past a part of the park that they were pumping throat burning artificial snow into for some festival or other) and then caught the subway back to the hostel… where I am now…

Tonight I’m going to a comedy thing on Broadway… I’ll let you know how that goes in the next few days!

Ciao for now…