The weather was much more cooperative today. It was overcast early on, but the sun came out while we were walking around and it actually warmed up into the 40s. I feel pretty lazy. Kirsten and I set our alarm for 8:00 AM, but didn't actually get up till around 9:45. The neighborhood traffic is fairly noisy so the fact that we've been getting good sleep at all is a plus. Jonathan has an espresso machine so we spent a good part of the morning after waking up playing around with it. Since I work part time at a coffee shop, I took the initiative to make the morning lattes, but after using an absurdly expensive machine at work, this one felt like a toy, but a fun one. The drinks weren't bad.
We finally got into the city a bit before noon. Today was mostly a walking day, and we spent far more time on the street than actually in any shops or buildings. We started at Grand Central Station, which was even larger than I expected. The most interesting thing was the ceiling: a perfectly rendered approximation of the ecliptic across the night sky, complete with all the constellations and stars. It was really beautiful. We walked around 42nd Street and that area for a while, stopping next at the New York public library. For a tourist like myself, the library wasn't terribly impressive since we went into the non-lending main research branch. There's no browsing there, and that's how I usually prefer to look for books. The interior of the building is pretty wonderful though and we did get to look at several exhibits: a display of photography in Afghanistan since 1993, a large room of murals depicting important scenes from the history of book making and printing, and another room with some interesting early 19th century portraits, presumably of people important to the library. We popped into one of the reading rooms, but again, since we weren't there for research, there was really little reason to stay long. Next, we found ourselves walking around Times Square, an outdoor temple to capitalism and corporatism if ever there was one, and it wore thin pretty quickly. However, we did get to see the naked cowboy. How weird. After a few stores - the M&M store, Virgin Records (which is going out of business) and a few others - we got out of there. We took the subway down to Canal Street and bummed around Chinatown for a while. Kirsten took me to this really great Chinese place called the Shanghai Cafe. She goes there every time she's here, and it was worth it. I got a really great spicy beef and noodle soup and some fried dumplings and stole a hefty portion of Kirsten's lo mien. We then met up with Jonathan at his school again, hit a really hipster coffee bar (that nevertheless had some great books lining their shelves), went to a few bars and came home early. We're going to try to actually get to sleep early tonight so we can get a reasonable start tomorrow.
The tentative plan is to traverse Central Park and then end up at Natural History Museum. That should take the whole day, after which we'll probably drop by Jonathan's school and maybe go downtown. By the way, we do have a camera and have taken some pictures. I'll be sure to get some up here and on Facebook as soon as possible. More posts to come!
We finally got into the city a bit before noon. Today was mostly a walking day, and we spent far more time on the street than actually in any shops or buildings. We started at Grand Central Station, which was even larger than I expected. The most interesting thing was the ceiling: a perfectly rendered approximation of the ecliptic across the night sky, complete with all the constellations and stars. It was really beautiful. We walked around 42nd Street and that area for a while, stopping next at the New York public library. For a tourist like myself, the library wasn't terribly impressive since we went into the non-lending main research branch. There's no browsing there, and that's how I usually prefer to look for books. The interior of the building is pretty wonderful though and we did get to look at several exhibits: a display of photography in Afghanistan since 1993, a large room of murals depicting important scenes from the history of book making and printing, and another room with some interesting early 19th century portraits, presumably of people important to the library. We popped into one of the reading rooms, but again, since we weren't there for research, there was really little reason to stay long. Next, we found ourselves walking around Times Square, an outdoor temple to capitalism and corporatism if ever there was one, and it wore thin pretty quickly. However, we did get to see the naked cowboy. How weird. After a few stores - the M&M store, Virgin Records (which is going out of business) and a few others - we got out of there. We took the subway down to Canal Street and bummed around Chinatown for a while. Kirsten took me to this really great Chinese place called the Shanghai Cafe. She goes there every time she's here, and it was worth it. I got a really great spicy beef and noodle soup and some fried dumplings and stole a hefty portion of Kirsten's lo mien. We then met up with Jonathan at his school again, hit a really hipster coffee bar (that nevertheless had some great books lining their shelves), went to a few bars and came home early. We're going to try to actually get to sleep early tonight so we can get a reasonable start tomorrow.
The tentative plan is to traverse Central Park and then end up at Natural History Museum. That should take the whole day, after which we'll probably drop by Jonathan's school and maybe go downtown. By the way, we do have a camera and have taken some pictures. I'll be sure to get some up here and on Facebook as soon as possible. More posts to come!
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