Day 4

Tuesday, 10th June

Meeting William!

Another HOT day! We slept a little later, this morning, but still managed to get down to breakfast. Then we hailed a taxi and asked for the Dakota Building/Strawberry Fields (John Lennon), from where we were going to walk up to the American Museum of Natural History - but the driver didn't appear to know where either was, so we opted to be taken directly to the NHM! There were all sorts of paper mache horses outside.

Inside, there were 10 zillion screaming kids ....

We had a quick look at the mammals gallery (stuffed critters in "authentic" scenes)

Then we went off to the Rose Center for Earth and Space. Went in the shop and bought some tumble stones and then looked at all the geology bits; there was even lava from Mt Rainier! But the whole thing was spoilt by those screaming kids!

dodo skeleton

We had a time slot of 12:00pm for the Cosmic Collisions show in the Planetarium, so we went outside for a while, where it was hot!

We then queued up for the lifts into the show (after walking past the "custodial closet", where we imagined hundreds of children to be tied up and gagged), amidst 10 zillion screaming kids! While we were waiting outside the planetarium, came that message that "school and camp groups" must keep quiet or they'd be chucked out. Hallelujah!

The show was very good. The "moon" collision made me jump. All was narrated by Robert Redford.

We left the NHM and walked across Central Park. It was a marathon task; just to walk across Central Park - in that HEAT! We stopped at the Boathouse Restaurant for lunch and fed the pigeons. We then walked 2 more feet and had to sit down, by a (large) pond. We walked another 2 feet and had to stop at the Alice in Wonderland statue. 2 more feet (and oozing sweat) to yet another sit down.

We finally reached the Metropolitan Museum of Art, by which time, we were totally exhausted!! We went off to look at the Egyptian stuff and searched (successfully!) for William! We had a stop at the Temple of Dendur, which was impressive. We then must've walked through most of the departments and looked at most of the paintings (including tomatoes and pomegranates), in our search for the elevator which went up to the Roof Garden! We finally found it though and went up to enjoy the view over Central Park from there. It sure was hot.

Temple of Dendur




more art on the roof!

We then took ages finding our way out!! We enjoyed the Met, but wished we'd had more time. But, as it was, we left at just about chucking out time! My personal favourite section had been the Modern Art - particularly the Picasso's, the Dali's and a large, strange painting by Balthus, called "The Mountain".

There were loads of people, waiting outside for a taxi and there was a lot of dashing into the road, with everybody pinching everybody else's taxi. But it was too hot to be polite! Back at the hotel, we rested with oxygen masks and heart massages... We went down to supper, although this was not as nice as the previous evening's offering - they had already run out of beef and all we were left with was salad, cheese and rolls!

24-hour coffee and tea


hotel lifts


outside our room!


outside the hotel


outside the hotel, with the smokey pole! The greenery is Bryant Park.

We walked up to Times Square. I bought a Father's Day card in a Japanese shop and then we went into Applebees for something to eat. I had a strop on, for some reason (weariness?) and refused to eat anything! I did have a "smoothie", which was all ice and no milk!! The hub complained about his meal (too hot!) and they didn't charge for it!

We then crossed the road to a last-minute shop in one of the myriad souvenir shops - and, when we came out, a high wind had suddenly appeared, whipping up dirt, paper etc and sending it sprawling down the streets and high up into the air! Realising that a big storm was a-brewing, everybody scattered; running in all directions from Times Square! The lightning was shooting down amongst the skyscrapers - it was an amazing sight, if not also a scary one! We almost ran back to our hotel!

just before the storm

The storm, thankfully, did not last long. (But, see You-Tube! and this one!) I checked in online with JetBlue for tomorrow's flight to Chicago and went downstairs to print the boarding passes. Had to ask for help! We then packed up our bags, ready for the early wake-up in the morning.

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[ Introduction ] [ Day 1 ] [ Day 2 ] [ Day 3 ] [ Day 4 ] [ Day 5 ] [ Day 6 ] [ Day 7 ] [ Day 8 ] [ Day 9 ]
[ Day 10 ] [ Day 11 ] [ Day 12 ] [ Day 13 ] [ Day 14 ] [ Day 15 ] [ Day 16 ] [ Day 17 ]
[ Day 18 ] [ Day 19 ] [ Day 20 ] [ Day 21 ] [ Day 22 ] [ Day 23 ] [ Day 24 ] [ Day 25 ] [ Day 26 ]

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