Live From New York...

Statue of Liberty from the Ferry

Wednesday May 6, 2009 1:00 AM EDT

OK I guess I shouldn't really say live from New York since I'm in Jersey at the moment but that's where everything exciting happened today.  To start off my day on the right foot I actually caught the right bus leaving from near my motel so I didn't have to walk 6 miles.  A funny thing happened on the 2nd bus going into NYC this morning.  The windshield wipers on the bus were kind of broken and kept getting tangled with each other.  Our driver tried to fix them a few times but couldn't and couldn't see without them so we had to wait for another bus to come and pick us up.  This crazy lady sitting behind me started going off on the driver though and then she would call her husband or someone and complain very loudly about how terrible the buses are so that everyone could here her.  She had quite the mouth too.  I felt bad for the bus driver because it wasn't her fault at all but this lady was taking everything out on her.  Then she almost got in a fight with this guy on the bus that was trying to get her to cool it.  Anyways we made it to the Port Authority bus station and I headed down to the Subway to go to Central Park.  I had a nice walk through the park to start the morning and then found my way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I think I spent 2 or 3 hours in there but I easily could have spent all day.  It was amazing how much they had and I really enjoyed all of it.  Some of it took me back to my humanities class this past summer where we looked ancient cultures beginning with the Greeks in 1500 and then on up to the Renaissance.  I really liked seeing pieces similar to those we studied there in real life.  It is much more interesting to see them that way than just a picture in a textbook.  I think after a while I was beginning to get a better feel for art too and appreciate some of the finer aspects.  I'm not sure what my favorite thing was there, there's just so much to choose from that it's hard to say.  Unfortunately today I left my camera in my motel so all my pictures are on my cell phone and I can't figure out how to get them off at the moment.  One thing I liked though was the medieval era stuff.  They had a set of 4 knights on horseback set up which was really cool.  Oh another area that was really fun was the Oceania area.  They had all kinds of stuff that reminds you of Tiki men and witch doctors there.  

After the museum I headed over to the Empire State Building for a ride up.  They give you an audio tour thing to take along as you look out from the observation deck, it was really quite good.  I learned a lot about the building and New York itself from the tour.  One thing that I thought was especially amazing was that the Empire State Building was built in 14 months in 1930!  At times they were progressing faster that one story a day.  I have to say that the ESB doesn't look exceptionally tall from the bottom looking up since you get used to seeing so many other tall building around, but when you look down from the top you get a real appreciation for how high up you actually are.  From the ESB I headed over to Times Square for a quick peak around and then down to Battery Park to catch the ferry out to Liberty Island.  I got there too late to see Ellis Island as well unfortunately.  I did enjoy seeing the statue of liberty from closer up, you can't go up or in it though with out paying a little bit more.  To finish out my day I went and saw Grand Central Station and Rockefeller Center.  Both were very cool.  Whenever I come back at least now I'll be oriented better and know exactly where to go to get on the Today show in the morning.

Well that about wraps up my day.  On the way home I caught a cab in lieu of the 6 mile walk.  I must say that I'm really starting to get public transportation down.  At least the subways I'm feeling pretty confident I just wish that they had bigger print maps and more posted throughout the stations.  I must say though that the NYC subway makes DC, Atlanta, and BART light rail systems all look pretty puny.  Well that's all for me, goodnight world!