New York: Day Six

You may be thinking; "What happened to Days 3, 4 and 5?" Well be patient grasshopper, they'll be coming soon. But on today, September 11th I felt that I needed to post this. I didn't know if we'd get to go to ground zero, but the night before we left, we had an opportunity to go. We went with with Carmen's sister and her husband. He works for a construction company so he had some cool insight into the crane incidents and he had worked on a few projects near the ground zero. The last time I went to New York, over 7 years ago, the towers were still standing, and I even got a good look at them as my plane flew into JFK from Seattle over Giants Stadium and lower Manhattan. I had no idea that would be the last time I'd see them that close. On that trip 7 years ago, besides my flight, I would only see the towers from the Whitestone Bridge.

The picture to the left is the 'progress that has been made so far. It's pretty pathetic if you ask me. But the politicization of the process of selecting a memorial and a new design for the freedom tower have apparently bogged down construction significantly. Hopefully they will have it finished by the 10th anniversary as Mayor Bloomberg is pushing for. We'll see.

The pictures at the top are on the fire station next to ground zero. It was a pretty impressive memorial and the pictures don't do it justice. As a side note, I think all the firefighters at the station were Irish because they talked like the policeman at the zoo in 'Lady and the Tramp'.

After we left, we went to the South Street Seaport and took some pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge (which didn't come out) and the waterfalls around the city which they have temporarily put up. It was pretty cool. The day was generally a cool day. We pretty much relaxed that day and hung out before we went to Manhattan. I may go into more detail about that later, but I really wanted to get something up today, before I go to work.

New York: Day Two

Day two started off slower than I'd have liked. We were up a little late, but of course we stayed out late the night before. We finally got going and headed to the subway to take the train to the Museum of Natural History. We got to the museum which I didn't realize had it's own entrance from the subway, gave our donation (which was significantly less than the suggested donation) and began looking around. We saw the Earth science section which unfortunately had its own section designed by an Al Gore acolyte, but had some really cool stuff otherwise. As Carmen and I were talking about it, some people were giving us strange looks. Oh well, liberals.

Next we went to the North American Mammals exhibit which had some impressive displays of caribou, moose, bears, mountain lions and any other wild animal you can think of in North America. The detail was fantastic, and having not been there since I was a kid it was a great experience seeing it again.
We also went to see the sea creatures, African Mammals and Dinosaur exhibits, and they were all done in spectacular fashion. About half-way through our museum tour we went outside to get some lunch and we had more hot dogs, again good, but no crunch and a pretzel and went across the street to the shade of Central Park. From there, and upon going back into the museum I got these pictures.

One of the TR quotes in the entrance hall didn't come out, but I love all of the quotes. I especially like the endings.

I'll write them out here. In speaking of manhood TR said: "Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die, and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life."

In speaking of the State TR said: "If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness."

On Nature he said: "Conservation means development as much as it does protection."

On Youth (the picture didn't come out right) he said: "Character in the long run is the deciding factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike."


After we left the museum we were waiting for Carmen's sister to come pick us up. Carmen hadn't seen her in about 12 years and even though they didn't grow up together, they have a lot in common. We hung out in Central Park until she got there, and we lied in the grass, (which you can't do most places in Texas right now) and watched the kids play.

After her sister picked us up, we made the drive out to Yonkers and hung out at their apartment for the afternoon. Isabella and her cousin Andrew hit it off and we talked to Carmen's sister and her husband for awhile. We took the kids to the playground down the street and hung out for awhile. Eventually we had to leave because they were going to Pennsylvania the next day and we had yet another busy day lined up. I paid excellent attention to the route Sasha (he's Russian) took back to Queens and we talked for awhile while Carmen and the kids watched a movie in the back of their 'fancy van'. The way to get to the part of Queens where Carmen's mom lives is different from
the parts of Queens I used to go to, and we were going to Connecticut the next day. But we finally got back home, went to bed and were getting ready for day three.

New York: Day One

Day one started at midnight. I worked the evening before we left and when I got home, it was time to pack, get about 3 hours sleep and head to the airport. The flight was smooth except the landing was rougher than I'm used to, but all in all, pretty good. We were waiting for awhile after we landed, because my mother in law was at the wrong terminal to pick us up. If anyone has ever been to JFK, you may know that it is a labyrinth and an airport that was designed a long time ago, struggling to make it into the 21st century as the busiest airport in the most important city in the world. Anyway, she finally found us, we went to her place, had lunch, got settled in and I took a nap as Carmen took the kids for a walk around the old neighborhood. Awwww Yeahhhh! Hollis Son! (Insert RunDMC song here)

That night we went on a date to a raw food restaurant. The prices were high, but I attribute that partly to the cost of the ingredients and partly to the fact that the restaurant is in a trendy neighborhood in Manhattan. The food was incredible and quite honestly worth every penny. If you're ever in Manhattan and want to try excellent food, go to Pure Food and Wine. After that, we decided to walk the 25 blocks or so to Times Square. It was a great walk and a nice night. (it was in the 70's :D )

On the way I was thinking that I haven't had a real New York Hot Dog in a long time and there's nothing better to top off a great dinner of raw fruits, vegetables and nuts formed into delectable goodness than a common NY Hot Dog, from your friendly Sabrett street vendors of course. I have to admit though, I was a little disappointed. I remember that the thing I loved about the Hot Dogs from the Sabrett vendors is that they would crunch when you bite into them. I don't know why, and I probably don't want to know why, but there would be a very distinct crunch. The crunch was not there, and after 7 years of waiting I was of course very disappointed.

When we got to Times Square, it was probably about 11 at night, but you couldn't tell. The city there is lit up like it's 4 in the afternoon with massive ads all over the place. One thing that our family is sensitive to is advertisements. We don't have TV so our advertisement load is limited to the Internet (which I don't pay that much attention to advertisements on) and billboards. But New York takes advertising to the next level. In Times Square I suppose I expected it, but what really shocked me on this trip was ads on bridges, in subways and anywhere else that is conceivable (or even inconceivable)

We walked around for a little while and went into the massive Virgin Records store, looked around for awhile and decided to make the trek back to Queens. On the way to the Subway, we saw some impressive art. A guy with a can of spray paint was creating some impressive skylines of NY, complete with WTC 1&2. (More on the WTC later) Then we hit the subway and a bus back to Hollis. Anyway that's Day One.