nyc - part 3

I promise part 2 will be up soon, but it requires much concentration and should probably be written and posted outside of the office and since I have been experiencing internet connectivity issues at home for the past 3 weeks and won't be all back together until the weekend. So, it just isn't gonna happen before then, sorry! :O)

So on to Sunday, my whole free day in NYC!

I can hardly believe that I actually did see almost everything I most wanted to, in just a day. I started by walking from my hotel on east 31st street up to broadway. I stopped for an authentic slice of nyc pizza, a true delight and some water before heading to the theatre district/times square and surrounding areas. Wow is times square an eyeful, so many colors, signs, building-size "tv" screens, billboards, and a sea of people (probably mostly tourists like me) everywhere you look, it is almost too much to take in.

I stopped for an ice cream cone from the ice cream man - something I haven't seen in so long, just before entering central park. You could spend a week in central park alone, no joke, to just attempt to see everything.

I decided to try a speed round of the half of the park I was closest to, which coincidentally is the half that had the bulk of things I wanted to see. Aside from the most fabulous people watching ever, it is a simply beautiful place full of beautiful and delightful things:
A bronze statue of Alice in Wonderland
the pond for RC sailboats
the paddle boats and gondolas's for cruising around one of the larger bodies of water in the park the horse drawn carriages and bicycle taxi's
the Shakespeare Garden and castle that is surrounded by the dragonfly preserve
Strawberry, Sheep and various other fields full of people tanning, resting, reading, playing, etc.
"The Ramble" was my favorite, I think. It's just this wild maze-like section of "forrest" that seems straight out of a fairytale.
The baseball diamonds, the carousel, the basketball and volleyball courts
The different landscapes, the bridges and underpasses, the crazy skyscrapers peeking above the treelines
And probably 20 more little things I have already forgotten...

Two words really describe it: lovely and amazing!!

(& remember, this is only half of the friggen park and only what I managed to get to/see!!!)

I then decided to walk back to a restaurant I saw earlier to have dinner. It was on either Broadway or 7th, had an open front with tall tables and was advertising a fresh lobster dinner for a pretty reasonable price. I, of course, ordered the lobster and a nice glass of wine to go with it.

last but not not least, I walked from the restaurant over to the harbor at 42street & 12 to try to catch a ferry. After standing in line for an hour or more only to hear that they had accidentally oversold the tour and therefore I stood in line the whole time for nothing, some divine intervention provided an extra boat at the last minute, so I got to go on the harbor lights tour afterall.

The boat tours the harbor such that you see jersey, the statue of liberty, ellis island, the main bridges and manhatten skyline, lit up for the night. So great, that it was worth standing on my burning feet another 3+ hours.

I took a ton of pictures, which I will post soon.

Upon leaving the boat, I realized there was just no way I could walk back to my hotel, and there wasn't a cab in sight, only limo's and they were not cheap. I found a sweet bike cab driver and asked him for a fair deal and he agreed. I was just so so tired by then, that I probably didn't enjoy that nearly as much as I would have liked to, but I did have a few moments of "how cool is this?!" as the wind whipped thru my hair and people stared and waved as we rode by. It was quite exciting and movielike to be moving through the NYC street out in the open.

I snuck out to by bagels at a corner shop before I went to sleep that night to share with the work family, and packed all of my things so I would be ready when the alarm went off at 4am.

I made it up and to the airport on time, and that my friends, concludes my first trip to NYC!