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| It's grand and it's central! |
Well, we’re in NYC. Mmm… waking up at 3:30AM…BOO! We actually had to take 2 flights – Houston to Memphis and Memphis to Newark. The Memphis flight was really rough; we met some turbulence and the pilot couldn’t turn off the seatbelt sign until we were practically there. The second flight was uneventful.
After we got to the hostel, we grabbed the camera and headed off to the subway. We got off at Grand Central station. After admiring the amazing zodiac ceiling and the architecture, and looked at the clock, and took tons of pictures we walked to the Empire State Building.
We climbed to the top (or rather the elevator took us to the top) and had a spectacular view of the city. After we had made a complete circuit, we went to the gift shop to buy some necessities, like stuffed King Kongs. We saw a gigantic model of the Empire State Building that was made out of Legos , complete with a Lego monkey on top. In the end, I settled on a “Z” with NYC themed pictures.
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| I can't see the 600th floor from here! |
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| disco delicious! |
Next, we stopped for an authentic slice of NY pizza. It was delicious! After that, we proceeded to Times Square to look for the Pop Tart store, the M & M store and the Hershey store. My mom didn’t want Pop Tarts, so she and my dad had cupcakes at a place called Crumbs.
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| at least it's not swarming with scorpions today! |
First we found the M&M store, so we looked over all the levels of shopping. In the end, I chose a little pendant. Right across the street was the Hershey store. If I could, I would have emptied the racks at both of the stores, but I couldn’t. We found out that the Pop Tart store was only a temporary installation and now GONE! GONE FOREVER! The horrors! Ah well, enough pouting.
We went back to the hostel and collapsed into bed. The next morning, we crawled out of bed and down to the subterranean depths of the subway to go to the Metropolitan Museum. We walked across Central Park and took pictures of Cleopatra’s Needle.
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| no, really, I'm part of the exhibit! |
Inside the Met, we saw the Egyptian wing, Arms & Armor, the American Wing (only 1st floor) and the Greek & Roman wing. In the Egyptian wing, we saw the Temple of Dendur, the original supports from Cleopatra’s Needle, fabulous jewelry, canopic jars and amulets made of lapis and faience. We had just a brief look at Arms & Armor, but a long look at American furniture and furnishings. Our last wing was the Greek & Roman wing, where we saw the saw the little girl’s grave stele from Percy Jackson’s Yancy Academy field trip.
This was not a “real” trip to NYC – just a long layover. We weren’t there for 24 hours, so my mom just kind of put together a “Rick Riordan” highlight tour. We mostly tried to see stuff from the Kane Chronicles and Percy Jackson and also this Sesame Street DVD I was apparently obsessed with when I was a little kid called “Don’t Eat the Pictures”. We hit the gift shop and then had to race top the airport to… POLAND!
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