New York - Day 7

Day 7: A Day of Disappointments
Sunday, October 2nd

I know that heading doesn't sound terribly optimistic, but thankfully the disappointments weren't as bad as they could have been, so it wasn't like they ruined my day or anything ;)

Our very last full day in NYC :-( Once again, I had fallen head-over-heels in love with the city, and was definitely not ready to go home the following day! We were determined to make most of the day though, and fortunately the day dawned bright and clear with nary a cloud in the sky. Excellent! We'd wanted to visit the High Line Park and this seemed like the perfect day for it.

Funny aside about the High Line Park - Jennet had suggested it when we were in NYC last, but somehow we just never got around to seeing it. Then when we were planning the visit this time, Lars told me, "Oh, by the way, there's an old railway that has been turned into a park - I really want to see that!". Ehh... yeah honey, I know. It was on our list last time too. "Oh! I never knew!". *g*

Anyway, the weather was indeed perfect for a walk up and down HLP, and we all enjoyed the quaintness of it - even if Lars did grumble that some of the switches were all wrong, and obviously just there for show ;) - and had great fun discussing how a similar park would work out in Copenhagen.


After we'd reached the end of the park, we decided to split up and go our separate ways. Lars wanted to finish up his trainspotting, and funnily enough Henni and I weren't too keen on joining him for that, so we went up north to visit the Met and American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) instead. They were both part of the CityPass (I can highly recommend the CityPass to tourists! We got to go on the Circle Line, visit ESB, MoMa, the Met and AMNH for just $80. The top of the Rocks was also included, but we didn't have time for that)

Unfortunately, the Met is where I encountered my first disappointment of the day :-( Irina had taken me there on my last visit, and it was one of the highlights of that trip. I'd told Henni about it, and really wanted to show her some of my favourite paintings from that visit. At that time they were all in the visible storage, so naturally we headed straight there... only to discover that practically all the American paintings had been moved to the American wing, which was currently closed in preparation for a new exhibition opening in January/February of next year. Noooooooo!!!! :-( I'm pretty sure Henni didn't mind too much, as she didn't know what I was going to show her anyway, but I was hugely disappointed, and promptly sent off a text message to Irina, lamenting my misfortune ;)

Ah well, the visit wasn't a total waste as we headed off to the European paintings instead, and were once again reminded that while neither of us is too fond of modern art, we do love the classics! Especially Monet :)


Museum walking isn't the best activity for my leg though - and especially not on the last day, after a full week of walking! - and as we still wanted me to be able to do a tour of AMNH, we cut our visit to the Met short, and walked across Central Park to AMNH - buying lunch at a street vendor along the way, and eating it in a shady spot in Central Park. I LOVE that we've been able to sit outside and eat in OCTOBER!! :-) ). This time we managed to find both Belvedere Castle and Shakespeare's garden, so at least we got to see some of the things we wanted to in Central Park.

Henni and I each had our different agendas for the visit to AMNH. She wanted to see Rexy and Dum-Dum (yes, she's a fan of "Night at the Museum" as well ;) ), and I wanted to see the American mammals, as I had missed out on getting a photo of the brown bears when I was there last, and wanted to recify that.

Moving from the top down, we found both Rexy and Dum-Dum where they were supposed to be, but when we got to the hall with the American mammals, it turned out that half of it was closed off for restauration!!! I couldn't believe my (lack of) luck, and rushed through hoping that it was the other half... But no such luck, the brown bears were closed off, and no photo was to be had this time either :-( Phooey!

Once done with AMNH we decided to head back to the hotel early, in order to pack before dinner. On the way back in the subway, I realized that I actually really wanted to go to just one more bookshop (I think I couldn't believe I'd bought only 3 books! ;-) ), so we consulted our map, and discovered there ought to be one on Columbus Circle, which was right on our route back anyway. So we got off the train, and went into the mall at Columbus Circle... only to discover that the bookstore I had marked was one of the Borders that had closed!!! Of course I knew that some of the Borders in NYC had closed, but I also knew it wasn't all of them yet and thought I'd done my research properly and crossed off the ones that had closed. Obviously I either hadn't been thorough enough, or I had just missed that one. No matter what, I was out of luck, and both Henni and I were starting to find it just a tad too funny that pretty much everything I had set out to do today had been a disappointment :-/ It's a testament to Henni's excellent company and New York's charm that I still considered it a good day regardless ;-)

Oh, and Henni did offer that we could go to one of the Barnes & Nobles instead, but I have to admit that at this point I had run out of steam, so I was fine with just heading back to the hotel - via Starbucks of course ;) I had a peppermint mocha, which most of all tasted like liquid After 8 - not a bad thing at all ;)