New York City!!!

Hey everyone,
I had the wonderful opportunity to go to New York City and spend the day with my great friend Daniel. We spent hours upon hours walking through Manhattan, seeing some of the great sights in the area. Here are some pictures and stories of what we did...

I can't remember the name of this building, but it was pretty cool. I think Dan said it was in the Spiderman movie, but I really can't remember why we took pictures in front of it. Hmmm....

After walking for 9 hours or so we were really hungry. We went to a pizza place and got authentic New York Style pizza, and it was great! The one on the right was mozzarella and basil and it was the best pizza I've had since Christina and I went to Italy.

These pictures are really out of order, but I guess that doesn't matter. After eating dinner we went to the building where CBGB was (CBGB is the music venue where the Ramones got their start). We went inside and found ourselves out of place pretty quickly, since CBGB is no longer a punk venue but a sort of hipster store that sells 3000 dollar suits that look like 10 dollar suits. After walking out we were on Joey Ramone Place, which was pretty cool.

I caught the bus at the Southside Seaport so we walked through Chinatown (where we were enticed by the smell of fish and urine) and along the East River (which, coincidentally, also kind of smelled like fish and urine). Anyway, this picture is on the river in front of the Brooklyn bridge. There was a public art installation along the river of man-made waterfalls that was kind of cool.

This is actually our first stop. I got to Manhattan around 9 am and Daniel was waiting for me at the library. We were right next to Central park so we walked through there for a while. After walking through this area we went to the strawberry fields area where they have a memorial for John Lennon. Next to the memorial was a panhandler who had the funniest sign ever: "All you need is love. And cash. And beer. I want beer. I'm a christian" It almost enticed me to give him a little bit of money for his honesty.

This is Times Square, I think. One of the coolest things about Manhattan was that you could see buildings and architecture for miles in every direction. It was unbelievable. It was really at this point, pretty early in the day, that I really fell in love with this city. By the end of day it had replaced Washington DC on my list of favorite US cities.

Here's Daniel in front of David Letterman's building. We had just had breakfast at the Galaxy Diner where the waiters and waitresses all sing. Some guy was singing on a table right above us which made it kind of difficult to talk. It was fun though.

This is kind of a bad picture due to the crazy lighting but this is inside the New York City Public library, which was amazing. I would love to go back here and spend a week or so. It was so beautiful on the inside...

We spent a little bit of time inside the United Nations building but they really don't let you get too far inside (unless you want to pay a lot of money, which we didn't). Anyway, here's Dan in front of various flags of countries I don't recognize.

All in all, it was one of the best trips I've ever taken and probably the best day I've had without Christina ever. I had a blast walking through this city (I think we saw most of it) and my legs are killing me this morning. Many thanks to Daniel for being a hilarious tour guide (he even embarassed a few of my students who were attempting some sort of awkward romantic moment) and a great friend. Thanks a lot!