14th Jan: uptown girl

Today we enjoyed a wide variety of breakfast cereal! I had some wheeties, and in doing so received 90% of my daily iron intake, among other things.

We passed the post office on the way to the subway. The post office was a most interesting place. There were without a doubt the most surly workers on duty. No customer could do right! They could yell at anyone and put them in their place, if nothing seemed wrong, the simple use of marker could be cause for more yelling. We were worried about which surly worker we would get, but thankfully we did not get yelled at, and did not seem to cause much trouble. We then struggled to make our way past a blind person hitting and yelling retarded person (somewhat like I first imagined the whole of New York to be like, it turned out to be much better) and caught the sub.

We raced excitedly up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This has art from all periods, from all over the world! It was MASSIVE, you could get lost in it, and it would take you days to see everything. We started with the Egyptian exhibit, which included an ENTIRE tomb! So extravagant. There was many a statue, and many a mummy to be seen too. We walked into the most grand 'great hall' which was included a sculpture garden, the Tiffany windows and a house entry into period rooms from the 18th century. It was incredible. We checked out the arms and armour, the medieval art and the tapestries. We came through and saw the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. We the moved through the Greek and Roman art, many a statue, column and many a vase used for mixing wine and water. Seemed to be all they got up to! Then we went up to see the ancient Asian art, including a beautiful Japanese roof garden!

Then we strolled through Central Park and found ourselves some bagels and cream cheese for lunch! Oh the New York bagel - I salute thee. And Jacki we found the Alice in Wonderland statue and admired it, and thought of you! Around the bottom it had heaps of cool quotes from the book. No-one can resist but to climb on it. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring more of Central Park. We made our way around to Strawberry Fields. Across the road from this is the Dakota building.

We caught the subway up to Columbia University. The grounds were very beautiful, but did not allow for much fun. No walking on the grass (in cleats) and no loud noises. BOO! We couldn't even use their washrooms! We popped into a second hand broadway shop, which was pretty cool, and then went down to Columbus Circle. This housed the Christopher Columbus obolisk (to mums joy) and is home to the Time Warner Center, a giant glass mountain of shopping mall.

Somehow managed to fit in a bit of shopping before heading over to the Museum of Natural History for the last free hour. This was pure joy, we luckily ended up in the rock and formation of the Earth section. I was overjoyed. Then we ended up in the diversity of life section, many a stuffed animal and a diarama to enjoy there. We were hustled out of the museum, and into the most magical cupcake store of all. Crumbs, recommended to me by a friend who lives in New York. The cupcakes were monstrous and delicious! Had some Budweiser and some tea, and got ready for Washington DC!