Day 175: Reading in the Park

After taking tally of the remaining sights I wanted to see, I found there wasn't much left on my list. I considered going to MoMA, but it's relatively cheap $14 student tickets and renown couldn't top my historical lackluster experience at art museums, often finding myself way out of my element and over my head to fully appreciate whatever I'm looking at.

What I did find more appealing was stopping at a used bookstore to pick up a copy of Gulliver's Travels for $5, finding a shady bench in Union Square Park, and sipping on a Slurpee from 7-11.

And that's exactly what I did.

In the late afternoon, the day's sun and heat turned into storm clouds and wind. I took the metro back to the hostel before things got any hairier.

Day 174: Midtown with Kate

After restocking on groceries in the morning I met my cousin Kate underneath the Washington Square Arch in Midtown Manhattan at 12:30pm.

Kate was in NYC doing a research internship at NYU.

We spent some time talking on a bench in the park while listening to one of the numerous jazz groups that busk there during the weekend.

From the park we walked to the adjacent NYU main library, which I loved (plentiful seating, outlets, WiFi, reading rooms with fantastic views of the city!). Visitors aren't normally allowed, but security was kind enough to give me a one-time pass.

We were getting hungry, so we walked over to a weekend market that Kate had seen on her way to the park. I got a mango and pineapple smoothie, but had to go back a few hours later and get myself a pita gyro as well. We returned to the park, me with my smoothie and Kate with her kebab, and listened to a performer who had rolled a grand piano with wheels into the park to perform.

According to Kate, the university often rolls pianos into the park. Although we saw multiple performers on the piano, there wasn't any indication that it was a university sponsored event. On both sides of the piano are stickers with "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS" written on them.

After the second performer ended his set, they opened the piano up to passerbys. I wasn't confident enough in my piano skills at the moment, and Kate and I went down to the fountain to take a selfie for our parents.

We decided to go to Starbucks, Kate to study and myself to work on my blog. On the way there, we passed by the piano again. It was sitting empty, and my brain waves at that moment were running at just the right frequency for me to do something spontaneous like sit down and play something. I played the only thing I was reasonably confident I wouldn't mess up too badly, a sort of variation on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star where I first play the classical, harmonically perfect version of the piece then switch into a jazzed up version of the harmony and rhythm. Some people in the audience laughed (good naturedly, I'm sure) when I first began playing the "straight" version of the piece, but I got a healthy round of applause after I hit the last notes on the jazzy variation. The whole experience made me look forward to getting back to my own piano even more!

Thanks for the fun day, Kate!

After a few hours at Starbucks, Kate left and I followed shortly after, back to the hostel.

Day 173: World Trade Center and Times Square

After taking care of some necessary business in the morning, I took the metro all the way down to Lower Manhattan to where the World Trade Centers were located.

The World Trade Center is actually a building complex of five buildings, a memorial, and a museum -- the modern day buildings in the process of replacing the original seven buildings that collapsed during the September 11 attack. The main building we see today is technically called One World Trade Center, the others being sequentially named Two WTC, Three WTC, etc. Although Five WTC and Six WTC are not being rebuilt, one, two, three, four, and seven are.

I visited the memorial for the fallen towers and those who died in the attack. It's quite sad just being there. Water falls from all sides into the pool below, and slowly makes its way to a smaller hole in the center, where it falls down one last time. It's designed in such a way that you are unable to see the bottom of the second hole, no matter which angle you look from. On one of the sides of the smaller hole there is a somewhat obvious door for easy maintenance access, which I didn't like because I felt like it took away from the purity of the minimalist monument.

I spent some time exploring the nearby waterfront and Westfield mall before grabbing a calzone at a pizza shop and hopping on the metro elsewhere.

The white spikes belong to the modern architecture of this Westfield mall.

My destination was Columbia University. 

I wanted to see the campus and library of one of the most prestigious universities in the US, but when I got there I was in for a surprise.

Thunder and lightning!

The main campus looked beautiful, if small, but a flash downpour sent me scampering back towards the metro station.

I was intending to go directly back to the hostel, but after I emerged from the metro station during a transfer the sun had already come out again and I heard someone mention going to Times Square. I was only a few blocks away so I figured why not (more like "why not in spite of my socks being wet").

The sidewalks are, of course, inundated with tourists, but I found a space with some breathing room at the south end of the square to snap photos of the buildings from while the sun set.

After some confusion on the metro ride home with route changes during the weekend and scheduled changes for the June 30th to July 3rd period, I made it back to the hostel around 10pm. I had had a few interesting experiences on the metro that day. The first being when a flutist/beat boxer performed for us while on my way to the WTC. The second being when a clearly mentally unstable man kept raising and lowering his arms above his head on my way to Columbia, at one point telling the people sitting across from him "Ayyyy fuck you!" before remaining silent for the rest of the trip. The final experience involved another man playing a bluesy version of When the Saints Go Marching In on his harmonica on my way to Times Square.

It had been a very productive and busy day.

Day 172: Staten Island, Rooftop BBQs, and Carnegie Hall

I went with my latest kiwi friend to Whitehall Terminal to take a free ferry ride by the Statue of Liberty, onward to Staten Island.

We got a bit lost on the metro on the way and had to backtrack a few stations until we finally got to where we wanted to be. There's no tickets to be reserved, you just arrive at the ferry terminal and congregate in a large crowd until they open the flood gates and everyone flows on board. The ride to Staten Island takes only 25 minutes.

Jersey City, Manhattan, and Brooklyn from the Staten Island ferry terminal

After arriving on Staten Island, I got the sense that the ferry ride was free in part to help inject some money into the area via hungry and bored tourists. The ferry terminal looks like a mall and is easily the most lively part of the city. In stark contrast to Manhattan, Staten Island feels like any other small sized American town -- boring, quiet, and poor.

We bought a few snacks from a convenience store and consumed them in a nearby park before catching the next ferry home at 1:30pm.

I went back to the hostel while the kiwi went to see the Brooklyn Bridge. I was planning on going to the Museum of Modern Art, which I heard was free from 4 to 6 that day, but by the time I got food inside of me it was already 5pm and I was too jet lagged to go out. At 6pm there was a barbecue put on by the hostel atop their roof. The trains running by every few minutes and Empire State Building in the distance made for a really great vibe.

I had to leave the BBQ early to go to Carnegie Hall for tonight's concert. Fortunately it only took me 20 minutes to get there from the moment I walked out of the hostel front door.

The recital that night truly was an eclectic mix of old (like 16th century old) English music, minimalist pieces like Philip Glass, and self compositions by the performer. 

In general, I have an active dislike for minimalist piano pieces, but felt like the quality of the concert hall and piano this time were able to do the pieces more justice this time around (opposed to when I had to sit through an hour of minimalist piano performance in Belgrade). Overall, it was a tolerable recital, but not, for me, worth the $30 student tickets I purchased.

After the concert I went directly back to the hostel to get some sleep.

Day 171: Central Park

In the morning I took the E line to a few blocks south of Central Park.

 I walked all the way from the south end at 57th St. to the north end at 110th St.

Central Park has at least a dozen baseball fields of this size

Fellow tourists in Sheep Meadow

Perfect place to relax in the shade, Sheep Meadow

Beethoven and I meet again

A family by "The Lake". There's a beautiful fountain directly behind me, but photos don't do it justice.

Rowers in The Lake

The massive Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. Popular with joggers.

Residential units with a view of "The Pool"

Central Park has these beautiful sedimentary rocks that are sometimes exposed at the surface. They shine in the sunlight from the silvery specks that spot their surfaces. Apparently it's this same kind of rock that makes the ultra tall skyscrapers of Manhattan possible, without which they would lack sufficient structural integrity. 

After ascending and descending Great Hill at the top left corner of the park, I took the metro back to Midtown. I had passed by Carnegie Hall on my way to the park, and stopped there once again to see if I could snatch some cheap tickets while I was here. I bought $30 tickets for "An Eclectic Exploration" piano recital, to be held in the Weiss Recital Hall tomorrow night.

I returned to the hostel and was so tired from walking and jet lag that I didn't find the energy to go back out again until a newly met friend from New Zealand took me out around 10pm to get drinks at a nearby bar, The Beast Next Door.

It was a good time, but paying 7 USD for a beer was a bit of a painful experience. I went to bed shortly afterwards.