Fun in The Big Apple

I'd like to dedicate this blog post to my iPhone and 3G cellular networks, without which we might have been lost, dead, or incredibly hungry. And unable to document everything that happened (click on the pictures to see them full size. And yes, we took videos too, which I guess I should try to combine into a large movie clip before I try to upload)

Not sure exactly where to begin with this post, except by saying that I am sitting on the bus typing up a WordPad document trying to figure out exactly where to begin with this post. Long story short: Swetha and I made a spontaneous trip to NYC! It was incredibly exciting (it was her first time), tiring, stressful, and yet so wonderful. In fact, we are having a difficult time looking back at the skyline right now and not weeping. 

I usually go home for post exam weekends, and this has been one of the few times I have not since the fam has decided to go skiing. Skiing + me = pain so I figured I’d just stay instead. Friday night was the JeffHOPE ball, and if that were something that occurred later in med school (like 3rd/4th year), didn't require a $70 ticket, didn't require a new dress, and didn't require getting dressed up after taking exams for 6 hours, maybe I would have attended. But instead, we took a pleasant walk down to Rittenhouse Square Park on Friday night (60 degrees!), played ball, and came back home realizing that we had not done any packing at all. And yet we somehow managed to catch a morning bus out of Philly into NYC.

With minimal $$ spent (of course, this requires lots of walking and packing our own snacks) we hit up major tourist attractions while also avoiding getting mugged or killed.

Rockefeller Plaza

Our first stop was the Rockefeller Center. This is the location of NBC studios and where the show 30 Rock (watch it!) is set. Excellent things to do here include skating in the rink, touring NBC studios, climbing up 30 Rockefeller to view the city from an observation deck, and just walking around and immersing oneself in the wonderful upbeat atmosphere (just ignore the lame songs playing in the background). We visited the LEGO store, which contained a LEGO model of Rockefeller Plaza. Picture on the far right = dragon made of LEGOs!!

Times Square + Shopping

I think the best time to see Times Square it is on a summer evening when you can walk around, eat street food, have your brain addled by advertising, and get swept away by the glitz. However, it was pretty spectacular when we went too.

We visited a good number of the stores along 7th Ave and Broadway. The M&M store has three levels, all of which are filled with chocolate. Much self control is needed here and it's best if you visit on a full stomach. I had my very first taste of Peanut Butter M&Ms!

We visited a rival candy store after this, the Chocolate factory, or something (Hershey's). I had to be dragged away from various items made of solid white chocolate. We also visited American Eagle, the Hard Rock Cafe (took some pictures with actual instruments played by Maroon Five and Linkin Park!) and the Disney Store.

Time Warner Center, Museums

We walked a mile down Broadway, right through the Theater District and ended up in Columbus Circle, which contains the Time Warner center (photo below), which is just a really nice mall. To avoid passing out from looking at price tags, we did not actually step into any of the stores, but made plans to return someday when we had money or husbands with money. 

Museums

From Time Warner, we walked another mile or so up alongside Central Park to the American Museum of Natural History (an hour before closing time - when it's free!) and strolled through the galleries filled with animal models. Made me miss childhood (MoS!!). If anyone knows how they make those animal models, let me know because I am curious. It's not real animal hide, is it? Anyway, we culminated our visit by watching a presentation on the Big Bang Theory narrated by Liam Neeson. Just pretend that Qui-Gon Jinn is speaking and it’s cooler. We left the Museum of Natural History, and cut right through Central Park. We likely would have been lost without my iPhone's Maps feature.

Our next stop was the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art (The MET). Apparently they only recommend that you pay a certain admissions fee, so after solemnly swearing to someday donate money to the Met, we slipped right in for free. The museum is very very vast and three hours later, we somehow managed to briefly visit almost all of the galleries. I even let Swetha drag me through the gallery of Modern Art.

My advice is to not try to look at everything because that would be impossible. Instead, spend time looking at what interests you and take in the ambiance of each gallery. We almost had a high class dining experience at the Met (accompanied by live Jazz musicians), but it seems we needed early reservations or something like that. We especially liked the Temple of Dendur and the gallery of Egyptian art.

There was also this cool gallery just for South Indian art and I would have stayed there for longer, except it was almost closing time. At this point, the museum security staff started giving us looks and we felt it best to avoid their wrath, especially seeing as we hadn’t paid.

Staten Island and the Statue of Liberty

We took a ferry to Staten Island (also free!) which gave us an excellent view of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Be thankful for this video because I nearly got frostbite standing outside on the deck and filming this. Staten Island ended up being pretty deserted—it was actually kind of like a scene out of I Am Legend. Every eatery we looked for ended up being sketchy and all boarded up...weird, I know.

Statue of Liberty as seen from the ferry

The Financial District

We ferried back to Manhattan, making plans to visit City Hall and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, both of which offer free guided tours. But turns out these things are closed on weekends (why why why why why) so we had to content ourselves with walking around the Financial District. We did however get to visit Ground Zero, St. Paul's Chapel, the 9/11 Memorial Preview Site, and Trinity Church. These were, of course, free. And unexpectedly, we ended up having just enough time to walk Wall Street (THE Wall Street), past the New York Stock Exchange and other fancy schmancy buildings.

Me! And Wall Street!

And so ended our trip! Note: Total spent on attractions = $0. In fact, all the money we spent was on the Subway and on some food here and there. 


That's it! As always, thanks for reading.