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Published: February 11th 2012
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Before I start on today's story, I'll just finish of a couple of things from yesterday. Firstly, I didnt end up going out at night. I just crashed once I got back to the hotel and couldnt move. Between still being stiff from being on a bus for a month and being sore from coughing for a month, I just didnt have the will to move, so to those I missed seeing last night, if you read this I'm so sorry! Also, I forgot to mention how safe I felt in Harlem yesterday. I think it gets a bad rap due to its past, but that couldnt be further from the truth now. Not once did I feel threatened, and not once did I see a beggar. For those who aren't sure whether or not to go to Harlem due to feeling unsafe, just go, it's totally fine. Just stick to the main streets and you wont regret it.
Anyway onto today, the day I'm calling "The day of ROCK!!!!". Not that I planned it this way, it just happened. First off I headed to the Museum of Natural History to see some rocks (well fossils, but just go with
it). It is such an amazing museum. First I went to a planatarium show that described the lifecycle of a star, and yes I actually stayed awake this time. Next I headed across to the Butterfly House, which is similar to the one at Melbourne Zoo. It is a bit smaller but from what I can recall about Melbourne, the one here has alot more variety of species. I wandered through the hall of African Mammals on the way to the Dinosaur Exhibit. Alex the Lion has become my pet name for Nikki since she drunkenly called me that in New Orleans, so I had to stop and take a photo of my "relatives". Once I got to the dinosaurs, they were so cool!! I have always loved dinosaurs (I think most boys do at some stage) so to see the most complete T-Rex skeleton was really a dream. They also had skeletons of Barosaurus, Allosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus and Teradactyl. The only let down of the museum was that there were a few school groups there, so it made the museum very busy and noisy, but I cant fault the museum for that.
Next I went and completed the
parts of Central Park that I missed yesterday. There wasn't really that much more to do to be honest, so I probably should have done it yesterday. It took me about 2 hours to go around and see the Bethesda Fountain and Terrace, Alice in Wonderland Statue and the Wollman Ice Skating Rink. I headed out of the park and ended up finding another lunch time special. 3 courses for $24 (incl tip and tax), which included a salad, grilled salmon and tiramisu. It was one of the better meals I've had over here, and the best part was it wasnt so heavy that I couldnt move after it, which was lucky because I still had a full day ahead of me.
The next part of my Day of ROCK was the ROCKerfeller center, to visit the Top of the ROCK. I had heard differing stories about whether this has a better view or whether the Empire State Building does, but Top of the Rock has views of Central Park, and also of the Empire State Building, so that swayed my choice. I was so glad I chose it in the end. The views of Central Park were spectacular.
I cant believe I walked the whole thing! Not only that, you could see all the way down past the World Trade Center to the Brooklyn Bridge and to the Statue of Liberty. You could also see parts of Queens and New Jersey. It was amazing!! I wanted to wait until sunset to get photos of sunset and then night time, but it was going to be an hours wait until sunset so I decided to head back. On the way home I stopped at the TKTS booth to see if I could get some discounted tickets to ROCK of Ages tonight. Lo and behold, they had some available!
So around 7.30pm I headed out to the Helen Hayes Theatre to see Rock of Ages. I was actually wanting to see this show when it was in Melbourne but never got around to it, so to see it on Broadway was the obvious choice. I absolutely loved it. From the start to the end it was just constant laughs and great 80's music. The best part was they used a live band, so it was like a concert as well as a musical. It was fantastic, a great way
to end the night.
Tomorrow I'm planning to take a round trip on the Staten Island Ferry to get up close(ish) to the Statue of Liberty and to get a good view of the Manhattan skyline.
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