Bronx Bombers

Weather Forecast: Hot & Humid, stormy this afternoon

Randy's Health Forecast: cloudy and still coughing.

The List is getting shorter, (even with a few additions) but there are still some must see's!   This list is to help with my memory.  These are things we do not have tickets for, and are not scheduled per se. I am trying to decide how much we can do today before we have to board the D-train to the Bronx around 4 pm.

Apple Store 5th Avenue

FAO Schwartz 5th Avenue

New York Public Library

Carnegie Hall & Deli

Serendipity3

Dylan's Candy Bar

Eleanor Roosevelt Statue

Lincoln Center

Museum of Natural History

Central Park Dr. Who sites:  Bow Bridge, Gapstow Bridge (duck pond, also where Holden Caulfield says "where do the ducks go in winter?") half dome stage on the mall (to a specific bench where Dr. Who reads Amy's last goodbye.) and the Bethesda fountain where Enchanted was filmed. 

The Met and The Guggenheim have less priority for Stella now after seeing MoMA. If I can still get the Neue Galerie to see the Klimt exhibit, it would be lovely. I was just reminded about the Egyptian Wing at The Met. We will maybe get delayed there for a good portion of our day!

Today we will start on the west side at 72nd street and head across Central Park on Terrace Drive, seeing the sites along the way. We will hop a bus up Madison to the Guggenheim for a picture, and then down 5th Avenue, stopping at The Met and then back down to the Gapstow Bridge and duck pond.  Checking out the shops at 59th and 5th.  We will catch the bus down 5th Ave to 42nd street and see the Library!! 

Sorry for the ramble, but this is so I can remember what to do today, so I don't miss anything! I am also thrilled, I just learned how to save a PDF bus schedule to my iBooks!  Wahoo, feeling pretty confident going paperless in NYC.

Well......it was another upper 90 degree day with dew points in the upper 70's.  We sweat our way through Central Park and then got stuck at The Met, there are worse things!

We got off the C train at 72nd and walked into Central Park.  We walked through Strawberrry Fields and had to shoo pigeons with our feet, they were so dense!

I failed to download the Central Park app, and there are no maps to be found until you are inside the park and there are no street signs....thank goodness Stella had good bearings and found a map kiosk that made sense to her.  She navigated us straight to the middle of the Mall. There were street performers, people feeding pigeons, horse drawn carriages and all that kept running through my head were songs from "Hair".  Stella asked me to stop singing, of course.  

Stella is sitting on the exact bench where Matt Smith, the eleventh Doctor Who sat when he filmed the season seven episode "Angels take Manhattan".  She is pretty thrilled.

We have to head to the Bow Bridge where Dr. Who and Amy are reading a book, and later in the episode Matt Smith runs over this bridge to return for the book that was left behind in a time jump.   I learned way more than I wanted to about Dr. Who today!  The Bow Bridge was also in Enchant

We walked back and took pictures at the the Bethesda fountain where Enchanted was filmed.  At the fountain I kept singing "how does she know that you love her?"  ...and of course I was asked to refrain from singing, by the teenager. If I can't sing in Central Park, where can I? 

When I was in Europe when I was young, Susi and I would find statues and monuments and take pictures that looked like we were spitting fountains, or things floating on our heads, or the tops of headless busts....I made Stella stand so it looked like the fountain was sitting on her head.  She was not amused.  

One of the pillars on the stone steps leading down to the fountain contained an owl and a book.  Had to take this shot for Library Guy Grandpa!

The details in the architecture of the park would take days and weeks to study, just looking up as we walked under the arch to the fountain this was the ceiling above us, echoing the sounds of two violins and a floutist playing under the arch.

The plan for the day was to head over to Madison and catch a bus up to 96th to the Guggenheim...well,  Stella was game to start walking north...and walking, and walking.  We missed the cutoff to the 79th street gate and ended up having to walk all the way up past the Obelisk to 84th street. It was SO hot and Day #5 of sightseeing hit us hard today.  We sat on a bench near the Obelisk for a bit, contemplating our options.  I was too tired to veer off our trajectory to actually see the Obelisk, but Stella went to check for a back door to The Met.  There is not.  

We walked all the way around to the front and navigated the sidewalk closures and construction of the new gardens and fountains opening in 2014, and finally arrived at THE MET!  

Turns out, if we had saved the receipt from the Cloisters we could have entered free today, instead we paid the full freight to support this incredible museum. We now know we can go back again and pay a buck.

This museum is HUGE!  We needed to make some quick decisions about what to see.  We knew we had only two hours so we headed straight for the Egyptian Art Exhibit.  People told us about this temple removed from the Nile, brick by brick and cleaned a reassembled here.  We entered the exhibit and went into a tomb.  It was a bit too much for this claustrophobe, so I high-tailed it out, thinking that was it.  We kept wandering through the exhibit and found the real Temple of Dendur.  

Now this was more like what was described to me!  Stella and I were the most fascinated by the  graffiti carved into the stonesin the 1800's!

It was pretty amazing

I wanted to get to the rooftop to see the garden view overlooking Central Park and Stella wanted to see the Greek & Roman art.  I was so lost in the museum, but it was Stella who taught me to look for the numbers on the doorways to find my way!  I did not understand how she always knew where we were!  We split up, after a quick glance through the Arms & Armor exhibit, with a plan to meet at 2:30.  

The view from the roof was a view I would get nowhere else.

I did not want to ride on another elevator if I could help it, so I ran down the stairs to the second floor just to pop into the Modern & Contemporary Art exhibit to see what I might see, knowing I only had 15 minutes before I had to meet up with Stella.  I ended up in a place I could have been for hours and hours. I only got a quick look at the works of Renoir, Degas, Monet, Klimt, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Van Gogh's self portrait.  I tore myself away, knowing there were O'Keefe and Dali works in there somewhere. Racing through, we saw Faberge eggs, mini Lady Liberty, and Stella was amazed on her trip too.

 I love Klimt.  I may be able to let go of the Neue Galerie, since I have seen a few in other museums!

There was so much remaining on the list for the day. We were hot, tired and had to get back in time to catch the train to the Bronx!  We caught a downtown bus and rode right on past the Apple Store, and FAO Schwartz, never did make it over to Third Avenue to find candy and ice cream, however we seem to be content eating ice cream out of trucks on the street! 

 Will I ever get to the Library?

We got back with a half an hour to rest before the trip to the Bronx. back in the hotel, in the elevator, we realized we had not even seen the penthouse pool yet!  We ascended to the top floor and found it locked. I was not pleased.  The pool was locked, and there appeared to be no other way down besides the elevator.  No emergency exit at all.  One door to pool and one door to the locked ballroom. Our elevators have been less than reliable since we arrived.  Not affecting us personally, but 'out of order' signs hung on them and the lights and numbers not working inside. I held my breath until we returned to the safety of the sixth floor.  Maybe we will check the pool hours before we try to do that again!  The view from up top isn't so bad though! 

 You can see the Skyline Deli in the lower part of the picture (blue neon) our favorite  place to grab breakfast!

Silly girl with rubber legs, ready to rest for a minute!

Randy had been sleeping all day and was up for this adventure, no matter what!

Grabbed rain gear and jackets...funny, I thought I might be cold.  NOT!  Standing room only at rush hour on the D-Train, but it moved fast and we got to Yankee Stadium with plenty of time to see Monument Park.  

A little over the top Yankees!

I love this shot with the flags reflected in her glasses! 

We had amazing seats in the Jim Beam Suite with indoor and outdoor seating, free soda and popcorn and drink service in our seats. The view was amazing, the game was pretty exciting, but too bad it was a loss for the Yankees. 

It was so humid today, when Stella took out her pony tail, her hair was still wet from this morning! 

 Got seats on the D train special and we have a tired girl waiting for the A train to get us home. I said to Randy, "That's the most you've been out of the bat cave since we got to Gotham, Batman!". Hoping beyond hope he feels like going out during the day tomorrow!  Three things checked off the original List today!  Central Park, The Met and Yankees Game.  

Now everyone is asleep but me.  

I really want to get to the New York Public Library tomorrow, if my legs work!

##There are a few invaluable transportation tips Stella has taught me on this trip##

1. There are 'kneeling busses' with a hydraulic device that lowers the steps of the bus.  (Cool!).   

2. When you put your Metrocard in the slot on a bus, the people on the card are upside down.  It took me five days and Stella's explanation to get it right. 

3. Elevators here have digital scrolls on the top that tell you where they are currently, not where they go to.  This has been confusing since day one!   Yankee stadium, Randy did not want to get on the elevator that said 'Field Level" because we needed to go to Suite Level.  But the elevator was ON field level.  It is the exact same information we see, but with numbers.  For some reason, with words it is confusing. 

4. When the subway announcement says 'there is a (blank) train one stop over' that does not mean you are on the wrong track and need to move down the block...it just means the train is coming! 

 I know there are more, but those are the main ones! She is a great travel companion and a pretty city savvy kid!