The Day in NYC

On Sunday, some of the girls from the internship and I decided to go to NYC. We had kind of talked about it this past week, but we didn't really make a decision until Saturday night.

At the Princeton Junction train station preparing to head to Newark / New York!! This is (from left to right) Margarita (from Mexico City / Arizona State), Svenja (from Germany), and Carina (from University of Nebraska - Lincoln).

The whole gang of girls - Nele (from Belgium), Margarita, Svenja, Carina, me, and Katherine (from University of Iowa - she's the one I carpool with).

This was Margarita's first time on the train - can you tell how excited she is?! :)

There's not a Starbucks in Belgium (at least not where Nele is in Ghent) but she sure does love it! She had her first iced coffee - ice is not a big thing in Belgium.

Quickly finishing our food and drinks before going to the MOMA - Svenja, Katherine, Carina, Nele, and Margarita.

Nele didn't know that there were two sizes of straws so she grabbed a long straw for her tall drink. Sunday was the Puerto Rican parade down 5th Avenue - we got there before it started but the sidewalks were already getting crowded.

Preparing to enter the MOMA - the whole reason for the trip. Svenja's host-lady volunteers every month at the information desk at the MOMA so she was able to get us all free tickets to go! That saved $12 (student price) to $20 (adult price) - depending on what they would have charged us.

Interesting sculpture - we wanted to get into the boat and start rowing!

A fun car in the museum.

After spending a couple hours in the museum, we decided it was time for lunch (it was 1pm!) so we took a break and headed out.

A pretty building we walked by on our way to lunch.

We chose to eat at Carnegie Deli. If you're ever in NYC you should definitely go! Pics and autographs of celebrities are on the wall and it's just a fabulous deli with a great environment! They sit you at huge tables so you might sit next to strangers, but that's half the fun (we sat next to a couple from England).

The waiter offered to take a picture of us once our food arrived. Margarita (front left) got a normal sized sandwich - a grilled cheese - while Katherine and I got the BLT that was not so normal-sized.

Isn't it HUGE?! The owner walked by and asked if we needed more bacon and then a waiter walked by and asked the same thing - I think it's a joke with them.

The sandwich was delicious but I couldn't finish all the bacon! (I had to take some of it out to even get my mouth around the sandwich in the first place!)

Although we were getting full, we decided we had to try a piece of their delicious cheesecake so we split it amongst the six of us. It was definitely DELICIOUS!!!

After lunch, Svenja, Nele, and Carina headed back to the MOMA while Margarita, Katherine, and I headed to Central Park.

This "ballpark" had five fields in the same area so the outfielders were all overlapping - I don't know how they don't get injured running into each other, but perhaps no one hits it that far?! :)

A cute bridge in Central Park (south of 72nd somewhere on the west side).

Margarita really wanted to see the Imagine mosaic so I'm glad we were able to find it.

After the Imagine mosaic we headed a few more blocks north to the castle.

It started to rain while we were at the castle.

I believe this is where they do Shakespeare in the Park - I've never seen it but perhaps I can try to get there this summer (if it's not already sold out)!

This is at the top of the castle. I had never been to the top before so this was a neat experience!

This is a view of the lower part of the castle from the upper part.

After touring the castle (at 80th), we decided it wasn't raining too hard so we chose to walk back to the MOMA so we headed south through Central Park and probably made it as far as about 68th before we hit a dead-end on the path and had to turn around a little and find another way south.... somewhere in the process we turned in a circle because we came out of Central Park at 88th! Oops!! (Margarita said "Hey! That looks like the big lake (Jacqueline Onassis Kennedy Reservoir)!" and I said "no way! we should be soooo far south of that!" and yup, she was right and I was wrong!) Did I mention it was raining the whole time? And I forgot my umbrella? Yup! Definitely not one of my best moves!!

Along the way we saw some cute ducks who were trying to sleep in the rain.

And we saw some cute geese!!!

And some beautiful scenery!!!

I love how Central Park is situated so that you're in this huge park where you can't hear the sounds of the city and yet the buildings just tower over the trees! Beautiful!!

We were as far south as the boathouse and then the huge circle fountain was closed (that was the path we were going to take) so we walked back over the pretty bridge and headed... to... well, I guess 88th! :)

After making it out at 88th and 8th, we had about ten minutes until we were supposed to meet the rest of the girls at MOMA (54th and 5th) so we decided to take the subway. We got a little turned around at the station (the guy said to take the D so we entered the gates walked all the way down the track and realized there was no D so we went back and the guy said "nope! the D doesn't stop here!" thanks, buddy!) but we finally figured it out and we took the C and then had to walk five or so blocks to get from the station to the MOMA - again, in the rain!

After meeting up with the other girls, the three of us from the park were soooo thirsty and the other girls wanted a hot chocolate or something (and the MOMA cafe was about to close so that wasn't an option) so we asked a security guard and he said to go to Lou's Cafe which was one block away - a perfect distance in the rain!

Oh, and on the way we were stopped at 53rd and 3rd waiting for the light to change and this police car just pulled over quickly, the officers quickly got out, and then threw a guy up against the car and yelled curse words at him and patted him down - it was crazy intense!! I think the guy had hit the car (in like a "hey! i'm walking here!" movement) and didn't realize (or was stupid?!) that it was a police car (yes, it was marked!) so they got him - I think the situation was heightened by the fact that the parade had just let out within the last hour or so only a couple blocks from there. Anyway... back to Lou's Cafe...

Yes, I'm soaked!!! I got a delicious drink that's very similar to an Orange Julius and it was perfect! It hit the spot!!

After our snack, the rain stopped so we decided to walk a couple blocks south to Rockefeller Plaza - not as pretty without the tree but still a sight to see.

We passed St. John's on the way.

Katherine took a picture with the strong man.

Rockefeller plaza - without the tree and without the ice.

Then Katherine said "Hey! Do you think there's a 30 Rock sign?" So we walked further south to look for a sign and we happened to see a HUGE crowd outside of Radio City Music Hall. I said "maybe it's just a play" (since people were dressed up!!) and then we walked further and saw the signs for CBS and Tony Awards! Duh! It was the red carpet for the awards show. So we stopped for a little while and then people started yelling "Daniel! Hey, Daniel!" and after a couple minutes, Harry Potter himself walked over and took a couple pictures with a couple girls who were a few people in front of me!

I think it's so nice that he stood in the rain to take pictures with fans!!

Then we could see Green Day walking the red carpet - but we were across the street so my picture didn't turn out too well.

Then the rain picked up again so we decided we'd had enough and headed for the nearest subway station.

By this point we were ready to head home!

Our subway let us off a block from Penn Station so we walked there from above ground - which was nice because this entrance puts you right at the New Jersey trains.

By the way, ever since the horrible time we had finding Elaine in Penn Station - I do not like this place at all!!! It's horribly laid out and they only tell you your train track ten minutes before the train arrives so you have to practically run to catch it - you and a thousand of your closest friends. It was crazy for a minute there but we made it all on the same car of the double-decker train - we couldn't all sit together, so we paired off.

Svenja and Margarita.

Nele and Katherine.

I think everyone felt like they had a successful day and they got to do everything they wanted to do. In case you're wondering, we caught the train at Princeton Junction at 8:44 am and we arrived back at Princeton Junction at about 8:15 pm - so it was a nice long day.

Smile: I had a wonderful time back in the city and I might go back again this next weekend - I could definitely get used to this!!

Frown: Hopefully I'll be able to make some serious headway on my personal research paper this week - so far it's still in the outline phase so wish me luck!!

Extra Frown: A fellow intern is originally from Camaroon (he was in the green shirt at the bar on Saturday) and we got to watch the last part of the game while eating lunch today at ETS and sadly, they lost! They were supposed to kick butt and they lost to Japan and I felt soooo badly for him - to say he's a fan is a dramatic understatement of his passion for his team and for the sport. Hopefully they'll play better next time!!