NYC: Day 3

This morning, Mandi had an ethics mid-term so I was left to wander again. I started out purposeless, but after walking down to 5th Avenue, decided to head for the Empire State Building. It looked so close!

It was not so close, but only took about 30 minutes to walk there, including stopping to take photos and generally be tourist-y. I had a great time gawking at the Flatiron building near Madison Square Park.

By the time I got to the Empire State, I knew Mandi would be getting out of class soon. But I had come too far to turn back, so I quickly got in the observation deck line. The line moved pretty fast, I thought, at least until I got to the elevator, which by comparison really DID move fast. I spent a good 20 minutes on the freezing 86th-floor observatory deck, snapped a bunch of pictures, then headed down. I hunted around the base of the building for a restaurant my great grandmother had apparently left a glove in—a story my parents have always told when prompted with the subject—but didn't find anything so I walked swiftly through the cold back to Washington Square.

Mandi had her last class for the week that afternoon, so I'm off again—this time south. I walked clear form SoHo into the downtown area. The sheer size of the buildings hurt my neck and I wondered around the state capitol building and the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge before catching the subway back.

I rested my feet for a while and that evening we again went out again, this time uptown to Times Square and Broadway! We had tickets for Avenue Q, an ingeniously hilarious Sesame Street parody about the hardships of real life and burgeoning adulthood. Mandi and I were both struck by the actors' skill, both in handling the puppets and acting themselves.

We also coincidentally pasted by Birdland, the famous jazz club that gave Charlie Parker his fame. But after having such a busy day, I was more focused on heading home for the night. Maybe next time.