New York - Day 2

Our second day in New York started out grand.  We had breakfast at a little deli on the corner from our hotel.  Egg with melted cheese and sausage in a roll.  It was much better than McDonald's!  After breakfast we started the first day of our three day double decker bus pass.  (As you will see in this picture and others, the theme of this trip was "The Thinker Pose".  My family is weird.)

Our first stop on the bus tour was the Museum of Natural History.  Since we were there about an hour before the museum opened, we decided to walk across the street and wander around Central Park for a bit.

Central Park is very pretty.  I'm sure it would be even better in the summer when the trees have leaves and the flowers are blooming.  Surprisingly it is very hilly.  I did not know this but, all of NY was full of hills and they eventually leveled most of it to make way for the city life.

After Central Park it was back to the Museum.  The inside of the museum looks nothing like it did in the movie Night at the Museum.  It was interesting, but I definitely do not need to go back!

After the Museum of Natural History it was on to the Guggenheim.  Again, to me it was extremely boring.  Some people looked completely fascinated and enthralled.  Me?  I just wanted to find a bathroom that hadn't already been occupied for 20 minutes by some guy.  (Unisex bathrooms in the Guggenheim.  And I don't know if the guy was in there for 20 minutes but he was in there quite a while and I was too chicken to go in after him.)

Apparently you are not supposed to take pictures inside the Guggenheim.  We were allowed to take pictures at the Museum of Modern Art and Natural History. When I saw no signs advising otherwise and observed others taking pictures I assumed it was fine at the Guggenheim as well.  Not so.  I managed to snap the pictures below before the security guard informed me that I was not to be taking pictures.  Whoops.

Next stop, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Harlem.  The cathedral was amazing.  It is tall enough that the Statue of Liberty could stand up inside.  We had a tour scheduled but we were early for that and hungry so we took a little walk to find food.  We came across a little Mexican dive.  It truly was a hole in the wall.  Only 4 or 5 tables in the whole place, but they served some of the best tacos I have ever had.  Hit the spot and we were ready for our cathedral tour.

After the cathedral we made our way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  We were all pretty museume'd out at this point and did not spend a lot of time here.

By this time we were getting hungry and decided to make our way back toward Times Square.  We had dinner at a place called Stage Deli.  The sandwiches we had were the biggest I have ever seen in my life and they tasted just as good too! 

On the left is half the sandwich, the right is the half we had started eating.  We had to take it in sections.  Some people in the restaurant tried to put the whole thing in their mouth.  That was amusing!  Pretty much impossible to do unless you have an expanding jaw!  A lot of the corned beef/pastrami sandwiches are not what we know to be Reuben sandwiches.  They have the meat and cheese but most of them had coleslaw instead of sauerkraut.  Still really yummy if you like a Reuben sandwich.

Once we were sufficiently stuffed we waddled to our hotel to put warmer clothes on for the night tour on the bus...