Okay people time for.....

DAY 2 (uptown loop)

Well its time for the second day. I decided to take the Gray Line bus tour trough New York City; because you had two days unlimited hop in hop off service. I was planning to take full advantage of that. My sister showed me the way to the bus and than she went to work.


The uptown loop chart, for more info go here

There was a pretty big line, so I had to wait. But the wait is made easier by some gray line salesman’s that had no clue what they were doing. They were selling some tickets to an Asian group of 3 and something went wrong. So you had 3 salesman’s giving each other money and yelling to each other. A funny sight indeed. Something else I noticed in New York, it is very disorganized and chaotic. If people are in a perfectly straight line, they yell to you to fill the spaces, causing a line to fall into chaos. Lot’s of pushing and showing commence.

Of course when my buss arrived I got a taste of the New York hospitality again. The boss of the bus tour was screaming like an idiot to the bus driver and to some customers to get out. Well I get into the bus, so I will show some pictures.


Picture from my seat, as you can see it’s a double-decker buss. The top part is open!


Picture of the sky


Traffic


Awesome looking building


The tour guide in the buss was beyond awesome. She was very funny and witty. The way she talked about the famous hotdog shop Gray’s Papaya was priceless. It seemed like she was climaxing. Gray’s Papaya is known for its high quality hotdogs and fruit juice.


Trump tower, proof that money can’t buy good taste


Look it the daily planet, but where is Mister Kent?


Skyline picture


Manhattan New York Temple (Mormon Church)

Sorry the bus was to close to take a picture of the whole building. So I stole this one from the Internet.


The whole building

As mentioned before, the top floor of the double-decker buss has no roof. And there is a tiny problem that in New York they have low hanging signs and traffic light. In plain English, if you stand up you might lose your head. I sense a lawsuit waiting to happen.


Low hanging traffic light, watch your head!!

The tour was nice and informative. Next to me was a nice old Irishman, I think. I have to guess from the accent and he was very interested in building design, especially the exterior of old buildings, like gargoyles and stuff. Here are some examples:


The Dakota building (man took me a while to figure out the name)


The entrance to the Dakota

The Dakota building is best known as the home of the John Lennon and his female demon pet Yoko Ono. It is also known for the assassination of John Lennon. The demon still lives there.


Building as of yet unknown. My mememory is failing me!

Than the tour guide mentioned the New York Historical Society. She said is basically a museum about the greatest city on earth. But why would they put a museum about Belgrade in New York? :P

The New York Historical Society building

It was time for my first stop, the awesomely awesome Museum of Natural History.


The entrance to the museum of natural history


Hey look they are pigeons on his head

Than I entered and I saw two dinosaur skeletons: one of a Brachiosaurus and an Allosaurus. And No, I did not read it on a sign or something, I recognized them instantly. Both are from the Jurassic period and the difference between an Allosaurus and a T-Rex is the skull shape and the arms. An Allosaurus has big manly hands that can grab stuff and rip it to shreds, the T-rex has arms of a amputee, totally useless.


The Brachiosaurus, so big I had to take a picture from the entrance


The infamous Allosaurus


Both together

Once inside I had to get my entrance ticket. Most museums in New York have an peculiar way of payment. You do not actually pay, you give a donation. I other words you can go for free if you have no shame.

So while waiting in line I took a picture of this.


Game boys, oh crap they better not be sued by Ninty!

So I arrived at the cashier and paid 4 dollars. She asked me where I was from. From experience I found that people usually ask this question if they think you are from the same country as them. I answered Holland and she was surprised. She probably thought I was from another country. Than I asked the same question and she replied Russia. So I guess she thought I had a Slavic face, which is true. I may have a Dutch passport, but that does not mean that I am ethnically Dutch. She gave me the ticket and a map, so it was time to explore.
Well I heard that to explore a museum properly you will need at least a week. Great I have only a few hours, yet this did not discourage me. The week is probably for retarded old people, not for young handsome ninjas like me.

Of course you would think because of my limited time I will use my map to plot the most efficient route, to see as much as possible in a few hours. But you would be wrong, because planning and using a map is for uncertain pussies with no sense of adventure. My plan: grab camera, walk around as fast as possible, snap pictures of anything remotely interesting and keep walking. So there was a guy randomly walking with no sense of direction, snapping photos.


African wildlife


Elephants


Look its me


Egyptian tablet: the left is Anubis, right I can’t make it out. Oh the tablet is actually emitting light, and it is in no way me photographing glass with a flash, really.


Armour and swords


South American stuff (think Mayan, Aztec, Incan)


Same as the above (not really sure though, speed was more important than information)


Funny statues


Wow again the mysterious light


Burial site


Gold


I think this is a Mayan pyramid


Big ears


This Indian blows


Why did I snap a picture of a Cossack? Because Cossacks are awesome, that’s why?


Siberian


Chinese


Chinese folklore art


Hindu statue or Buddhist can’t really tell


Golden altar


Traditional Japanese house


There you go


Samurai


The Ainu, the indigenous population of Japan, for further info see Princess Monomoke


More info


Ainu deity


No time to read, well I made a picture to read later


North American part


Banjo


Buffalo


Huge amounts of sea life


But wait there is more


And more


Water life in a jungle


Blue whale


Bugs

Well I did it, in a few hours I managed to see most of the museum. Time to go to the buss and continue the tour. The next buss had another woman as a tour guide. But no matter she was equally as awesome. The buss went to Harlem. Many things were told about Harlem, like it used to be called ‘Haarlem’ by the Dutch. I knew that, it’s good to know that Harlem turned to be just as shitty as Haarlem. And the tour guide mentioned that her favourite actor was born in Harlem. The actor she was talking about is Al Pachino (checking Wikipedia, wow she was right!). And the last thing that I learned was that the Bronx was crap and you should not go there! Good to know.
So pics I snapped during the tour:


Statue of angel fighting a devil near the Cathedral of St. John the Divine


The cathedral itself


Another view of the cathedral


Can’t remember what this statue was about


Statue of Duke Ellington

Than the next stop for me is the Museum mile. It is called like that because that part of New York has many museums. Okay my first stop was the Central Park Conservatory Gardens. I had enough of museums for a moment and I wanted some fresh air.

The atmosphere was really relaxing: people drawing or reading books, just people being lazy. Well except for a guy walking around taking pictures that is.
So here are the pictures:


The entrance


Reminds me of Zelda


Fountain

Well my next stop was the Smithsonian National Museum of Design. I had no clue what the museum was about, but it had design in the title so it can’t be all bad, right? Well it was difficult to find, because the name is not clearly stated on the building, so I had to ask the doorman for confirmation. The doorman’s answer was confirmative, and than he asked where I was from. I said I am form Holland, so he asked me do you know Ruud van Nistelroy, Marko van Basten, Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder. I said of course Dutch football players. I was surprised that the European Cup was so popular in New York; every one was talking about it. Yes is said Football and not Soccer, get it trough your head people F-O-O-T-B-A-L-L.

Well disappointingly you were not allowed to take pictures in the Museum. I walked around there were many chairs, closets, chandeliers, that kind of stuff. You also had people walking around with paper drawing the chairs and other designs, probably students from Industrial Design. The museum is okay if you like chairs and stuff.

So when I left I had a talk with the doorman again. We talked about football and we concluded that the favourites where Portugal, Netherlands, Croatia and Spain. But I did remark that Spain is always the favourite, but they always screw up at the big tournaments. I also said that they can win if they just stop playing like a bunch of sissies.

The next step was the Guggenheim Museum. To bad only one room was open because of the renovation. The modern art wasn’t really anything special. No pictures of the art here either.


Outside


Inside


Look straight up

After the Guggenheim I took the buss I finished the uptown loop.


See the tree branches; you had to duck to not get them in your face.


The metropolitan museum of modern art, will visit it another day


Thought this building was cool, so I took a picture of it. Not sure what it is, because I wasn’t paying attention to the tour guide.


The building with the green roof, is the largest Goth building the world.


Tree branches incoming, DUCK!


David Letterman’s show


Evil squirrel

Okay it was time to meat up with my sister to get a bite to eat. We went to a burger joint that had super good hamburgers. The meat quality was good plus the French Fries were also awesome. The only drawback was the speed. You could not call this restaurant a fast-food restaurant, because it was slow. My sister was right, the hamburger was very good, the same applies to the French Fries.


The entrance


Ha, and people think DiCaprio is hot!

Ha now it was time for the Yankees. We went to the stadium by subway and had to wait in a long row. When we finally got there, he security guard said that no backpacks and purses were allowed inside the stadium. So we hat to get rid of it, of course leaving it on the street is not a possibility, because of the paranoia in America after 911. So we had to go to one of the stores and pay money to leave our backpacks there.

Of course they were full and we had to go elsewhere. We waited in another row and we got another piece of New York hospitality. An old man was yelling that we should go somewhere else; there is no place to leave our bags there. My sister and I ignored the guy and waited anyway. And what do you know the row leaded to the place where we were before. You know the one that was “full”. What a freaking douche bags.

Well thanks to the Douche bag-O-ritis of some New Yorkers we missed the first two innings. But nothing happened anyways and the score was tied.

It was a match between the Yankees versus the Padres. We actually had good seats and could follow the action well. The atmosphere was good and to my surprise you had Padres fan mixed with Yankees. And they were not smashing killing each other. Well in Holland when you have a lost supporter, well he is dead. That was kind of cool cooler was the heckler. Some of the things they are screaming are funny.

Well baseball itself is actually boring. To many breaks in the game, and after every inning they have a break. Why, it is not like they are tired or something. Most of the guys in the field do nothing. The only guy doing something is the pitcher. My sister commented how out of shape most of the professionals are, and said baseball is nothing compared to other sports.

Like I said the game it was boring to watch. There were a few homeruns and some awesome catches, but the Padres were too weak to form any threat. They even dropped the ball a few times, they were actually bad. The experience of being in the stadium is awesome, and this is the last year they are playing in the same stadium, so go before it is too late.


Outside stadium


Inside stadium


The scoreboard


Wow, some actual physical movement!


#53

Another cool thing was the snack salesmen had a mean pitch themselves. When you want something, you just lift your finger and the guy throws you order towards you. These guys have a good accuracy and they did not miss once or hit some one in the face.


The end, Yankees won

That was the end of another awesome day.

Next time: Downtown loop and Brooklyn loop, even more awesome than this one.