some very special toys

Where to start today’s blog? I’m at a loss. A new favourite sport; One of the most beautiful buildings I’ve seen in my trip (take that Europe and your gorgeous architecture); Napping in one of the world’s busiest cities; Indulging in New York’s finest cuisine. Perhaps, I’ll just go from the beginning. It started like every other day in New York: at Starbucks. After reading my blog, Fa, my host in Washington, was motivated to finally start one of her own, a goal she’s had for a while. After reading hers, I decided I should get around to one of goals: to start a blog of tips and hints I’ve picked up during my travels. So for $2.45, the price of my Early Grey tea, I sat in Starbucks for a good couple of hours and created A blog of tips I’ve picked up while travelling. I wish I’d started it earlier because now I’m struggling to remember everything.

My destination this morning was the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), down near Fifth Ave, so I stared my hike to there. Along the way I passed the main branch of the New York Public Library. I’d forgotten about this place. The library is featured in the Sex in the City movie and it looked gorgeous in the film. I decided to take a look inside and discovered there was a free tour starting in 10 minutes. I put my name down. This building is a reference library and the only lending section is the children’s area. It’s a beautiful building with two sweeping staircases coming down to the lobby, high, decorative ceilings and little lamps on all the tables. Most of the books are kept under the building so you can’t see them, but just to know they were a little elevator away was exciting. The library has lots of different rooms: the periodicals room, map room (Dad you’d love it), research rooms, rare collections and the main reading room. The reading room is the size of a football ground. It was gorgeous. I also found out there is free wifi. Pity I didn’t know that earlier. These surroundings certainly left Starbucks for dead. At the end of the tour I went to the children’s section to look for something the guide had told us about. Something I didn’t even know existed, much less ever thought I’d get to see. The original Winnie the Pooh toys. These are the toys that A A Milne’s son, Christopher Robin, played with that were the inspiration for the books. And here they were. In a case on the bottom level of the New York Public Library. They were tattered and worn, but easily recognisable. Piglet was tiny and even Pooh looked on the slim side (he must have eaten too much honey before the cartoon series started). There were no crowds, no lines. Just these very special toys in a glass case.

The tour took an hour and the I’d decided that I’d rather see the American Museum of Natural History over MOMA, since I now only had time for one. Museum’s aren’t usually my thing but I’d heard really good things about this. There were four special exhibitions – The World’s Largest Dinosaurs, Frogs, Journey to the Stars and Tornadoes – so I paid extra for access to those. I started at the dinosaur exhibits. The entire top floor is dedicated to these displays, and then the special exhibit is in addition to their usual ones. I hadn’t seen any displays like this since I was a kid so it was fun to see them again. There are volunteers around the museum to answer questions too, which was helpful. Then it was onto frogs, which turned out to be real frogs! Oh they were cute. Slimy, but cute. Other exhibits included African and North American animals, more dinosaurs, Native Indian culture etc. I skipped the Journey to the Stars show when I realised it was the same screening I saw at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, but hung around for the tornado documentary. It covered a weather research team and a documentary film maker as they chased tornados for a season. I couldn’t help but wonder why people continued to live in areas that were repeatedly destroyed by these things. Let along decide to build a car so you can survive getting into the centre of one just to make a film.

There was so much I hadn’t seen but I couldn’t take any more in. The museum is right next to Central Park so I headed in there, this time in a different part to where I was last week with Vanessa. I found The Great Lawn, which is basically open space with a few baseball fields so I kicked off my shoes and collapsed on the grass. I was in the centre of Manhattan but I couldn’t hear a thing except a few sirens in the distance, the wind through the trees and the crack of a baseball bat as the players hit the ball. I stretched out and enjoyed a nap before heading back to the subway.

I decided a while ago that I couldn’t come to New York without seeing either a baseball match or basketball. Basketball doesn’t start until October so baseball it is. I wanted some advice on where to get tickets to I put a post on Couchsurfing and a guy called Alex replied and said he’d come along. He recently moved to New York from LA and was keen to see a Yankees game. As I came out of the station and stood before Yankee Stadium, it was clear I’d underestimated this sport. It was crazier than the MCG or Etihad before an AFL game. There were people begging for tickets, street vendors selling merchandise, water and peanuts. And sooo many people. I headed inside and climbed to the top (the very top) to my seat. I saw the national anthem before Alex arrived. Thankfully he is a big baseball fan so was able to fill in some gaps for me. The sport itself is rather comparable to cricket in that is isn’t very fast moving. But when there’s a bit of excitement, the crowd certainly reacts. All I wanted was to see a home run and Nick Swisher delivered that for me. I added to the experience by indulging in my first New York hot dog. I had to have one. However it’s really hard to enjoy such food when every fastfood menu (including at Yankee Stadium and food vans on the street) lists the calories in every item. Obese American’s cannot be that size out of ignorance. 

As the eighth innings started, Alex and I moved down to better seats. I pulled a “I’m Australian, I’ve never seen baseball before, I leave tomorrow and my seats were waaaay up the top” with the ticket checker and he let us sit in one of the better sections. A lot of people don’t bother to last the game and had left already. Mark Teixeira gave me another home run, but the Oakland Athletics scored a couple in the 10^th so it was all over for the Yankees. The game wasn’t even finished but the stadium started to empty out in no time. I caught the subway back to Grand Central Station, which I hadn’t seen yet, and then a taxi back to Jeremy’s.