I Heart NY

"New York is a granite beehive, where people jostle and whir like molecules in an overheated jar."-Nigel Goslin

I saw this quote about New York city, and I couldn't resist including it in this post. This past weekend, my husband and I went to New York to visit a friend. This quote is, I think, an accurate portrayal of the energy New York has. Everything in New York seems like it is on a grander scale. Bigger buildings, bigger stores, bigger attitude. Unlike the subway in Boston which can be coded by color, the New York subway system has numbers, letters, express, local, uptown, downtown, etc. I think we got on the wrong train almost half a dozen times. People were everywhere! When we went to Times Square, we actually had to get in line to cross the street, then get in line for the waiting list of a restaurant, then get in line to be seated. We really wanted to go to the restaurant Serendipity, which is featured in the movie by that name, but it was a 2.5 hr wait at 3pm in the afternoon! We did get into the Museum of Natural History, which is really an amazing place. They have one of the best dinosaur collections, and we only got through a very small part of it since it was so large. My favorite part was the butterfly exhibit, whcih was basically a tropical room filled with an amazing variety of butterflies. Some were electric blue and some had a wingspan as big as my two hands put together. The best part was that a little brown butterfly with orange spots landed first on my hair, which must have been too unstable, and then landed on my shoulder. Since you are not supposed to brush away any butterflies that land on you in case you cause them injury, I simply let him/her/it hitch a ride around the exhibit until the butterfly tired of my company (lacking in nectar and witty banter, I'm sure I was not a terribly exciting companion) and flew away. We also explored Central Park, had dessert in Greenwich Village, and walked around Ground Zero. I cannot even begin to describe how eerie and sad, yet strangely hopeful Ground Zero is. It's one of those things you have to experience for yourself. New York is always an amazing trip because no matter how many times you go, you always see/feel/hear/smell something completely new.