Day 15 - NYC with a new key!

This morning after calling five locksmiths that advertised themselves as "24 hour emergency" services, we finally found a hardware store that was open and willing to copy our broken key.

From there we trekked around Central Park, or at least part of it, since it's GIGANTIC! Apparently everyone decided to use the Memorial Day holiday to train for marathons and bike races because there were crowds of people running biking, and even roller blading through the park in the humid pre-summer weather. It's a beautiful place during the day - a lush, green oasis in amidst the brownstones and streets.

We also decided to check out the American Museum of Natural History. The entire fourth floor is full of dinosaur skeletons (a large amount of them REAL, not plaster casts), which was the highlight of the trip. It's crazy how huge those creatures were!

Then we ventured out to Times Square (where the GPS wouldn't work because of the interference from the huge electronic billboards), saw part of Broadway, and continued on to Rockefeller Center and then Grand Central Station.

After a full day's walking, we met up with the wonderful Charles Petersen at Washington Square Park, in the Village. One of the awesome things about NYC is that the street/park/subway musicians are quite good, and even though a lot of the subways and subway stations are in much disrepair (read: gross), they are usually air-conditioned. And we did find one or two trains that were in good condition. Nothing like D.C., though! Too bad!

We wandered around the Village, past NYU and one of Charles' favorite restaurants (it was closed!), we decided on Curry Row, where you can take your pick of a dozen Indian restaurants. We chose the Taj Mahal. I think . . . or was it the Raj Mahal next door? ;) Anyway, it was delicious, with good atmosphere. To wrap up the night, we hit up a coffee/beer/wine bar during happy hour, and reveled in each other's company.

When we got back to the apartment, we decided to do some grocery shopping. Do I even need to say how great it is be in an area with a large Jewish population?!?! There is so much Parve food (read: dairy-free) that it's ridiculous! So I bought a few muffins (I can *never* have muffins or cupcakes!), and looked longingly at all of the Pareve cookies. PLUS, the Pioneer Food Market was the first place since we started our trip that had a) Unsweetened soymilk, and b) soy yogurt!

Other exciting news: Nick fixed the air conditioner! Kind of - it was actually the outlet that was the problem. Oh, and we left Chamomile's food in the car when we returned it (apparently Nick thought putting it in the spare tire compartment was space-efficient), so now we have to find a place that sells kitty food! The adventures never cease. ;)