Sunday: Central Park and the American Museum of Natural History

Sadly, my pictures do not document what I ate that day, nor do I remember any longer. But they do document my two main activities during the day. :)

I started off Sunday by walking through part of the southern end of Central Park. It was really nice and soothing. I stopped and listened multiple times to musicians (mostly jazz), watched a group of breakdancers / acrobats, and viewed a guy playing shell games with some international tourists. He disappeared with nary a trace upon a warning (which I didn't notice) that a park ranger was coming.

At one edge of the park was the American Museum of Natural History. It was a tremendously large museum, covering four city blocks on four floors and containing everything related to science, nature, and culture, and three hours wasn't nearly enough (despite my attempt at speediness). Filled with families.

They had rooms portraying the culture, clothing, habits, and environment of nearly every ethnic group. And rooms portraying scenes of many many animals, from a multitude of different terrains and continents. And similarly grand exhibits about plants. And rocks. And geology. And, with an attached planetarium and space museum, anything related to astronomy. Wow.

Notably, in the rocks exhibit, I found an display containing pyromorphite, my team's "logo rock" from the jackpot game. What an ugly mineral!

Also amusing, as a counterpoint to the production of the tragedy The Frogs at the Lincoln Center, the museum had an exhibit on frogs. The real ones this time. It was so popular it had tickets sold separately and was sold out.

After the museum closed and they kicked me out, I went on to finish my exploration of central park. Central park has a nice (though tiny and rather folksy) castle, and many nice views of the skyscrapers in the city proper. Apparently it also has a small zoo (closed by the time I arrived), and a theater (showing shakespeare daily, sold out), and a nice pond (which I did see) where lots of people play with remote controlled sailboats. Formal races happen on a different day of the week.

That was the last section of central park I hadn't wandered through, and by then it was dark. I left the park and went where? I remember not.

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