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this day it began to rain, and i was planning to go to wallstreet but that didn't happen because of the rain. So then Mark suggested i should get some more presents and stuff, so tried to find them but i couldn't. I did find the Post office though, but i didn't use it.
So when i got back i started packing which was done in about 20 minutes, as i only needed to stuff all my things in a case and a backpack. So when i was done my uncle had come back from andy's deli where he bought me a lettuce, tomato, pepper, salt, mayonaise and tuna sandwich on a roll. And then around half past 4 we went down and we got in the cab after saying goobye to mark as he went down with us.
So when we finally got to the airport (quicker than we had thought) we basically didn't do that much. We initially tried to find this "get ur tax back from the stuff you bought office" but we couldn't find it as there was not even a decent information booth at all. So then we just got something to eat which coincidentily was the same as what my uncle and my nephew were eating when they left america, namely my uncle had spaghetti with meatballs and i and my nephew had a slice of pizza.
At 9:45 we decided to go to the boarding area, it was the 2nd time during a security checkup that i had to undo my belt, but i didn't have to undo my shoes, so i got through fairly quick. When we were finally at the boarding area we had to wait for a bit before the boarding started which didn't take too long.
The flight was not very interesting so i'm not going to elaborate on it.
When the gate at schiphol had finally docked on and we were walking towards the baggage reclaim i found out i didn't have my phone in my backpocket anymore, even though i checked almost every hour during the flight. So i went back to the plane where sopme security people told me i should go there first if there was someone at the gate, and if not i should go to the transfer desk or the information desk. Because there was nobody at the gate i went to the transfer desk where the lady called the cleaning service, but they couldn't find my phone, so she gave me this number of the lost and found service on schiphol. So now i'm hoping my phone will get there somehow.
When i finally got home i was kinda dead as i had been running up and down the pier trying to get my phone back. And i had this graduation in the evening at 8.
I went to the graduation (the reason why i had not stayed longer in america was that graduation) and i received my diploma for the second time as i had my first one two years ago. It was pretty nice, but now i'm thinking that maybe it wasn't worth it leaving america earlier so i could go to the graduation :P . It was really nice to see all those people again though.
That was pretty much my day, wnet to the neighbours afterwards, and went to bed around 1 am.
P.S.: Oh yeah, the picture site is on again go to http://newyork-2006.blogspot.com/ where you can find the links to my and my uncle's picture site.
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Well.. we didn't do that much as i needed to do the laundry again and we didn't really plan anything anyway. So i guess you could say it was somewhat wasted.
In the evening however we planned to go see the fireworks, so we went to central park, the sheeps meadow to be exact. And now we know for the next time that you really should go down to the river as there's nothing, but the glow of the fireworks behind the buildings, to be seen.
So there ya go, basically lame day.
http://newyork-2006.blogspot.com/
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So i went to the Intrepid, which was pretty cool. I went there with the 2 express train from 72nd streetuntill Times Square, and from there i walked West untill the Hudson and there was the Intrepid.
The Intrepid is this WW2 aircraft carrier which has been turned into a museum. As you can find on this website of the museum, it has quite an extensive collection of airplanes, among them a concorde and a blackbird. It was really close to see all those planes you usually only see on TV. On the intrepid i bought this poster of space aircraft, the same as the one which hangs in either classroom 203 or 205 in my school. I always wanted to have it.. so when i saw it there i thought "hmmm let's buy it".
After the intrepid i walked back to 73rd street seeing things like a climbing hall and stuff.
In the evening my uncle mark and me went to the East village again where we met with Mindy who's a friend of Mark rom when she was still a little girl. The four of us went to this malaysian restaurant where i had rendang and mark had "chacha beef" which tasted far better :P there also was some chicken sate which tasted pretty good and mindy had something with fish and my uncle something with beef.
After the restaurant Mindy went home, and mark, my uncle and me headed for that Rockband T-shirt shop again. On the way Mark suggested this poolhall which was across the street. It was called Soho Billiards, an it's a poolhall where mainly asian people go to. It was nice, my uncle was on a winning streak, so he won the game.
After the pool we continued to the store but it was closed so we went back home.
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we walked from 73rd street all the way down to 48th street via Central Park, along the way we tried to find T-shirts for me but we couldn't find any good band T-shirt shops as i'm still trying to find RHCP shirts. We came across Carnegie Hall as well.. which is this very know music hall in New York.
When we came to 48th street mark bought some strings and he bought a harmonica and one for me as well :P in manny's music. So now i guess i'm going to learn how to play harmonica as well.
After the 48th street we went back all along broadway, still looking for shirts. When we came across this sheet music shop a bit north of times square my uncle reminded me that i wante to buy something here so i went in and i spended too much money on too many books. When we were almost back home we went inside the Barnes and Nobles as Mark wanted to buy some books "Ringworld" and some others, he gave Ringworld to my uncle so he can read it as Mark thought my uncle should read the book.
That was pretty much it. Oh here's an updated visited lands map.
create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide
That's 8% :P
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We went riding through Central park this day! On rented bicycles. It was really nice to be on a bike again after all this time, even though the bikes were all fucked up. Mark, my uncle and me went around the park all along the drive and after one lap my uncle stopped at the rental and mark and me went for another spin.
The weather was really nice as well.. so there were all these people sunbathing and stuff so we could take some nice pictures of scarcely clothed persons and other things as well. :P
After the biking we went back to Mark's house where we pretty much didn't do anything coz Mark didn't feel to well.. his condition isn't that good and he hasn't been on the bike in a long time so he was pretty out of it. So then we pretty much stayed at home and played games and stuff.
P.S.: No pictures because my uncles server in the Netherlands is down.
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We went to riverside park today, it's the park on the Westside of Manhatten, and stretches from 50 something street to somewhere in the hundreds, so it's a long park. We walked around a bit there and Mark showed us where he played when he was a kid, and then we went to get something to drink in a restaurant underneath a highway junction. Riverside park is more a park for the locals as there isn't much to do there. So we soon left to get some empty cds so Mark could burn some stuff (my uncle bought a lot of music in that virgin records store).
On the way home a picked up two games which were really cheap so i thought "why not" so now i have "Desperados 2" and "Port Royale 2". That was pretty much the whole day, oh we had Chinese again for dinner.
We didn't do that much this day because we moved the bicycle ride through central park to the next day, so i'm going to do that in a minute and you'll hear how it was tomorrow.
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This day was mainly my uncle's day as he really wanted to go to OCC in orange county, OCC is this custom bike shop which has been on tv (American Chopper on the Discovery Channel), well.. those guys have this retail shop where they display the bikes they built for the show.
It was really cool, i have taken some pictures so i'll put them up below.
After the OCC retail shop (where i bought 2 T-shirts) we went to Steve who lives in New Jersey in a house surrounded by woods and forest, i actually saw 3 deer walking a few metres away from his backyard, and then i asked Steve about it and he said "yeah we have a lot o them, and sometimes a bear". Well his house was pretty cool, bit of a mess though, but we also went there because Mark wanted me to see his guitars (2 ovations an old white fender squier and a real black Gibson les paul) those guitars were definitely the most expensive guitars i've played with, oh he also had a 412 Marshal cabinet with a humungous head and a smaller peavy half-stack.
Have some pictures of the guitars and the amps as well.
And then we went to get some dinner in a local diner and i got to ride in Steve's Porsche!! That was really cool.. as Steve raced to the diner and speeded up in the twisty road through the woodlands. Now i know what my dad felt like. The pictures will tell the story. :P
Link to my uncle's blog: http://newyork-2006.blogspot.com/
Links to the online photoalbums:
My Photos
My Uncle's
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we went to the metropolitan museum of art this day where we only walked around on the 1st floor as the museum is pretty large and all the things we wanted to see were on the 1st floor. We saw the arms and armour exhibition, the tibetan arms and armour and we saw the egyptian temple which was rebuilt in the museum as it had to move when the aswan dam in egypt was completed.
We went to the temple first which looked pretty old and like there were some pieces missing :P it wa pretty impressve to see a real temple sitting in a museum.
The arms and armour were by far the coolest as i never have seen so many full plate armours and ornate guns and swords and stuff in such a small place, i don't have pictures of them though except for one with armoured men on armoured horses. There were japanese things as well and arabian. The japanese stuff was pretty cool, there was this katana blade from the 17th century next to a blade from 5 years ago and the old blade actually looked newer than the new one, tho the other older blades didn't look as good as that one.
Then we went to the Tibetan exhibition of arms and armour, which was more like a saddle and stirrup display than anything else, they did have some weapons though and armour. The Tibetan stuff roughly resembled a mixture of middle-eastern stuff and chinese stuff which was pretty interesting to find out.
After that we wanted to see the Old Instruments exhibit but that was closed down, so we went to the humungous museum shop instead. This shop was really weird as they had a LOT of books, my uncle bought some books, a book about the history of new york among them. I almost bought a book about japanese swords but then i saw the 45$ price and i thought twice, maybe i'm going to buy that book but i don't think so. I did buy a book for my mom however, an advanced book about perspective.
From the MET we walked back to 73rd street and we stayed there for a bit, and then later in the evening we went to the East village where we were hunting for some T-shirts for me which i didn't find. My uncle howeve found a couple of copies of his babylon 5 comic book series which he is collecting, so he was happy. After the hunting we went to corner billiards where i totally sucked, i think it's because i haven't played pool in some days and i didn't even practice virtual pool, so i wasn't feeling too confident either. So that basically sucked allthough i did make some cool shots.
After the pool we went back, around 12, as we had to get up early because we were planning to go to Orange County Choppers in Montgomery.
(pictures to be continued, check my uncle's picture site in the mean time)
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I went to all these things on my own today, coz my uncle was kinda tired (he slept for 2 hours in the afternoon). I took the 1 to South Ferry from where i walked through Battery park to Castle Clinton where i bought the passage ticket.
So then i went outside of the castle to find the start of the line which was about 500 meters long.. luckily it didn't go that slow. It turned out that most of the waiting was for the security check, which was even more rigorous than a security check on an airport :S, i had to undo my belt for example. So after all the waiting I could get on the boat, on which i walked to the top deck so i could take cool pictures of everything around me.
When we finally made it to the statue of liberty i bought some cool stuff there and i took some really cool pictures. And i had an icecream.
Then the boat went to Ellis Island, which is this place where immigrants would come to first when immigrating to America between 1800 and 1950. It was really cool to see how they did the immigration back then, and all the pictures and stuff.
So after that the boat went back to Battery park from where i walked to Ground Zero, which is nothing more that a construction yard with a subway tunnel running through it.
From there i returned to 73rd street, and by that time it was 7:45 pm.
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We went to chinatown where there are lots of these stores where you can find a mixture of crap and souvenirs, so we walked in and out of pretty much every store, on the hunt for souvenirs. However, we didn't get as many souvenirs as i had hoped. I did find a new belt! in this "Western Spirit" Store. It's a really cool belt.
After that we walked to the Brooklyn Bridge and from there we walked to the municipal building and i took some pictures of the Woolworth building as well.
Then we went back to chinatown again where i bought some more stuff. And that was pretty much the end of that trip as we went back to 73rd street after that.
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