Briefly, because I have to run to explore some more, though it’s so cold that despite great sun I would stay mostly indoors – MOMA and American Museum of Natural History are the highlights of my today’s plan.

Yesterday:

  • Visited the Empire State Building, looked at the city, made some pictures (in fact so many I filled up my memory card and had to return to hotel to unload them). I was really surprised by the gentleness of the lifts’ operation in there – no g-forces at the start and end like in most high rise buildings I know, in fact it was so smooth only numbers changing on the display indicated we were moving quite swiftly up.
  • Went to the WTC site. Hard to describe, definitely not a tourist attraction in the traditional sense, some emotion emanates from this huge hole in the city. I wonder whether the kind of memorial park being built would preserve that.
  • Been to Macy’s. It’s indeed overhyped, just another department store.
  • Ate great lunch at the restaurant recommended by Manfred – he’s an expert, really, well worth every buck spent.
  • Went to Central Park and Guggenheim’s.

And spent a very good weekend chatting with my NYC friend I met for the first time, we wandered through Brooklyn, ate sushi and then spent quite a few hours chatting at a lounge. Got back to my hotel around 3AM, which why I’m now typing this instead of eating my breakfast.