New York Travel Diary 12th May 2010

Wednesday 12th May 2010

A wet and miserable day from any normal situation, an early wake and off to catch the subway. The 6 train is packed, we switch at Grand Central/42nd to the other platform onto the 4 train to get to 161st street, Yankee Stadium. Today is the 178th NYU graduation, where all graduates for 2010 pile into the stadium and have a whole university graduation while family and friends attend in the bleaches and stands.

When we get to the gates however, trouble struck. No video cameras, no water, no laptops. Oh uh. Well, so now I’m sitting at McDonalds waiting for the ceremony to be over lol. Bag check exists by looking at it, it seems to be quite limited and I don’t trust it since it’s done from the back of a truck on the street -_-; Well, I guess I won’t be missing much since she isn’t receiving any awards and you are basically just looking at the stadium. Her friend Lori also came along so she has my camera and will take pictures in lieu for me lol.

Sitting here at McDonalds I’ve also finished writing up the blog entries for the other days so far, chatted with some Asians whose brother finished a Masters in Continuing education, while an older couple next to me told me that they are attending for their son who is graduating from law, and they are from San Paulo, Brazil, where the temperature in NYC is too cold for them. They will be staying for 15 days only, and their son is dating a NYC girl. Their daughter however lives in Sydney and is a teacher of some kind. Hmm.

Only a little bit longer to wait before they come out I think XD. This McDonalds is packed, must do pretty good business I think, though it needs to be bigger to accommodate the flow of people through it, especially in bad weather.

Well, after spending some more time in the McDonalds, the ceremony was over and they came out from the stadium. We went via the station again to catch the 4 train, and boy oh boy was the train situation bad. Totally packed trains... you’d expect that they’d have a better way of controlling the human traffic and trains with the Yankee stadium events there on a regular basis, but no... they didn’t. Eventually we got back into Manhattan and got off at Union Square for some shopping and lunch.

Lunch was in a place called Angelica Kitchen, just off 12th and 2nd Ave, next to the Italian place called John’s (2nd Ave heading towards 1st Ave). It was a totally vegan/vegetarian place (no animal products) but the food was pretty good. I got the lunch deal that was soup, bread, simple salad and tea. Good size portion too for the price.

Post lunchtime, we went back to the apartment to chill out before heading back out for the PIT, otherwise known as the Peoples Improv Theatre. A comedy/improve place that had free shows on Wednesday nights in 1 hour blocks. The first group was called Local 154, and the second called Borialis. Well, improve is something I’ve never seen before, and a lot of it was “huh?” to me, and a lot wasn’t funny at all, but these people are amateurs in training, though there were certainly bits that were really brilliant.

So, then after that came dinner, at CPK, California Pizza Kitchen, in New York City (like the Philly Cheese Steak in NYC). I had a grilled Dijon chicken focaccia with minestrone soup, also well priced for the size. Feeling quite full and tired found us back at the apartment, getting ready for bed, for another full day out tomorrow with the second graduation ceremony in Lincoln Centre on the Upper West Side.