Empire State building

This morning I visited the Empire State Building. I arrived there pretty early, around nine thirty because again I woke up around four in the morning.

It was easy to find because you can see it in the sky from a few blocks away. Once you get in the line stars. After the first line you switch to the second line, and then you get the opportunity to buy a ticket. With my ticket I could go up to the second floor and stand again in another line. This line is for the check of your bags and to pass through the metal detectors. Finally you get to wait in the last line. You then enter in the lift, and that lift shoots you up to the 80th floor. On the 80th floor you get out and need to get in another lift that brings you all the way up.

Once on the top floor I have to admit it was worth the hassle. The view across New York is beautiful.

Cops

If there is one thing that is abundantly available in New York it is cops. On every corner of every street you can find a cop. Before every big or important building there is some person in a security outfit. If you want to park your car they will search your trunk and in some cases they check the bottom of your car with mirrors. In the metro it is swarming with cops and metro employees. When you enter a museum they check your bags and in every room you can expect to find security.

A safe situation, but it gave me a very strange feeling. Yesterday when I was heading to my car I was walking though a street where there was even a little sign, indicating that there was an atomic bomb shelter… This really gives you some food for though.

Something cultural!

Yes, I did it. yesterday I visited a museum. I went to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, right next to Central Park. Of course I strolled through Central Park on my way there and during my first steps in the park I encountered a squirrel! That’s is a sight you don’t see very often, I thought. The animal was circling around me with about one meter of distance. I think it was looking for some food.

I made a few pictures of the squirrel and continued towards the museum and then it hit me. The entire park was full of those squirrels! I encountered hundreds of them. I spend some time viewing an amateur baseball match right there in the park, and then continued to the museum which I really enjoyed. Nice African masks, Knights armor a lot of statues and paintings.