And today was an awesome day! I know I've said that every day, but it's been true every day! We started out with a blessed extra hour of sleep. And boy, was that needed! These trips are a blast, but there's a reason why we only do them every four years! (Well, there are a LOT of reasons, but one of them is because they're just exhausting for everyone!) Then we hopped on our carriages and experience our first real taste of how crazy Manhattan traffic can be. Basically as soon as we exited the Holland Tunnel, it was mass chaos on the roads. Lanes were ignored, traffic lights were viewed as suggestions, cars were bullying themselves into position left and right ... It was just madness, and made me very greatful for our AMAZING bus drivers Ellen and Dewey! They kept their cool and got us through the gridlock safely and without incident. Part of there problems was that they were running the St. Patrick's Day 1/2 Marathon, which was cutting directly through the route we needed to take to get to the USS Intrepid museum.
Once we finally got to the museum, we had a blast! It was really quite fascinating. They have taken this aircraft carrier that was in full use (and war), docked it, loaded it up with a bunch of neat planes, and turned the rest of it into a museum. And was an incredibly fascinating experience to see the types of conditions the sailors had to put up with for months on time while always fearing for their life. They also had a flight simulator of sorts there. The group I was with decided to try it out in pairs. The device would flip you, spin you, turn you, whatever you made it do. Crazy for sure, but a load of fun as well.
Here are the folks in my crew who successfully experienced the flight simulator. And no one vomited!
After that museum, we loaded up to go to another museum, the Museum of Natural History. The kiss were excited about this one, as it is heavily featured in the first Night at the Museum film. This place had everything, from Dinosaurs to moon rocks to snake skeletons to Native American relics. We had three hours there and I still felt like we could have used more time ... We basically flew through as much as we could without stopping to read much of anything. As we got back to our meeting place, a couple of students came up to me with a gift. Now, I like gifts as much as the next guy, so I was excited ... Until a saw what it was: chocolate covered bugs. That's nasty. But, because they gave it to me as a very thoughtful gift, I had to eat them (remember kids, don't give in to peer pressure!). They actually didn't taste that bad (I mostly tasted chocolate), but the thought that I was eating bugs definitely made my stomach do some flips. I'm still living, though! We'll see if I make it through the night ...
Supper was at Dallas BBQ as our last big "all together meal" of the trip. Lots of delicious (and messy!) ribs, chicken, fries, corn bread ... Mmmmmm! After we got all messy because of the barbecue, we changed into our nice classy clothes and headed over to Carnegie Hall to hear the world-famous Vienna Philharmonic.
Now, everyone knows the rock stars and the sports stars of the world. These people are the Justin Biebers of the classical music world (except, you know, with talent, class, poise, talent, smarts, talent ...)! They are literally one of the top two or three orchestras in the world, playing in one of the best halls in the world. And, to top it all off, Diana Damrau performed a few pieces witht he orchestra! For you non-opera lovers out there, Diana is one of the best sopranos out there right now. Pretty amazing that the kids were able to experience something like this! It was a long concert (pushing three hours) and the seats were uncomfortable for some of the taller folks, so I'm afraid that they didn't enjoy it as much as they should, but I tried to impress on them how AWESOME it was that they were able to experience something like this! It helped that the music was performed impecably, of course.
And now it's bed time! Tomorrow brings either China Town or Madison Square Garden, then Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, then Times Square time. The kids have been bugging me about Times Square time all week ... Now that they have it, how much do you want to bet that they'll just go in all the same stores we have in Iowa?
Enjoy the photos!
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