☆ First Time To New York ☆ Day 5 Museums and Parks!

[TinkerBabe]

Wednesday 15th February

Today we wanted to use of NY City Passes to go to the American Museum of Natural History and The Metropolitan Museum. However, first we were on a mission to go to the Converse store down in SoHo, so we caught the subway down to Canal St and walked along Broadway, stopping for a breakfast croissant (stuffed with bacon and an omlette!. The kids thought there may be some bargains to be had, however it was a flagship store selling all the latest designs and styles, plus you could customise your own pair, consequently there were no sales or bargains in sight - never mind! We walked along to Broadway- Lafayette station and caught the subway up to 81st St for the Museum of Natural History. This was really straight forward as the subway delivers you directly to the museum.







We enjoyed this museum but just in my own opinion, I found it difficult to navigate, it felt disjointed to me and we had to double back on ourselves lots of times in order not to miss anything. We felt like the layout didnt flow particularly well. however, the Hayden Planetarium was excellent and we enjoyed the space show that we experienced there.

Next stop was The Met, which we estimated was a short walk across Central Park, but knowing that Central Park is big, we thought we would ask the museum staff for directions. We approached a security guard at the exit who said 'You wanna walk? Its up to you, but its at least 15 minutes! ' We laughed and assured him we would cope, and he kept rolling his eyes as if he thought we were crazy for attempting it!

It was actually an almost straight line across Central Park to the Met. This short (literally just 15 mins!) walk was one of only two very short forays into the park this trip, simply because we had so much to fit in, and if we are lucky enough to go to NY again in the future, I would love to spend a whole day exploring it.









We soon arrived at The Met, which is a simply beautiful building, it gave me goosebumps just being inside.It was lovely and warm inside so we checked our coats and bags in at the free cloakroom (no tipping permitted) and went off to explore.









We really enjoyed this museum but our legs were now very tired, so we caught the bus at Central Park West, and let it deliver us 40 blocks down at 42nd St so we could then walk the short distance to our hotel.

After a bit of chill time on the laptop and Ipods, we got changed and headed out for dinner. We wanted to try a restaurant that we had passed earlier in the week called Cantina Jacks, as the menu looked nice, especially the fajitas. it was just a couple of blocks along at 2nd Ave, and took less than 10 minutes to reach. When we got inside, the bar area was crowded and the main restaurant was empty - we soon realised that this was because there was a happy hour at the bar, and drinks and appetisers were half price! Sadly this didnt apply to the restaurant, and we couldnt go to the bar because it was adults only, but no matter, the food was delicious, plentiful and reasonably priced so we were completely happy!



Sorry no more food pictures as we had scoffed the lot before I remembered to take more photos! However, we thoroughly enjoyed it here and would recommend it.

We strolled back to the hotel after dinner, it was so lovely with the trees all lit up with twinkly lights. We always felt so safe strolling the streets at night, obviously we were in busy and well lit areas, and the buildings all look completely different than in the day.



We paid our customary visit to Footlocker on the way back (boys and their trainers!) and we called it a night about 11pm.

Tomorrow - MoMA and Bubba Gumps

[Redrach1903]

Another fab day

[MissVincent]

Great day!

[Fieryannie]

Our ds loves Museums!

xxx

[mrsbigbeak]

Fab day x

[hross42877]

Great day!

[HakunaMatata]

Fab day! Central park looks beautiful

[hollyann1985]

Great day

[Infinity Red]

Glad I checked in again, I had only read up to day 4 ! Great day again and the Museums look fab as did your food piccie

[Glee Fan]

Museums look great, as did dinner, yum!