New York, New York. (19th Aug)

This was our day without bus transport but we had pretty much exhausted that anyway. After breakfast later than usual we took the subway uptown towards the Central Park area. We purchased a new metro card at the ticket window, wanting four $2 journeys we were surprised to get $3 change from a $10, but the lady nodded when we pointed it out.
We travelled on a new and well–appointed train with the helpful station indicator telling us we had arrived at our expected destination. We left the subway and shortly after realised our mistake. We had travelled parallel to our intended route and were, because of that, on the wrong side of Central Park. Once we knew what we had done there was little real problem we reversed our itinerary, and did Central Park before the Natural History Museum.
Central park is huge but we navigated ourselves across it successfully. We passed the boating lake and refused a balloon ride to view the park from above and also a student driven rickshaw ride. Surrounded by the city we found the park busy with people but quiet. The exercise culture meant that the most frequent traffic was racing cycles followed by people on roller blades. There was some dog walking and fathers and sons playing catch but we never came upon any organized sporting areas.
We followed signs to Strawberry Fields where there is a monument on the floor to John Lennon in the shape of the peace symbol; it is tended every day by someone who outlines it in fresh flowers. There was a sizable crow round it in a respectful silence. We paid our respects and came out of the park close by.
We were where we had intended to be earlier and we entered the Natural History Museum. It was very impressive, and huge. The displays were mainly in the form of tableaux of stuffed animals behind strong plate glass. Most of these were at least the size of a medium room and were built in to the sides of large, sometimes two storey, galleries.
Most of the exhibits were credited as gifts from named benefactors, some of whom had endowed whole galleries. It was quickly apparent that their gifts were the products of their big game hunting holidays, and when they had massacred a game parks worth of wildlife they perhaps thought along the lines: “Not enough room left on the library wall, we’ll give them to the museum so that poor people can look at them.”
There were themes to each gallery, African Wildlife, American Wildlife, Maritime Wildlife, including a full sized whale, and so on. There were also modern galleries devoted to the formation of the Earth and the like, Julia found these fascinating as it fitted her interest in Geology, these galleries were much more “hands on” and indeed there were parties of school kids going round supervised by teachers and what seemed to be museum staff.
It was with a little concern that we set out to find the Plains Indian Exhibit as, having seen the stuffed animals and knowing the number of Indians that had been murdered over the years; we were half expecting tableaux of stuffed Native Americans. It was more politically correct than that, the full size Indians were models and their way of life was well displayed with artifacts and captions. My remembrance of Western Films was confounded by there being little or no mention of the tribal names that I remembered the likes of John Wayne taking on.
We decided to take lunch in the museum with the intention of continuing our forage through the exhibits after eating. Lunch was pleasant but after we felt that we needed a break from sightseeing so we left the museum and set off to take the subway back to the hotel.
We figured out a route back which involved one change of line, but when we got off at the intersecting station we could only catch a train in the wrong direction on the new line. We were just discovering this and therefore deciding to leave the station to rejoin the underground nearby at the cost of another $2 each when a guy working there intervened. He confirmed our problem but then offered the obvious solution; get on the train in the wrong direction, get off after one stop and change platforms there. Just as we were feeling stupid enough he asked where we were trying to get to and then gave us a better route to end up nearer the hotel. We thanked him for his help and he replied, “It’s my city and I want you to enjoy it.”
Back at the hotel we booked our airport transfer for the following day and found that we could leave our luggage with the porter for $1 a bag after we checked out; thus preparing us for our final day.
In the evening we went out to eat, again referring to the list provided by the hotel. The decision was Italian and the first recommended place we came to was busy, a good sign, so we went in. The head waiter told us they were full but they could sit us in the wine bar and we could order from the same menu. This seemed good of them and we ate well but at the top end of the prices we had paid in the city.