NYC Diary - Day 7

We decided to go check out the Natural History Museum today, another 30+ block walk. We stopped for an early morning sandwich in a place called Lenny’s – where Keanu Reeves eats, apparently. He wasn’t there while we were, unfortunately – I’d have loved to sit in front of him and eat my spicy chicken grill roll in bullet-time.

We hit Central Park and took a nice stroll through it, rather than walking up the hot and humid streets. It didn’t make too much of a difference; by the time we got to the museum, I was sweating like a paedophile in mothercare. The museum is ace though; I felt like I was seven years old again when we hit the Dinosaur galleries. The life-size Blue Whale replica is still jaw-dropping too. My only complaint with it is how much you have to pay to get into the special exhibits. It costs $15 each into the museum in the first place, and then can cost over $20 into any of the exhibits – the IMAX screens, the planetarium, and the seasonal shows (currently Lizards and Horses). I really fancied seeing the Lizards section, but I wasn’t paying extra cash to see scaly things I see for free down at Petworld.

On the way back, we dropped into the IMAX cinema on Broadway and got our Dark Knight tickets – 50 foot Batman on Wednesday! I can’t wait. All those reports about it being the biggest opening weekend aren’t exaggerated, I can tell you that from first hand experience. They were queuing around the block at the cinema down in Union Square on Saturday; and the only available IMAX showing this week was the 10am one on Wednesday. It’s crazy!

We decided to have a rather fancy night out and eat in the hotel restaurant. Being a four-star hotel, it’s all very hoity-toity. I’m a simple Yorkshire lad; I hadn’t even heard of most of the side dishes, let alone the mains! The food was nice though, even if my cod did look like it was sat in a pile of fairy liquid. And I couldn’t help but chuckle at my dessert; Chocolate Grand Marnier Tart, with crème schlag and candied kumquats, at a cost of $15. And do you know what? It tasted like an orange Club bar. And it had something called schlag. Heh heh heh.

So we settled back into the bar for a few drinks, which again, was ludicrously expensive ($28 for a beer and a wine!!!). It’s a beautiful bar though; very steampunk, so it was kinda worth it. But to be honest, if I’m paying $15 for a bottle of beer, I’d expect it to be served on Scarlett Johansson.