New York II

Back again with day 2 of hour short visit to NYC.
After a good sleep to recover from day 1 we decided to go and visit a museum.
The decision fell for the American Museum of Natural History which is the one from the movie "Night at the museum" with Ben Stiller.

Unfortunately we missed the shuttle by just a few minutes and decided that the hotel personal should call us a cab.
This was a mistake. Instead of telling us that the NY yellow cabs do not have a dispatcher they called us a limousine service.
The problem with these is that they are too expensive and the driver did not even know the museum.
Can you imagine that?
We had to tell him which route he should take and that on day 2.

Well he got us there in the end.
By this time it was about 10:30am on Sunday morning and the queue was not to bad at all.

After entering the first hall I was overwhelmed. So much to see, so many impressions. Just WOW.

I did not take to many pictures inside the museum as it is just to much.

First off some "Wild animals"

Hey you mac users out there. This one above is our new OS. Mountain Lion

Of course we wanted to see the Wale which is hanging in one of the halls.
It is really huge aprox 30m long. Incredible!!!

What else is there to see in the museum. Ahh

Dum dum you give me gum gum

After this nearly 3 hour visit it was time to get the subway to Downtown.
Time for the first big highlight of this New York visit.

We had booked a 20 minute helicopter flight over Manhattan. This was to be at 15:15pm
But we had to wait a little longer.
Suddenly it became very hectic at the New York heliport.

Secret Service, police sirens. What´s going on we asked on of the guys from Liberty Helicopters.
His only answer was: "The big one is coming!"
What big one, I asked.
Just wait and be patient.

As I saw this beast I suddenly realized what was going on and what the hectic was about.
The president was in town.

(Actually the president did not arrive on this day in New York. It was just the staff doing some training. The President came to NYC just a few days later.)

After having to wait some time at the heliport it was time for us to get on board.
My wife and I had the seats right next to the pilot. My wife in the middle and I was on the left hand outside.
Great we said.

I got my Fuji X-Pro1 ready and snapped away. Picture after picture.

What an experience. It definitely was worth the bucks we paid. The view was just fantastic.
Or as the yankees say: It was awesome, really amazing just unbelievable.

After this we thought we need to calm down a little and decided that a walk through China Town might be the thing to do.
Think again. China Town.
CALM DOWN in China Town???
Wrong thought.

It is crazy.
One minute you are in New York, the next you think you are somewhere in Beijing.

It is difficult to put it into words what kind of impressions one gets from walking through this very different part of New York.

We had to calm down a little. My brain was full up by this time.
From China Town it is just a street crossing away to Little Italy. Well why not.

This was such a contrast.

Suddenly the complete road was closed. Not a car in sight. The restaurants had all the tables and chairs out. People sitting there eating their pasta and pizza.

Yeah, pasta. Sounds good.

That´s what we did. We took a seat outside and ordered something to eat and did manage to calm down a little in Little Italy.
Just like it is in the real country of Italy.

And that was Day 2. I do hope you enjoyed it and will come back soon to see what happened on day 3.
More to come, more to read and more pictures.