Day 21: A wet day at the museum

With generous thanks to Bob, who scored two all access tickets to the museum of natural history, we enjoyed a full day out of the rain. Thanks Bob!  

I’d also like to thank my darling wife. 

NYC isn’t always easy getting around and the attractions can be the same. But Mardi is ever present with a guiding arm in the subways and a plan to ensure on and off the subway movements are efficient. Inside attractions she’s always got the guide map on hand and works out where all the cool stuff is. I simply play the role of working out uptown and downtown. 

This morning though as we arrived at 81st street ready to enter the museums underground entry things went a bit wrong. It was pouring with rain and we only had one small umbrella, we’d expected to be able to go into the museum without popping up into the street, but for some unexplained reason the underground doors were closed and the sign said enter from 79th street side entrance. So we traipsed upstairs and I said let’s go downtown, we’ve just arrived at 81st street, so common sense said two blocks down, side entrance. Which we did. 

On the way a pop up umbrella dude offered me a $5 umbrella, now thanks mate, just going down here quickly, no need. 

We walked the two hundred metres in the rain. 

We went into big museum like doors and presented our tickets. We were turned away. Perhaps the fact we’d gone into the New York historical society played a role in this refusal. We wandered further down 79th street and saw a sign saying use main entrance on Central Park West! Didn’t we just come from there. 

Now remember it’s pouring with rain, small umbrella. 

So we walked back. Funnily past the same umbrella dude. He points snd laughs at me and offers me an umbrella. Mate, unless it has drying powers, there really is no point now. 

Anyway five metres behind the subway exit are the main doors to the museum. Hmmm, we certainly missed something there. 

Anyway we walk up to the doors looking like drowned rats and enter. The tickets Bob secured for us are perfect, we get access to the IMAX cinema, where we saw an enthralling presentation on the universe and Dark Matter. Special exhibitions on dinosaurs among us, a look at the link between dinosaurs and birds, a fascinating movie on Antartica. Sadly our timing meant we missed a crocodile exhibit, but we made up for it by visiting the dinosaurs, including the Titanosaur, a massive skeleton, the biggest ever discovered. 

We saw my old favourites the T-Rex, the velociraptor and others. 

We wandered the human development halls, gems, asteroids and other. 

The origami Christmas tree is a fascinating exhibit on show st this time of year and the topiary dinosaur at the entrance is lit with Christmas lights. 

A fantastic day. 

We left the museum, it was still pouring, but this time we knew the way, so only minimal soaking eventuated. As we were waiting for the train I took some photos of the subway. 81st street station is a gorgeous station with dozens of depictions of animals on the subway walls in a mosaic tiled layout. 

Also while we were waiting we were asked for directions by a South Georgian family. They were in NYC for the first time and heading off to Times Square. We helped them out, we were headed there, so it wasn’t too hard. They said they’d stick with us as we looked like we knew where we were going. They noted we were from Australian, but we also had a new gentles thing on our phone they showed a subway map. There version was a crumpled and wet map that was about a metre long. We chatted about their plans for the night, dinner and a show in Times Square. They invited us to dinner, but we declined snd parted ways when they were happy they knew where they were. 

We popped past Starbucks and picked hot a couple of hot chocolates and finally got out of the rain for the night. Some left over John’s Pizza for dinner and a quiet night.