I went to NY to visit Andrew over the weekend and figured we would site see the typical touristy stuff. There is the usual site seeing of the Statue of Liberty, Central park, Empire State Bldg, an art museum, etc.
Here is where the Twin Towers use to be, now at Ground Zero. A nice part to this was an artful cross made out of some of the remaining steal beams. It looked so empty there and to see the tall building next to where it once was is hard to imagine it is smaller than the size of the Twin Towers. Does this make sence? If the towers were here today the "tall" building in the photo would be seen as "short" in comparison to the towers.
This just boggles my mind.
Instead of the usual touristy spots, we went to all of the non-traditional spots of New York. It was fun and we just played it by ear as to where to go next. We started by taking the subway down to the docks to buy tickets for a show at half price; we bought 2 tickets to see The Producers for Sunday.
The play was hilarious! The Producers was a play inside a play, too funny.
While we were on Fulton Street getting the tickets, we came across the Bodies Exhibit.
This was truly modern, educational, and emotional. The Bodies Exhibit displayed deceased bodies preserved to show the human muscles, bone structure, blood vessels and even some very intricate details of the human body, like the lungs, or hands.
{***I warn you to stop reading if your just ate lunch, this part may be a little morbid, or uncomfortable to read, skip to the next paragraph where I talk about the rest of NY ***} There was one section where the fetuses were displayed to show the progression of growth starting at 2 weeks to 8 months stages of a pregnancy. This section I was most impressed by, and at the same time deeply saddened by it. I thought about how these babies didn't get a chance to live, and at the same time it was interesting to see their tiny toes, fingers and little back bone all formed at such an early stage, I believe was at 6 weeks. It really hit me when another girl gasped out loud at the next display I had not seen yet; I looked over to see a Mother body showing the 6 month stage of a baby inside the tummy still. This meant that the mother died during her pregnancy and so did the baby. This was the most disturbing to see, in the fact that this display was real and not a mock up model, it was once an expecting mother with family and friends. I don't know her story, she may have had complications with the pregnancy or died some other way, but she has now been donated to this museum for people to learn and scientifically examine. This whole exhibit was an experience of its own. I cried after seeing the baby section. Then there was a part displaying organs, like the heart, and lungs. The display showed a "healthy lung" all beige with some black specs on it. Then a “smoker’s lung” displayed with grey and black markings all around the lungs, no beige areas. I think if smokers saw this and ever thought about quitting they might quit immediately after seeing the smokers lung. I have only smoked about 4 cigars in my whole life time and NO Cigarettes, so my lungs are hopefully more like the beige lung with just a little black spot from those 4 cigars. I will defiantly not smoke after seeing that. The cigars I smoked were shared with Andrew here and there when we are in Vegas or more recently on the 4th of July in KY we shared a cherry flavored cigar; even then I was discussed by the after taste and decided it wasn't for me. I am glad I never got hooked on smoking. It would have been interesting to see a liver displayed showing the effects of alcohol. I do casually drink, and love my Apple martinis. I didn't see a ‘damaged’ liver on display.
This may all sound morbid to you, reading this. I guess it sounds worse than it really was. The exhibit was tastefully pieced together and thought out. The exhibit was not really gory or morbid at all. It was an experience to see and really educational. If you are at all interested to see it, the exhibit is located on Fulton Street, NY in Manhattan.
Next subject, we also went down to where the Statue of Liberty is and had a nice walk along the water front. I found my knockoff purses! Street venders were selling “Prada”, “LV”, “Coach”, you name it; they had them all there on the sidewalk for $20 bucks! You bet your bottom dollar I bought one! I of course had to get the matching wallet too. The guy tried selling me the wallet for $2o and I said, “Not when I bought the purse for 2o, I’ll give you 10 dollars.” He said 15, I said NO, 10, we settled at 12 dollars for the knockoff Prada wallet. I probably could have bought it for the ten, but was happy at 12. So I went to NY and found the knock offs which is exactly what I wanted. I don’t care if it is “Praduh” why pay $600 or more for a Prada if I can get a Praduh for $20! (The purse reads Prada on it, with the little triangle). I sort of wish I also bought a “Coach” one too. Oh well. If you are feeling sorry for me and want me to have the real Prada version, I accept gifts, and my birthday is coming up in August. (Wink, wink Mom).
We also went to the Museum Of Sex. There is a sign in the window reads, “Please no touching, licking, or mounting of our displays” LOL! It starts off with some history of sex shown through the Japanese and their comic strips and information about Geisha girls verses the brothel house women. Geisha girls only danced and looked pretty they didn’t do the sexual favors, as the women did in brothels. An interesting tid- bit of information is the married women shave their eye brows, so if a “call girl” worked there and didn’t have eye brows you should know she is married and unfaithful. The women with eye brows are not married. So in the comic strips there were drawing of some women working and they didn’t have eyebrows, they were the unfaithful ones in the story line. The museum went on to show DVDs playing cartoon porn, in Anime style. These DVDs and videos are now replacing the art of the comic books; and are now known as a lost art. Proceeding into the next section showed some footage of some of the first silent stag films made back in 1914 and were the start of Stag films, known today as Porn. I think the word Stag sounds more pleasant than Porn. “Porn” sounds so naughty, I would rather admit to watching a Stag film. ;^)
The last part of the museum was the toy inventions and 3-D art. Some of the displays had a red button to push and it would activate the toy, in order to see what it did. There were some wild ones there, one was a toy attached to the end of a power saw! (eek!) Andrew took a picture of my pushing the red button to one, and I jumped not knowing what the brief case did. (photo below)
The brief case has a
toy that pops out and then spins around at the end of a pole. Strange and funny, to imagine someone holding this brief case in a crowded elevator some where downtown New York. I could just picture it. LOL
DON'T PUSH THE RED BUTTON!
Another part to New York that we saw was Wall Street. We came across the famous copper bull statue.
I wanted to get a photo opp next to it; but everyone else was up near the front of the bull taking photos by its head, so I thought to go to the back of the bull and grab life by the balls!
Another tid-bit of information is
this
Trump building was originally built to be the tallest building in New York! Little did Trump know that today in 2006 buildings since then have been built taller than this "tall" building. Sorry Mr. Trump, you can put all the gold detail you want on it, but it isn't the tallest building in New York. Funny how we can't predict the future and at the moment in time we think we have the best of the best.
Andrew and I had a lot of fun in New York, even if it wasn’t the traditional touristy stuff we ended up seeing.
Friday morning I had to go into work, and Andrew's office was closed, he had the day off, so he helped shovel snow from behind my car. Here is a photo I took of him before I drove off to work.
I have to say thank you again to the two guys who helped us carry it up the stairs. When Andrew and I decided to bring the desk back to the apartment, I was struggling to help carry it up. Two guys were out side and help Andrew carry the desk up the rest of the way. Thanks guys.
