Thursday - Museum Day (or Not)

Thursday was the last day that our New York Passes were valid, so we had grand plans to use them as much as possible. We went to the Museum of Modern Art (or MOMA) in the morning. It was pretty cool. They have Starry Night there and some Andy Warhols, which I thought were cool. This is the best part about being there with my sisters...we all have essentially the same appreciation for art, which is "Eehh...that's neat...let's go do something else now." We were there for maybe an hour and saw the whole place as much as we wanted to. I actually took a lot of pictures of artwork that I liked. We all walked around with our iPods on and used sign language to say that we wanted to go to the next floor or leave. By the time we left, Missy was sitting on a bench text messaging, so she was "done" little before Laury and me.

We left MOMA and headed to Greenwich Village. We were going there for 2 reasons: (1) to eat a hot dog from Gray's Papaya, which I've heard in multiple movies (Fools Rush In, You've Got Mail) and (2) to see Washington Square Park. So we take the subway there and get off and it's just not the cleanest place we've been. It's near NYU, so I'm sure it's just less well-kept than say the Central Park area. We went straight to Gray's Papaya because we were hungry. It's just a corner store with the doors open and no A/C. They sell hot dogs (with mustard or ketchup) and like 20 different varieties of papaya drinks and that's it...no french fries or anything. Eating there meant standing next to the pane glass windows at a metal counter. This was, without a doubt, the best hot dog I've ever eaten. However, it was really small, so we were still hungry. We left Gray's Papaya and went to get batteries for my camera (which EATS batteries, BTW) and the drug store we went into also didn't have good A/C, so we decided that they must not like A/C in Greenwich Village : ).

From there, we went to Washington Square Park. This is the park with the arch that looks like the Arch du Triumph in Paris (except this one has George Washington on it, which I'm pretty sure they don't have on the one in Paris) and I really wanted a picture of it, so my sisters walked there with me. I wandered around trying to get a good shot of it, which I did. As I was walking back to the park from my photographing session, I passed Uma Thurman out with her kids. I took like 3 pictures of her like a big dorkie tourist!!! My sisters were across the park, so they didn't see her, though!

After that, we decided we were still hungry, but I wanted to get to the Guggenheim, so we took the subway back up to the Central Park area. We wandered around the Guggenheim looking for a place to eat, but couldn't find much. By this time, we were REALLY hungry. We wandered for over a half hour looking for a place to eat and finally stopped at this place called Jackson Hole. I do not recommend this place. I got a chicken sandwich that was supposed to have BBQ on it, but it was just ketchup. Don't get me wrong, I like ketchup, but not on grilled chicken! Anyway, we survived that meal and went back to the Guggenheim. Let me point out that the reason I wanted to go to the Guggenheim is that it's really cool to look at. It's the one that is spiral-shaped on the outside and I wanted to go in and just see how it is set up. Well, they were doing some work on the building, so we couldn't see the outside (had scaffolding, etc. on it). And then, when we got back after our unsuccessful lunch, we discovered that it's closed on Thursdays...so, no Guggenheim for me. The funny part of it is that we had walked right by the sign saying it was closed during our quest for food, but didn't read the sign.

After that, we went back to the room. I think we took a nap. That night, we went to eat at Planet Hollywood because we got $10 off with our New York Passes. We were excited to be getting a deal. Only thing is that we ended up spending a lot of money because we got appetizers, meal, dessert, etc. Silly girls!

On the way back to the hotel, we were walking down Fifth Avenue minding our own business, when this girl walked up next to us and said, "Do you see those people over there across the street?" We kind of said "Yeah" (there were a lot of people across the street...it's NYC!). Then the girl said "They're following me, don't let them cross the street." So, let me tell you why this is ridiculous. First of all, no one across the street looked remotely interested in this girl. Second of all, how were we supposed to stop someone from crossing the street? Anyway, Missy, Laury, and I kind of gave each other weird looks. When we looked back at the girl, she was gone! She had turned a corner and was RUNNING down the street...very weird. No one on the other side of the street seemed to respond to her quick departure, though.

OK, that was it for Thursday.