Glen Meets Manhattan - Part II: Including the chapters "I am Glad I Saw Harlem from the Safety of a Bus" and "Natural History with a Hangover"

Previously on “Glen Meets Manhattan”…

Glen met Tony the audio tour guide on the top of the Empire State Building… was introduced to hot cider + a cinnamon stick at the Bryant Park Christmas Village… survived a freezing cold sight seeing cruse… and toped things off with a bar outing (with an unknown number of rounds of drinks) that ultimately ended up with Glen’s first trip to a strip club!

Did I survive…

No I did not. I was severely hung over the following morning on December 8. *BLAH* So all sight seeing planned for that morning was put off until I re-gathered my mental and physical capacities.

By about 1 PM, I was ready to go. Andy and I hoped on the m60 bus that goes from Queens, across the Triborough Bridge and down 125^th street, which is the main street going down the center of the famous neighborhood of Harlem. The bus went by the famous Apollo Theater. We also drove by Columbia University… I was completely unaware that it was located so far uptown adjacent to Harlem. We were dropped off somewhere near 106^th street… where we saw “Toms Restaurant” which is the famous diner from Seinfeld.

Following that, we went to the American Museum of Natural History. The space section was pretty cool… they had a 15 ton solid iron meteorite on display. Part of the admission included a 20 minute planetarium video… which was a good time for me to sit down and do nothing, since I was still dragging from the previous night out. The museum was HUGE… 4 whole floors taking up an entire city block. We only spent 2.5 hours there and barely saw it all. Lots of animal specimens on display… lots of dinausaur bones… lots of displays of all sorts of ancient races of people. There was also a pretty neat geology section with mineral and gemstone collections on display.

We left the museum and it was already about 3:30 PM (!)… Being hung over in the morning made the day go by so fast! At that point, Andy and I took a walk through Central Park heading downtown. It was at this point that I realized I was seeing grass for the first time in about a day and a half! He showed me the Delacourt Theater, where they put on Shakespeare shows, Belvedere Castle and the Great Lawn, with some magnificent views of the city skyline. It took us a good hour to walk about 2/3 the length of Central park. We ended up at Columbus Circle where there was a second Christmas Village (and more hot cider!) set up at central park south.

From there, Andy took me to see Radio City and the Rockefeller Center… along with the great big Christmas Tree and famous ice rink! Absolutely beautiful to see at night… also SUPER CROWDED!

Following that, we headed back up town to meet Andy’s roommate (Courtney) and another friend whom we attended Naz with (Jess). We had dinner at a Thai restaurant. By that point… Andy and I were running completely on empty, but we still went to see Jess’ friend (and a few other singers) sing some opera songs (Christmas tunes and other songs) at a place called O’Niels near the Julliard School. We were tired, under dressed and had to wait a LONG time to get a table in the corner where we could not see the singers.

By 9 PM, we called it quits and headed back to Queens. Sleep felt amazing that night!

So how do you think I would fare with adventuring through Manhattan all by my self… check out part III to find out!