Day 3 - Central Park

We took Tuesday morning pretty slowly. Bob and Kim left a few notes and maps for getting around Brooklyn, pointing out fun hipster shops and places to get breakfast. We had some trouble navigating past finding a bakery and couldn't seem to find the streets they had mentioned.  So we headed into Manhattan via the L-train and made our way to Central Park.

It was gorgeous and I could even recognize parts of it from movies like Definitely, Maybe; Enchanted and 27 Dresses. We walked around looking at the various statues and bridges.  We saw several groups of musicians, a couple taking wedding shots and a man blowing giant bubbles with his homemade bubble wands.  He took two sticks and tied rope connecting both in a loop and after dipping them into a bucket of soap, he'd hold them out, letting the wind create huge bubbles as it passed through. Alex took a turn making bubbles, so I took pictures.  We saw horse-drawn carriages and bicycle taxis.

We made our way in the direction of the Museum of Natural History and spent the afternoon in there. We saw elephants (my favorite) and sloths (Alex's favorite) and saw a short show about stars in the Planetarium, narrated by Whoopi Goldberg. We spent about 3 hours in the museum and covered most of it.  Some parts we saw more thuroughly than others but we did manage to see the big Easter Island-looking statue from the movie Night at the Museum and the giant whale that Barney knocks down in How I Met Your Mother.  I didn't really appreciate the ocean animals room, it was a dark and there was a giant squid. But I loved seeing the extinct animals and their huge skeletons. Once it closed, we headed back to the park.

After looking at a map, we found Strawberry Fields! I took a picture in the middle of the Imagine mosaic. We walked around a bit more and once we got hungry, we did a search for the Jekyll and Hyde Club that Alex had seen online.  It was just south of the park on 6th, so we walked the rest of the way for a very interesting dinner.

Standing outside was man in costume who greeted us warmly and then knocked on the door requesting entrance.  A few minutes later, another man came to take us inside.  He brought us into a small hallway where we saw a short video in which we were greeted and intimidated as the ceiling started to fall in on us. I think I may have left some marks in Alex's hand from squeezing it too hard.  This only lasted a minute and the man asked us to shout "Stop!" though we were too timid to do so and he laughed us but showed us into the restaurant and to our table. The food was quite pricey, as we expected being so close to Times Square but we shared a delicious roasted chicken and vegetables (yes I ate lots of vegetables) and walked around the four-story restaurant. Each level had a theme: the library, the laboratory, the attic and the grand saloon. There was a short "Frankenstein" themed entertainment and the actors continued to walk around harassing customers and waiters alike.

It was quite cold out by this point, and was past 7. With all the walking we had done the last two days, we were dragging so we decided to walk through some of the ritzy streets to find the nearest subway. We saw some very expensive clothing stores as we were near 5th Ave and stopped in Lindt to get some Lindor Truffles to share.

Finally we were back in Brooklyn and enjoyed a second dinner of salad and burgers and wine.  Then we made a strategy for Wednesday morning when we'd attempt to get into a TV show audience.  We made of list of the those taping on Wednesday that had good odds of getting standby tickets. Live! With Regis and Kelly, The View, The Daily Show and Conan O'Brien were all in the same area and spaced well enough apart that if we missed one, we could try for tickets at the next.  However, Live! started passing out tickets at 7am.  We set the alarm for 5:30am and called it a night.