New York City, Day 2 and onward

Monday, being the day I would have been traveling if I'd come JUST for the conference, I was free.  I slept in a little later than the prior morning, then met Alena (another online friend I've "known" for years but never met) in my hotel lobby.  We walked to a coffee shop for sustenance, then took a cab to the Museum of Natural History.  We saw a lot of things, most of which didn't come out well in photos.  But the coolest was the butterfly exhibit.

The only other photo I took inside the museum that came out:

We had a lovely lunch together, and Alena had to get back to her normal life, kids, etc., so we parted ways.  I went to Central Park and had a lovely, if VERY cold, walk through the Ramble and down by the lake.  I found a couple geocaches in the park, too.

I went back to my room and warmed up a bit, and then wanted some sort of ethnic food I couldn't get back home in Bend, and ended up choosing a restaurant (shoot--I already forget what ethnicity it was!) that was near a movie theater, so I also watched a movie before heading back to my room (in a cab--I was too lazy/exhausted to walk or take the bus!).  I fell into bed, exhausted and needing to rest up before my training the next four days.

The rest of my time in NYC was limited to just evenings.  Tuesday, I went to a Thai neighborhood (that also had Chinese and Spanish on the signs in the area) and had a delicious dinner.  Wednesday, I went to Greek Town in Astoria, Queens and had another delicious dinner.

 Thursday, I went with a classmate from the training to Little Italy, where we shared a pizza and then I bought some cheese, and then we walked through Chinatown a bit.  She headed back, but I wanted to find some geocaches, and I did successfully find a couple, including this TINY one hiding on a tree branch in a park, in the dark.  This is with flash, it was impossible to see without light, but I used the flashlight feature on my phone to find it.

 

 Friday night, I went to the West Village, which had some really cute houses.  I stayed out a little later that night than the other nights, even though I had to be up super early for the plane.

Packed, went to bed, got up ridiculously early, took a cab to the airport, had a SEVEN hour layover in Seattle, which my brother was kind enough to entertain me for part of, then finally got home after a long day of travel and a long week without my kitties.