Wednesday we decided on the Museum of Natural History. We walked down to the appropriate subway stop—it would take us right up to the museum entrance—and waited for the train … but it did not come. We walked (and took a taxi back later)
The Natural History Museum is really huge. Like the art museum the ticket price is recommended $22 percent but it’s “contribute what you want.” It’s not as cool as the Met, but it did have several neat exhibits:
- The hall of dinosaurs. And related, early mammals and prehistoric humans. Particularly awesome, the skeleton of Lucy (above), the ancient fossil hominid.
- A spectacular display of minerals and gems, including huge meteorite fragments, the Star of India and way more minerals than we had time to stop and look at individually (some examples of precious stonework below)
- The old school stuffed-animal-in-landscape diorama.
We spent several hours there, wore ourselves out, took a taxi to the Waldorf. Then went out in the evening to find a couple of the locations for the planned frat events, and then dinner. We weren’t having much luck finding a place to eat—a lot of restaurants are heavy on beef and seafood—but then we stumbled across the Algonquin Hotel, yes, the one where the famous Algonquin Round Table ate back in the day (the cartoon captures them, though I don’t who is who). And they had a tomato soup/cheese sandwich appetizer, so it was irresistible.
Surprisingly, it was one of the few times of recent vintage that the appetizer was actually modest and appetizer sized rather than a meal in itself. A shame, because it was most tasty, but it did the trick anyway. We waited a long time for our bill—were they hoping we’d order more booze?—then headed home. Which proved a little tricky as we didn’t know where we were, nor did we relate it to the hotel in our mental map. Still, with a little help from Google maps we found our way back and crawled up to the room to relax
