Travelling Hopefully - At Last an Ending of Sorts

If you're in New York City and find yourself with approximately eighteen months to spare then I strongly recommend visiting the Museum of Natural History which is staggering in its scale and scope.  The museum is a monstrously impressive pile built at a time when museums were supposed to look good rather than depressing and it occupies what must be an insanely expensive piece of real estate on the west side of Central Park.  Having walked through the park to get there I went in through the west entrance which is a monument to Theodore Roosevelt, easily my favourite American president.  The entrance hall would suit a palace and the walls are covered with extracts from his various writings my personal favourite being "A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy".  I can't help thinking political discourse in America might be improved if we introduced both presidential candidates to a collection of Roosevelt's writings and then beat each of them to death with it.

Not having eighteen months to wander around at my leisure I found myself desperately strapped for time and barely scratched the surface of what the museum has to offer.  I was a little disappointed that the butterfly collection was closed for the season which confused me a little as I'm pretty sure the butterflies were already dead.  I wandered around in slack jawed amazement both at the sheer size of the place and the sheer number of people trying to get in.  Once we were past the entrance hall however it was amazing how quickly everyone got lost in the building, nowhere seemed crowded.

I could have taken the subway to the museum but instead chose to walk from the Empire State Building, strolling up Fifth Avenue and through Central Park.  There was no real reason to do this except for the sheer excitement of being in New York, it just goes on for miles.  I was aware that Central Park was large in a general sense but I had no idea how big it is.  From the centre you can't actually see the city which is quite a trick as "inconspicuous" is not a word people usually use to describe New York.  Supposedly its dangerous at night but then a lot of places are dangerous at night which is why I tend to visit them in the day.  Also you can get a hotdog during the day.

I was only in New York for one full day so my chance to go sightseeing was strictly limited but I did manage to visit the Empire State Building which has been on my personal must see list for years.  From the viewing gallery I could see all of Manhattan spread out before me (although I had to walk around the platform to see it all).  But in my opinion a more impressive sight can be had from the street outside because then you can see the building itself.  Particularly at night that alone is worth a visit to New York.  It just goes to show what greed can do when it retains a little bit of its soul.  Too many office buildings, most of those in Sydney for example, are wretched boxes very obviously designed to extract the maximum amount of rental income in return for the minimum investment of materials, labour and design.  Vomit inducingly ugly, the very sight of them scars the eyes.  Nothing more spiritually bankrupt can be imagined.  Then you have something like the Empire State Building, a 104 storey monument to human avarice; and it is beautiful.

This seems like a good moment to end my travel journal.  I enjoyed America, or at least the bits I saw.  I'm well aware that a large chunk of the country has escaped my eagle eye but that means I just have to come back.  A wrap up of my kaleidoscope of epic failure at ASLOK will follow for those who enjoy reading about such things.