New York Preview

Over the weekend Matt and I went on a little trip down to New York City. It was my first time in New York and it was great. We spent Saturday daytime wandering around a couple of the parks in Manhattan and we went to The Strand bookstore which boasts 18 miles of books. We saw a great band playing on the street called the Hypnotic Blues Ensemble. In the evening we went to an improvised comedy show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. It was really funny, they spent the 2nd half of the show improvising from music brought in by the audience. On Sunday we took a walk
around central park before joining the traffic on the way home, I never want to drive in New York. In a way it reminded me of London, in that you see it all over the place, on TV, in movies etc, so you expect a lot from it. When you actually get there, it's just another big city, albeit one with some excellent sites. I'm really looking forward to meeting my lovely girlfriend there in two weeks and spending some more time looking around the sites properly.

Yesterday I met up with a friend that I met in San Fransisco and we took a road trip with a couple of his friends down to The National Aquarium in Baltimore. It was very impressive and massive. I really enjoyed seeing all the big sharks and rays. It very different seeing fish in tanks rather than in the sea and it's great because I get to stay dry! I got all excited spotting fish that I had seen whilst diving, especially the clown anemone fish (Nemo). I felt like a kid. The highlight of the aquarium though, was predictably the Dolphin show, those fish are so cool. I had mixed feelings about it, it's amazing how they teach them to do things like walk on their tails and slide along the side of the pool, but it's kind of sad to see them confined. Although they looked pretty happy and they seemed to enjoy themselves. Especially when they kept getting fed fish. My plan for the next few days is to hang out in Philly, We're off bowling tonight and probably to the Franklin Institute for a Bodyworks exhibit tomorrow which will freak me out, yuck. Then on Thursday I'll be travelling up to upstate New York to Syracuse to meet up with another good friend of mine, Nate.