Days 9, 10, 11: Still Alive!

I'm still here! It's been a few days since I've had a chance to upload any pictures or work on my blog, but here's a recap of the past few days. Thursday, I gave my weary legs a break and went fishing with Noel (happy birthday by the way!). I caught five fish, and four different species of fish, though none over nine inches or so.

On Friday I headed back to the city, where I started off with the NBC studio tour. The tour was awesome. It started off with the studio for NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, then moved on to the Dr. Oz studio, which was my favorite. At first you might think this is strange, but I assure there's a very reasonable explanation. The Dr. Oz studio actually used to be the studio for Late Night with Conan O'Brien! Then we saw the set of SNL, where people were frantically creating scenery and props for tonight's show. Then at the end of the tour, some members of the group got to do a mock news broadcast, while the rest of the group got to seat in seats that, get this, were from the old Conan O'Brien set! A dream fulfilled, though not exactly the way I would've liked it too.

From there I went down to check out Chinatown. For lunch I tried a Vietnamese place where I had rice with some kind of spicy sauce and the suckers of a squid sprinkled on top. They were a bit chewy, but I'd definitely eat it again. I also tried an incredibly odd looking fruit, which turned out to be delicious.

Then I made my way up to Chelsea where I was staying with a relative for the night. For dinner, I got to try some excellent Thai food. 

Today, Saturday, the Smithsonian Institute was sponsoring a National Free Museum Day, so I picked out a couple, the first one being the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space museum. After standing in line for ten minutes, I found out that a free, online, printable ticket was needed to utilize the free fun. After six short blocks however, I was able to find someplace to print out my tickets, and crisis was narrowly averted.

The Intrepid museum was unique in that the museum itself was in fact an aircraft carrier called, you guessed it, the Intrepid. After that I did a little sightseeing, and saw the New York Times building, and the buildings where the studios for the Daily Show with Jon Stuart, and the Colbert Report are located :). Then it was a quick visit to another free museum, the Rubin Museum of Art. This museum housed a large collection of some fascinating pieces from the Himilayan region. After losing track of time, I made a 15 block mad dash for Grand Central Station, at which point I promptly missed the train I was aiming for, and had to settle for one a half hour later. Then I arrived fashionably late to Noel Muysken's birthday celebration. But it was a really fun evening with some family I don't get to see that often, with some great music by Noel's excellent band. Happy birthday again!

Tomorrow I'm heading back to the city, and I'll be spending Sunday through Tuesday night at a hostel near Central Park, so that should be exciting! I got all my recent pictures uploaded to Flickr and Facebook, so go check em' out! I doubt that I'll be able to share my pictures while I'm at the hostel, as I don't have a computer with me, but I still hope to be able to blog! Hope you all are well, goodnight!

Peace,

-Adam