Anyway, I remember writing when I first got here that I would never stop feeling like a tourist in New York City. We're into December now and I'm yet to begin to think otherwise.
A large part of that is probably down to the fact that I've only just got round to experiencing many of the tourist attractions the city has to offer. Despite wandering past the Museum of Modern Art most weekends and seeing the Empire State Building from campus, it wasn't until last week that I made a point of actually visiting them.
With friends from Leicester visiting for a few days, there seemed no better time than the present, and so we each purchased a $100 CityPass (well worth the cash but poorly advertised) that granted us access to six attractions, including the places already mentioned plus the Top of the Rock, the Statue of Liberty and a couple of the city's other museums.Perhaps it's odd to do all the tourist attractions having already been here for two or three months but for me it added to what I was seeing. I guess knowing to the city (to a degree, at least) made being up the top of the Ro
ckefeller Center all the more interesting, getting a different vantage point on the area in which I'd experienced so much over the last few weeks. One thing it definitely did was shrink the city; stepping out of the Empire State Building after having been up it, I felt like I had a much better grasp of my bearings. Being that high up, after all, is like looking down on a massive real-life map.
Between trying nearly every fast-food joint in Manhattan (shouts to Wendy's) we also managed to fit in a trip to the State of Liberty (where the views of the city were more impressive than the Statue itself) and two trips to see St. John's basketball at Madison Square Garden: a bug I am definitely catching. The week's only real disappointment was the visit to the MoMA; seeing a bit of van Gogh was impressive but there were way too many pieces of 'art' in there that looked like they'd been done by my sister's year six class.
All of this meant my first Thanksgiving in America was a pretty decent one. Boston Market provided our festive food; a kind of second-rate Harvester in a lot of ways, but without the free salad. My experience of American food being unbearably sweet was also taken to new heights as some bright spark clearly thought it was a good idea to stick marshmallows in with the sweet potatoes. The clue's in the name; they didn't need any more sugary goo chucked in there.The day itself was largely spent at the famous Macy's Thanksgiving parade. After an hour or two navigating the maze Manhattan had been turned into by the NYPD, we finally found a decent spot to catch the end of the parade. All we really saw was a giant Spongebob and a creepy-looking floating kid, but our morning was made by watching Santa cruise past. My very own Miracle on 34th Street, it was just a shame the little girl from Matilda didn't show up. I guess she was still at Mr. Bedford's.
It was weird to spend days on what felt like a holiday before having to go home and work on essays in the evenings, but I guess that's what this year's been about. Having said that, the 'holiday' part's been well and truly dropped in recent days as finals close in and I turn my attention from a giant Spongebob to a 12-page research paper on genocide.
