Day at the museum

by Edwin

Today I visited a place that was high on my list of things to see. I went to the American Museum of National History.

If you’ve seen the movie ‘Night at the museum‘: except from everything coming alive, it’s absolutely just as awesome as in the movie. I think this is the largest museum I’ve been so far. There are four floors with collections of cultural items from all over the world. You can see a lot from different cultures and see many animals you probably haven’t seen in real life. There really is a lot to learn in this museum. For anyone that comes to New York, I can really recommend this awesome museum. It’s exciting from the first moment you get in. You’re welcomed by a large skeleton of a dinosaur in a huge hall with quotes from president Theodore Roosevelt on the wall. I like to quote one that really spoke to me:

Youth

I want to see you game, boys, I want to see you brave and manly, and I also want to see you gentle and tender.

Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars and keep your feet on the ground.

Courage, hard work, self-mastery, and intelligent effort are all essential to successful life.

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.

After spending a couple of hours at the museum I went to Highline Park, also a nice place in New York. It’s a park build upon an old railway, about four meters above the streets. The park is a couple of kilometers long and gives you a nice view over many streets on the west side of New York.

While I was walking on the Highline Park suddenly a guy of about my age asked if he could see my camera, because he liked it so much. I doubted for a sec (I mean it’s a quiet expensive camera), but then sat down next to him and showed him my gadgets. We talked for a while and he introduced himself as John from Colorado. We decided to walk up together and had a really nice time. By the time we came at the end of the park it was almost sunset and we watched the sun going down on the other side of the river, behind the skyline of New Jersey.

Since we were both alone in the city (he was here for work), we decided to have diner together. We went to Chinatown and eat some nice chinese food there. I expected chinatown to have more chinese buildings, but it are just normal buildings with chinese signs everywhere. The food was nice (much better than all the fastfood I had so far) and we had a nice time together. At the end of the evening he invited me to visit him in Colorado when I’m crossing there to go hiking some time. So that’s a nice thing to look forward too 🙂

P.S. Just to let you know: I write every post so far at the end of the day or at the next day. So while the date under this post is August 9, it’s actually the story of the previous day, August 8. Right now I’m in Boston, but you’ll read about that tomorrow 😉