Monday: Edinburgh Castle and more

Happy Monday! I tried haggis for breakfast today. I pretty much enjoyed it. It's like sausage with oats mixed in, and with the skin removed. Quite spicy.

After brekkies we all went downtown to see the Edinburgh Castle. This morning I was the crabbiest because it was a bit chilly and I hadn't brought a jacket and it ultimately rained on us and I had to keep waiting up for the other two and I'd already seen a castle so it was all sort of boring anyway. But Sarah was digging it and Margo really enjoyed it. When the rain hit hard we did duck inside the cafe for tea and scones. We also saw some nice side exhibits including a war museum with uniforms, medals and weaponry from all of Scotland's history, and an exhibit on the lives of prisoners of war, including how they passed their time (crafts and forgery). We also saw the Great Hall; this one included lots of weaponry on the walls - mostly swords and pikes but also some early handguns arranged in circles. The crowds were huge, even on a Monday morning.

Following are a bunch of pictures. This first one, the castle entrance, includes a motto in Latin, which translates to something like, "If you provoke us, don't be surprised if we tear you a new one."




Here's a view of northeast Edinburgh from the castle:



One thing Margo neglected to mention about our trip to the Stirling Castle is that it was the site for one of Scotland's greatest battles involving William Wallace - the Battle of Stirling Bridge. You know, the guy in Braveheart. Okay? Like, Mel Gibson was practically there. Be impressed already.

After seeing the castle, we split up again. I went to see if I could unlock my old cell phone (locked in the US by Cingular) and use it here. I couldn't; something about being dual band, or not being dual band. Margo and Sarah went to see Mary King's Close, some boring historical exhibit with ghosts. Remember that valley I wrote about earlier between New Town and Old Town? That was at one time filled to be an artificial lake. Bad idea, because everything poured downhill into it, including the twice-daily emptying of chamber pots, the offal from butcher shops ... everything nasty went there and it got sludgy and stinky. That's what Margo learned. And that's why the trees and the grass in the park there grow so nicely.

Then it was time to switch again. Margo and Sarah picked up the laundry we'd dropped off on the way to the castle, then Sarah and I hung out while Margo went off to see the National Gallery. I guess she just grooved on the Raphaels and such, totally ignoring the Robert Mapplethorpe photography exhibit. No accounting for taste, is there?

So after watching a few episodes of The Simpsons on a borrowed tape, Ola, a friend of the B and B owners, and who had taken a shining to Sarah, came by as we'd arranged earlier to take her to the cinema for a while, giving Margo and myself a night out.

And being boring old people, it wasn't much of a night out. We went to Rose Street for a pub crawl. We had dinner and pints at one place, pints at another place, and lastly a bit of dessert. Then we bussed back to our room, where Ola and Sarah rejoined us later.



Ola had taken Sarah to see the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. They left early because the monsters were too scary, so they went to the beach and built a sand castle.

Sunday

After breakfast this morning we split up. Our days always start with breakfast. We have to get up for breakfast. It's a struggle every morning. It feels like we could sleep until noon otherwise.

Margo went off on her own downtown to walk around. Here are three of the pictures she took.





Me, I don't bother taking pictures like these, because the city is full of beautiful old buildings. You know the Peter Jackson remake of King Kong? When they recreated the New York of the 1930s? It was done with software. The landmark buildings were modeled, but the rest - the "fill" - was auto-generated. They put in certain parameters - some percent Art Deco, some percent Victorian, so many stories, and so forth - and had their software just make it up. That's what Edinburgh feels like, and I'm sure much of the UK. 90% Gothic, 3-5 stories. 10% modern, glass and steel, tastefully integrated. I've got more observations on architecture to write about later.

So while Margo was out doing her thing, Sarah and I went to the nearby commonwealth pool. Sarah put her face in the water a few times; her next step on the path to being a swimmer is to get her head in the water, but this is still a difficulty for her. But she was very friendly, going out of her way to say Hi to smaller kids when she could - I think she's eager to make friends.

We phoned Margo and met her downtown. After a refreshment stop we walked past the National Gallery to Princes Street.



That's a Scotland hat Sarah is wearing. I guess she wanted a baseball-style hat. It has the Scottish flag on the front (a white X over a blue field ... kinda boring when they could be using that red lion on the gold field instead, that we see lots of other places).

I tried to fulfill an errand (figuring out how to unlock my older Nokia phone from the USA so that I could use it with my newer chip) when Margo decided to get a newer phone. She wanted one with Bluetooth so that it could integrate with her PDA. So now she can have the same boring information in 3 places - these two plus her laptop.

Now I'm taking offense at this. After all, I am the engineer in the family. I'm the one who makes a living (well, will make a living) (well, will supplement a living) on the bleeding edge. A software developer must be constantly learning new technologies and tools just to stay relevant. It's a harsh world. Learn AJAX or you're a dinosaur. It's not all tea and crumpets, let me tell you. So anyway, here's my wife, who has the cool factor of a salami sandwich. No, a baloney sandwich, with mayonnaise, on white bread, on a plastic plate. And what does she end up with? A Motorola RAZR flip phone. Which is, for this month anyway, about the coolest phone on the planet. It's like your grandmother buying a Panoz. It's just unfair.

So that was our first outing, taking us through early afternoon. Then we walked down the Royal Mile to Our Dynamic Earth, an earth science museum. Along the way we spied this Porsche Carrera GT, which was ogled by every male passing within 50 meters. In fact, here's one now.



Now when testing our products at Chrome we engineers favored exotics, but I don't recognize this one. Is it unavailable in the States? Do tell, Chromies.

We also passed the Parliament building. This is just one building on sort of a campus of buildings. It's new because, until the mid-90s, the Scottish Parliament was actually in London.



I also had to take a picture of these bike racks because you only see the bike shape if you're looking head-on down a row of them. I thought it was clever.



And then on to Our Dynamic Earth.



We made it through the main exhibit before Sarah got tired. It started with a time-machine presentation of the planet's history, covering the Big Bang, early volcanic activity, early life, more complex life, and finally apes and humans. And not that it was funny, but I was inwardly amused that this scientific narration was delivered with the accent of Groundskeeper Willie.

Then the second part of the exhibit was the future: we were herded into four groups of seats in a planetarium-sized theater where we got to collectively decide the planet's future. Depending on where we sat, we made decisions in the areas of energy, water, pollution, and something else I don't remember. We were asked to decide on issues three times, voting one of two ways by pressing buttons on our chairs. So for energy, our first issue was whether to invest in alternative energy sources, or continue using cheap fossil fuels. Each decision affected the choices available on the next round. We made the first choice (majority rule; in the case of a tie, fastest choices won) and saw a mock news report decades in the future showing the results of our choice. And so on for two more issues: use nuclear power, or force conservation (we chose nuclear); and continue conserving, or allow cheap fossil fuels again (we voted fossil, and saw storm damage increase and shorelines rise).

Afterward, it was time for an early dinner. We found a pub uphill on the Royal Mile that was serving dinners (and could therefore accommodate wee ones). Margo had a Sunday roast and Sarah and I split a fish and chips. We also sampled the local hard cider in addition to another local ale. And then we bused back to our B and B, where I booted the laptop, started my bad writing of the day, and that about brings us up to date.

Stirling Castle and etcetera from Margo

Today we took the train about an hour northeast of Edinburgh to the town of Stirling and Stirling Castle. We had a somewhat contentious morning on the way to the station, as evidenced by these pictures of Mike and Sarah on the train. For contrast, I have included the picture that Sarah took of me at the same time.





Fortunately, by the time we arrived n Stirling, everyone was in a better mood. We walked up the hill through town toward the castle. En route I snapped this photo of Sarah.



The castle was pretty amazing and well preserved. It was fairly moving to stand in the courtyard and imagine the thousands of feet that had trod the cobblestones and the voices that must have echoed off of the castle walls throughout the long centuries. We enjoyed a guided tour and managed to pick up quite a bit of history. Here is a view of the surrounding countryside from the castle walls.



Mike and Sarah enjoyed clowning around with the cannon.



A photo of the great banquet hall.



The most interesting thing for me was watching the recreation of the famous unicorn tapestries. The originals are on display at The Cloisters in New York City. Artisans are currently engaged in the painstaking duplication of the tapestries; the finished works will be displayed in the King's chambers at the castle.

The Scotland Historic Trust has created a space where the artisans work on the tapestries and the public are able to observe the process. I thought it was fascinating and the results were so beautiful. It was very moving to see the creation of such beauty in process. Below is a picture of one of the weavers at work and a closer view of the work in progress. One of the castle guides gave Sarah a piece of the pure spun gold being used for part of the golden, blue-sashed dress in the picture.




Our last stop was at the gift shop where a sample of "a wee dram" of a scottish cream liqueur and some scotch whisky as well as some Atholl Brose, a whisky-based honey and herb liqueur, convinced us to make some additional purchases. I believe that these may go a long way toward alleviating the strain of traveling with a crabby 5 year old who would prefer to spend the entire day, every day, in our B&B room playing Mario Brorthers on her hand held Nintendo.

Fortunately, she can be jollied out of a bad mood most of the time. Here are a couple pictures of her in New York that weren't posted earlier, but that I thought those among you who are more interested in Sarah than in architecture might enjoy. The close up was taken near Madison Square Garden and the other in the Macy's Cellar.

First Day in Edinburgh

We started the day with a trip down the road to the chemist's to get shaving cream and toothpaste as well as get some change for the bus. We also went a few doors down to get a newspaper and buy extra time for our phones.

Once we'd figured out the fare, we waited for the bus. At this point I will digress to write about the currency. The bills of course have color (sorry, colour) and nice artwork. But the coins are different. There are one and two pound coins, as well as coins for 50 pence, 20p, 10p and 5p. I haven't seen a 1 pence piece yet. And the sizes of coins do not alone hint at their denominations. If I reorder the coins I have by size, this is the order from smallest to largest: 5p, 20p, 1 pound, 10p, 2 pounds, 50p. The 20p and 50p coins have flattened edges, making them close to octagons, and the 2 pound coin is more a copper color.

But the other thing I wanted to mention about coins is that while I was walking and trying to understand the new system, I realized I'd only be confused once, and that I should enjoy it. I'll have lots of new systems to learn, and learning them and being confused is part of the fun of traveling.

So back to our bus. Many buses - most that I remember seeing - are double buses. And of course we rode on top on our way downtown.

The main event of the day was a bus tour. There are several available, but Margo picked one that had a live narration. So we climbed aboard one for its route (less than an hour) and saw and learned lots. I enjoyed the tour but would have enjoyed it even more if it weren't for these two annoying Americans sitting in front of me. The little girl would point and shout at things, and the mother would point out things to the little girl, so I couldn't always hear the tour. So I had to keep shushing Sarah and Margo.

I didn't realize until the end of the tour that I hadn't taken any pictures. But I think that might be more of the pattern I follow, because before taking pictures, you have to get to know the area to determine what you want to remember later. So my pictures will probably be better in a few days.

Then it was off to a pub for lunch - pints and an order of fish and chips. Cheers!



Afterward, Margo read the paper while Sarah and I played foosball. To let her win points I had to handicap myself by setting my guys head down so the ball would pass underneath. When it was time to go Sarah broke down saying she wanted to keep playing. We thought it was overtiredness - Sarah hasn't completely overcome jet lag yet.

At this point we split up, since we have phones now and can do that. So I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around. I saw more of the High Street and the Edinburgh Castle. Then I walked over to the New Town area. This shows part of the geography. The "valley" in between has no water, but there are bridges nonetheless. There is also rail going up it. To the right (south) is the High Street shopping - the Royal Mile that has Parliament and a palace at the bottom end and the Edinburgh Castle at the top end. To the left (north) is New Town. This picture only captures a small part of it and doesn't really do it justice.



First, I walked much of Rose Street. The tour mentioned that this street has more pubs than any other in Europe. This picture is from the far end looking back.



The tour also mentioned that the Oxford Bar, the favorite pub of (the fictional) DI (detective inspector) Rebus, actually exists and is on Young Street, so of course I had to have a pint there.



By the way, both pints were dark Scottish beers, but I didn't find them as tasty as the ones that would show up in Portland in wintertime. I even had a tastier one in a Victoria brewpub. These were more on the bitter end than sweet, and I didn't taste any of the heath flavoring I was expecting. Flavouring. I wonder when I'll use those u's and lose my z's without thinking about it.

Another by the way: a few blocks down Young changes to Thistle Street, and since it runs parallel to Rose, now you know how the Rose and Thistle in Portland has its name.

Then I came back via Princes Street, a shopping street with shops on one side and a nice view across the valley on the other.



The street is partially closed to cars, as is much of the Royal Mile and I'm sure elsewhere. In fact, I didn't see a single surface car park. And not one freeway, even coming from the airport. And no billboards! Carchitecture is so ugly, so it is refreshing to see its absence.

I did some shopping; I think all of it had to do with power - a power adaptor from a grounded (3-prong) US plug to UK (we already have a 2-prong adaptor); a battery charger for UK; and a UK power supply for our Nintendo DS.

I considered getting one of the ample Scotland rubgy shirts, but decided not to. Wearing the wrong team's shirt in the wrong place could get me in trouble.

Crabs

We're used to spending most of our days apart from each other, but now that every day is a weekend, we're stuck together almost constantly. We've also been stressed with the normal stresses of travel (all the hurry-up-and-wait, learning how to navigate a new area). It's becoming a Family Tolerance Boot Camp.

I get crabby because I want to be exploring and out and about and I get impatient waiting for Margo and Sarah. It also makes me crazy when Sarah, who happens to be a little kid, actually acts like a little kid. I'm also trying to convince the whole UK that we are not ugly Americans, so every time Sarah tries climbing a street pole I'm in instant fear of being deported.

Margo gets crabby because she's on vacation and her impatient husband keeps pressing her to finish eating. And when we're navigating, she wants to let me know that she knows everything, just as much as I want her to know I know everything.

Sarah gets crabby because her parents keep telling her what to do and she has to come along all the time. She has to walk when she'd rather have someone else drive her around. And she doesn't have any kids to play with, and oddly enough, Margo and I don't jump at the chance to read her a comic book or listen intently as she interrupts us with a new non sequitur. (She's had quite a few about the Superfriends lately. We'll be walking down the street when she'll reveal a startling new fact about the Green Lantern.)

I'm sure we'll adapt soon enough (we're already learning techniques to help, like scheduling time on the laptop). But if one of us calls collect from the constable's, you'll know why.

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Edinburgh Arrival

After landing at the airport and collecting our bags, we took a taxi to our room, the Priestville Guest House. Along the way, we recognized several place names from our mutual enjoyment of Ian Rankin's Detective Rebus novels, including Lothian Road and the St. Leonard's district, which we are staying near.

I considered taking pictures but we were tired and I didn't even know what to take pictures of.

We have one large room with high ceilings. We like it a lot! Here's Sarah.



Here are views from our window.





We've just finished breakfast - tea and toast; Margo and I chose the Scottish smoked salmon and scrambled egg; sarah chose the Continental breakfast of crumpet, cheese-covered toast, and raisin toast. Now we're activating our pay-as-you-go cellphones and deciding what to do today.

New Settings

Trouble in Dublin

Well, we saw a bit more of the Dublin airport than we were expecting. We were taxiing for takeoff. And taxiing. It seemed like we were going quite a while. Margo and I started joking. Maybe the pilot got lost. Maybe we were driving to Edinburgh. Then we got the announcement that it appeared there was an error with an electronic component and we were returning to the airport to have it checked out.

So okay, better safe than sorry. We were asked to remain seated and belted. And of course we were tired ... we'd started our journey from Arthur and Mary's house in Long Island at 5pm local time, and it was around 2pm local time now, and for the most part we hadn't slept. After a while, it was announced that the ground crew had replaced the component and we'd be off again.

We again taxi, and again, before hitting the runway, we get an announcement that the same error has appeared. So again we taxi back to the airport. And we wait. And we stay seated and belted. The stewardess making announcements is increasingly apologetic.

After another while we are informed that we will be changing planes, but first we'll be loaded onto buses, so we have to wait for the buses and for adequate ground crew to make it all happen.

During this wait, people are quite cheery, polite and understanding. No one is griping much.

Finally we are bused to another airport terminal. Some passengers loaded up with sandwiches and beer. Then we boarded another plane and this time took off without incident. All in all it was a three hour delay but as we weren't in a hurry and we had no further connections to make, we were better able to take it in stride.

Greetings from Across The Pond

(Written Thursday morning)

We're in the Dublin airport right now. I was hoping to be able to get to the main terminal, but that doesn't seem likely since we're only off one flight and getting onto another with a 2.5 hour layover. I was hoping to stage Margo and Sarah to recreate the cover to U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind.

But let's go back a bit. Thanks again to Arthur and Mary for hosting us. After a swim in their pool, we drove to JFK, dropped off the car, and had dinner. It was very fitting that our last American meal was at McDonald's, because we were too tired to argue with Sarah.

The Aer Lingus flight was much smoother once we got over open water. Sarah slept just fine, but Margo and I were up pretty much the whole time. We landed first in Shannon; on the way I could glimpse walled-off farmland below (we were in the center seats). We stayed on the plane to Dublin. Edinburgh is next.

Amusements

I like to think I lead a simple life. Or at least, that I used to. Not too much clutter; not too many engagements. Enjoy the simple pleasures in life.

I don't know where we crossed that line, but we are carrying around a load of gadgets to keep us amused on our trip.

It may have started with my 60 Gb iPod. I like my music, and it's been nice to listen to an album before drifting off to sleep.

My mom also gave me a Sudoku electronic game. (Thanks, Mom.) Subsequently, I am a master of the Sudoku arts. I start a bus/train ride with a level 2 puzzle to warm up, then take on a level 3 or 4 (the highest, with this game anyway) challenge. I am learning new moves as I go. Some day I will write a book (no, probably scrolls instead) in which I shall impart my hard-earned wisdom upon undeserving souls. I am legend. I am also undefeated: I've only had to quit because of time constraints. That, or being tired. But that doesn't count.

We realized Sarah may have a hard time waiting in train stations and airports, so we thought it would be a good idea to get a hand-held gaming console. We settled on the Nintendo DS Lite. I got some Mario games for Sarah and I (Mario Kart and Super Mario Brothers), but when I got Brain Age for Margo, I created a monster: now she's at it every night. It includes Sudoku. Now at this point I must reiterate that I am a Sudoku master, and Margo is not. Were we to battle, I would surely defeat her.

Then Margo realized how much she missed her 1980s Sharp Wizard electronic organizer ... so she sprang and got a Palm Tungsten E2. I don't even know what it does. But she did put Sudoku on that too. As well as Solitaire. (But she's still using the Nintendo every night.)

Did I mention we also have a laptop? And an external hard drive? And a digital camera? All in the same bag? Where did I go wrong?

The Streets of NYC

Okay, now that I've had a few days to walk the streets of New York, here are some general impressions.

So many people! Most of the time I was dodging people on the sidewalk.

Uptown, downtown, and midtown are not just fancy place names; they're actual directions. You need it because, for the first time you come up from underground, you have no landmarks to get your directions from. No mountains, no hills, no singlular buildings ... you're always walled in. I set off in the wrong direction a few times because of this. I got used to looking for these directions in subway stations. You can ask some guy on the street ... "Which way is uptown?" and he can probably point you there.

I was surprised the first time I was riding a subway and I saw another train passing us ... in the same direction. Kind of like passing a minivan on the freeway. That's serious train use. And the subways weren't as bad as I'd thought. Some are cleaner than others. But overall they seemed pretty clean. I never felt bad about setting my backpack on the floor.

Those black dots on the sidewalk. Old gum. It was everywhere. And the grates over the subway lines where you can hear the trains underneath, and smell that funky, humid smell.

I also noticed many cars were dinged. You walk down the street and look at the parked cars. Lots have little dents in the bumpers or sides. Some have serious scrapes. Even uptown. Margo and I took a cab ride once. It's not so much driving as a continuous negotiation. You start pushing your way into a lane, and the other guy will either push back or give you space. It's practically a contact sport. Good thing it's never more than 10 mph.

You know, there was little panhandling. I never got asked for money as much as in Portland. Just once, really. You do see lots of tables selling all sorts of things: used books, souvenirs, VHS and DVD movies, paintings.

I was on the LIRR today and someone recognized someone else and said, "Hey, I know you from ..." and they chatted. And I realized that I hadn't seen that before in my four days of walking around the city. Nobody seems to know anybody else. It's like a city of strangers. I'm sure I'd see more of that in the neighborhoods, but it's just so anonymous.

It's probably the most Darwinian city I've been in. Move, or get out of the way.

I think I only saw one bike lane, along 34th, or maybe 7th Avenue. Whenever I saw a parked bike, it usually had a serious chain and a MasterLock.

The NYC Harbor Tour

Today's agenda was a simple one: a tour of the New York harbor. Want to see? Of course you do.

The tour was narrated by a gentleman with a voice not unlike that of Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus in The Matrix. "This is not the tour for ... Ellis ... Island." He had lots of great trivia, some of which I may remember and share with you.

We started in Battery Park, which looks like this.



We worked our way North a bit along the Manhattan shoreline, including these Cesar Pelli buildings of the World Financial Center (I know I called them the World Trade Center earlier, so I guess I was w-w-w-wrong) ...



We started to get closer to the Statue of Liberty, but these two were in the way ...



And here's the money shot of the Statue herself. Did you know her seven points are for the seven seas and continents? And that the 25 facets in her crown are the 25 jewels? And that her face is the face of the sculptor's mother? And that its real name is something like "Liberty Enlightens The World?" Now you do.



So now we're headed back toward Manhattan. Want to see it from a distance? Here you go.



Heading toward the Brooklyn Bridge, here's another shot of the island. If you look closely in the middle you can see Wall Street and Trinity Cathedral.



We went a bit underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, then back to Battery Park.



I'd hoped to walk part of the Brooklyn Bridge, but didn't get the time. It's part of a list of things I'd hoped to see ... including Rockefeller Center, the NY Public Library, the Museum of Natural History, getting coffee in Greenwich Village (where the next Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell would sing and play guitar just for me). Ah well.

A post from Margo

We have been having a really nice time in NY ... Sarah and I have been spending a lot of time with my family: Cousins Reenie and Mary and their families. We also had the chance to visit a cousin from my paternal grandfather's family, Barbara Green. It was a really nice visit and great to get the chance to meet another member of my family.

Yesterday we narrowly averted a disaster. While checking online to determine whether I needed to carry the hard copy of my work permit with my passport in order to clear immigration in the UK, I discovered, to my dismay, that Mike and Sarah also needed visas in order to enter. I had been informed that I needed one, but I didn't know that they did too. As we are scheduled to leave on Wednesday, you can imagine that I was in a bit of a panic. After trying to get an appointment with the British Consulate (unsuccessfully ... no opening until next week) I got somebody on the phone who directed me to a visa expediter. Fortunately I had with me the originals of all the necessary documentation such as birth and marriage certificates etc. Mike was already in the city for the day and had to go and get passport photos taken. Sarah already had an extra set.

So ... I pulled together all of the documentation, went to my cousin Mary's house and filled out the applications online, paid the fee, printed the applications and put the packets together. Then Mary, Reenie and Arthur watched Sarah while I took the train into the city to meet Mike and get his photos. Mike met me at Penn Station and we took a cab across town to meet the expediter, who doesn't work out of an office per se, but rather met us at a coffee shop, wrote out a receipt for all of our most important documents, including our passports, and disappeared into the urban canyons. We fervently hope that he returns today as planned ... with our stuff!

I'm actually not too worried, as he is registered with the consulate ... also I just got an email from the consulate advising that the visas have been approved and issued, so the paperwork got at least that far. Mike is scheduled to meet with him as I type, and I expect to hear soon that he has all of the paperwork in hand.

So ... a disaster narrowly averted. Thank god for the internet and wireless computer access in the hotel. We would otherwise have found out about all of this when Mike and Sarah were refused entry in Dublin or Edinburgh.

And that's the news for today. We think of all of our family and friends often and miss everybody. Sarah especially misses her school and her best friend Nika.

Love,
margo

Broadway

Today I just walked the streets. Specifically, I went north from Penn Station along 7th Avenue up to Times Square, then down Broadway all the way to Wall Street, then back to Penn by subway. Broadway's a great street to walk because it cuts diagonally through the city. My route started midtown and took me though parts of the Flower District, a bit of the East Village, Little Italy, Nolita, Chinatown, and the Financial District, all on one street.

So first we're looking north at Times Square. Try to imagine all the pictures moving.



Here's one block further north:



And looking south. I swear I am physically incapable of smiling on demand. Not even for me.



I passed Macy's again, then came upon the Flatiron Building.



At Union Square I lost the trail and ended up going in nearly the same direction, but the wrong street: Bowery. It was a happy accident, though, since I got to see the legendary CBGB:



I also got to pick up a Village Voice in front of the building where it was made, and crossing the street, I got to see both the Empire State Building and Chrysler Buildings nicely:



Getting back to Broadway, it wasn't long until I could see the Woolworth Building, which I think is considered one of the first skyscrapers ever.



I got about a block away from the World Trade Center site.



And lastly, the church of capitalism itself, the New York Stock Exchange.