the grand adventure: day two and day three

day two:

the day started off beautifully! it was a little overcast but not raining, which was the important part. mackenzie and i started off where we ended the day before, ronnybrook farm dairy in chelsea market. after breakfast we went up to see the high line. this is one of my favorite summer spots in the entire city. it has great views of the water and plenty of seating (which, in this city, is a huge plus.) the highline was once above ground railroad tracks that were and abandoned and later turned into a beautiful green space. they did a wonderful job of incorporating things like the old tracks and native plant life. and, for anyone who is interested, there is a delightful children's book based on the high line called the curious garden. i own it and it is just lovely.

the high line is also a popular spot for public art. the photo above is of 'the river that flows both ways' by spencer finch. every minute for 700 minutes straight finch took a picture of the surface of the hudson river. then, he took one pixel from each photo, turned them into glass panes (i have no idea how) and lined the up chronologically, creating a giant wall of multicolored glass that changes with the color of the river behind it. the picture only shows one of the seven sections that make up the wall. 

this is what we found right after exiting the highline. each tag has a different person's 'hope' for the future. due to the rain, lots of the words had faded. some were holding on, though, and they were quite inspiring to read. little things like this make the city beautiful.

we continued through chelsea and ran across this lovely...thing:

pretty terrifying, huh? i guess that's one thing to do with your air conditioner space. pretty soon we were at the flatiron building. this building still makes me smile. i think it would be pretty neat to have a little corner office up there.

we continue our journey up the island through the rest of chelsea and midtown. we decided to skip time square and make a stop at tiffany's instead. that place is unreal. now, i am not one for fancy (or non-fancy) jewelry, but i cannot deny the beauty of some of their pieces. i just can't get over how sparkly everything is. after our little stop at tiffany's, we headed up the park. the sun had really come out and this point and we though we were going to die.

about twenty blocks up the park we decided to stop and have a bite to eat under a statue. i kind of think that were weren't supposed to be there, though, because people kept walking by and staring, but we were too tired to care. i picked up a hotdog and mackenzie got a chicken gyro. i'm not going to lie, hers was much better than mine.

as soon as we got to the met we had to leave because i had to go pick up the little one. i will definitely be going back up soon to see the alexander mcqueen exhibit though.

while the little one and i were walking home, we ran into this guy! i think i was more more excited than the little one. he likes to look at animals, but the second we get close to one he freaks out. at least i got a few good horse nuzzles.

for dinner we went back to quayoyo and got the queso guayanés. as you can see, it is basically just melted cheese and avocado. what more could you want in a sandwich? this is my favorite quick meal. i'm slightly obsessed. 

day three:

i was terrible today. i totally forgot to bring my fully charged camera battery. i did take a couple instagram photos though. it ended up being super rainy though so it was ok because i probably couldn't have used it much anyway. our walk today was so long. we walked from 86th to 181st and zigzagged in between. i did not realize how many hills there are. seriously. mackenzie and i felt like we were mountain climbing and didn't think we were going to make it. by the end, we couldn't stop because we thought we might collapse. the biggest surprise was how beautiful the city college campus is. i had no idea. there were also a lot of beautiful buildings in harlem. if it weren't so far away from everything i have to do on a daily basis, i would totally move up there. 

now, we are climbing into be to  insure that we are well rested for our trip into brooklyn tomorrow. i am praying it is not raining and my legs don't give out on me. 

visit mackenzie's blog for more photos of the adventure.