our NYC adventure -- day 5

Mark & David started the day with a run across the George Washington Bridge. New Jersey is on the other side of the river and David showed Mark around the neighborhood that they'll be moving to later this summer. After breakfast, Mark, David, Jared & Ryan headed downtown to see the UN. They were dissapointed that the UN didn't have the flags flying that day and they wouldn't be able to get on a tour until afternoon, AND the looks of the tour didn't seem to be quite as interesting as they had hoped, SO they moved on to other things. They decided to check out Grand Central Station. Mark says it is huge and really fun to see, with lots of comings and goings of trains and transportation. The guys also stopped by the New York City Public Library -- which was closed. Bummer. But they were able to check out the awesome architecture and the big lions out front.
Jared & Ryan got to choose fast food for lunch and snow cones later in the afternoon, so they were happy campers. They also spent some time playing the XBOX at David's.

Alicia, Sarah, Zach & I headed out to do some shopping. Alicia took us down to Harlem to H&M -- a clothing store. We tried on a few things and picked up a couple things for the kids too. Then we headed toward Columbia University. On the way, I noticed a bunch of tall brick apartment buildings and asked if they were part of the university, or something else -- they were "the projects". Duh! Really they were pretty typical with chain link fences around them and lots of apartment buildings close together. However, I didn't notice any graffiti, or people just hanging out, but maybe that's because we were on the other side of the street. In my mind I kept saying, "Wow--here I am walking by THE PROJECTS in HARLEM! A coupla white girls with kids. Shouldn't I be nervous about this?" I wasn't, and I'm chalking that up to the fact that there weren't people just hanging around with nothing to do, it was the middle of the day, AND Alicia knew where we were headed. Just past the projects, is Columbia University. We walked through the center of campus where they were finishing taking down the graduation chairs and bleachers. The campus was beautiful, well kept, and the buildings looked stately. The campus is spread out, so I didn't see everything, but that part was impressive. Not far from the main campus is Tom's Diner (from Seinfeld), but we opted for lunch at Chipotle instead. Then we made our way over to the top of Central Park to check out the fishing pond and playground with water spouts, then it was back to the subway and home for a nap before heading to the Mets vs. Marlins game. Here's a picture of Shea stadium, where the Mets play. We stayed for about 5 innings and the Mets were losing -- darn! It is way better to be in the stadium watching baseball rather than home on the couch watching -- it's actually fun in person!! We had a good time cheering and groaning with the crowd and watching the game.