A day of silences

Day three. I started off with getting a NY bagel with "American Cheese" (which is burger cheese basically - nice) and a quaff-ee. Heading into Central Park and ate my bagel whilst walking round all the hills and lakes that litter the park. Quite suprised by the size of the park considering the fact that it is on the edge of Midtown (where Grand central station, Times square etc are). It had snowed over night and the lakes were partially frozen and the grass was coated in snow - like it had a dusting of icing. The park was suprising quiet and you didnt feel that you were pratcially in the centre of New York. Wierd. After eventually finding the nearest metro i headed to grand central station. It is huge- surrounded on all sides by shops, markets and offices. It felt really warm and cosy as the lights are yellow and dimmed. There was marble and gold-est metal everywhere. Pretty cool walking through the markets. The celling is covered in a painting of the signs of the zodiac.


Then headed on the 7 train which runs on an elevated stretch of tracks. Its runs all the way into Queens. The views arent that good but it runs all through most of the ethnic hoods in Queens. From the start you could tell what hoods you were passing through as the faces changed along the way. The train ends in Flushing which is a sort of Chinatown. Less touristie and full of restaurants, shops and banks (oddly). One thing i did notice all the way along was the graffitti which was everywhere - absolutely everywhere on the walls, roofs, pavements - everywhere (graffitti wasnt even that good - most in white).
After catching the train back i headed to ground zero. I had read in the Lonely planet that the best spot to view the site was from the winter gardens - part of the World Financial Centre. Winter gardens didnt turn out to be that good as it was basically a covered small square with a dozen of palm trees. Ground zero was reallt strange. There was a great big whole in the city scape. They are planning to build another tower as tall as the previous tower 2 (i think). There was a preacher on the street outside annoying everyone as she had a really loud voice and endless stamina.

After looking at the pictures of 9/11 that were posted all around the metro station i headed home and stopped off in a Turkish restauarant where i was the first guest and the waiting staff were obviously really bored as i was asked on countless time if everything was okay. Food was okay. The restaurant was huge and lined inside with material to make it look like a tent. Nice atmosphere.