On May 24th, i went to New York with Matt and Chris. First time using the island airport.

2010 May 24: From the 5 minute ferry to the airport, looking into Toronto Harbour.

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2010 May 24: Toronto, with the Island midground, Leslie Street Spit to mid right.

2010 May 24: Oh yeah it was a prop plane, my first. Hope there are no rockstars on board.

2010 May 24: None of the photos looked like anything, but we were flying above the clouds before landing in Newark.

2010 May 24: Matt and Chris's room. Their bunks are to the right. There is nothing to the left. They are filling the room. (It was cheap.)

2010 May 24: Down the stairs...

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2010 May 24: We walked from our hotel, at Jane and the Hudson River/West Side Highway, down through the West Village, west of Soho, Tribeca, right downtown.

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2010 May 24: The World Trade Center site.

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2010 May 24: I think this is at Trinity Church. look how old that gravestone is!

2010 May 24: They are living in some very valuable land.

2010 May 24: Looking down Wall Street.

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2010 May 24: Talk about crazy security - the section of street those lights are on rotates to stop and let vehicles pass.

2010 May 24: Charging Bull near Bowling Green.

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2010 May 24: We walked down the the bottom of Manhattan. Those crazy line ups are for ferries to go to the Statue of Liberty.

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2010 May 24: Too bad i didn't have my telephoto lens, lol.

2010 May 24: After that, we subwayed up to Times Square - wow, i really over-exposed this.

2010 May 24: A ferris wheel inside Toys R Us.

2010 May 24: We walked over to Grand Central Station, looking for info - turns out it was the wrong one.

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2010 May 24: We made it down to Penn Station (which it turns out is a busier station than Grand Central - the busiest in North America, seems). It's crazy - a number of places openly sell beer chilling in ice, and supply brown paper bags.

2010 May 24: We saw signs later saying drinking alcohol, even in brown paper bags, is illegal. So American.

2010 May 24: Back near the hotel, in the meat packing district.

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2010 May 24: I was photographing the dude with the mouse ear hat... and didn't notice the cowboy hopping along.

2010 May 24: There's our hotel. It's a nice place, originally built as a residence for sailors, which explains why the rooms are essentially cabins with shared showers. We had a drink in the bar downstairs, chatted with the bartender, who gave us some places to go. In the evenings, i think the dress code is a little higher - they kept saying there was a 'private function' (though they did have licencing issues with over capacity). Take note of the bikes in front for later.

2010 May 24: The day's travels (foot and subway).

One place we were sent to was a bar at Little 12th and Washington called ... i forget, some German name, ha ha. Biergarten! Actually, i think it's a temporary place, because it's open air, behind the Standard Grill and under the elevated park. pretty nice, though the wine was pricy! After we wandered around the streets (i forget what i was looking for - rolaids?). We went to the Cafe at our hotel because i was a bit hungry - got the bruschetta. Very attractive servers...

2010 May 25: Walking along Horatio/13th Street - Matt and Chris are headed to the Games conference, while i'm headed to an art gallery (after a trip to access internets, at Burger King). Had a quick breakfast at Cafe Gitane (almond croissant).

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2010 May 25: The Metropolitan Museum of Art's facade.

2010 May 25: I didn't have a lot of time, so i just aimed for the modern art galleries. This is actually the aboriginal Australian gallery, which actually looks pretty modern anyway.

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2010 May 25: Crucifixion and Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) - Salvador Dali

2010 May 25: Reclining Nude - Amedeo Modigliani

2010 May 25: Bird In Space - Constantin Brancusi

2010 May 25: Nancy Cunard - Constantin Brancusi

2010 May 25: Composition - Piet Mondrian

2010 May 25: Woman Putting On A Stocking - Edgar Degas

2010 May 25: Juan Legua - Juan Gris

2010 May 25: Women, Birds, and a Star - Joan Miro

2010 May 25: Cat - Alberto Giacometti

2010 May 25: Tall Figure - Alberto Giacometti

2010 May 25: Thérèse Dreaming - Balthus

2010 May 25: Semérèse - Stuart Davis

2010 May 25: Black Iris - Georgia O'Keefe (sure, it's a flower...)

2010 May 25: Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue - Georgia O'Keefe (sure...)

2010 May 25: Meeting (The Three Graces) - Manierre Dawson

2010 May 25: Nest - Martin Kline

2010 May 25: Ugh, it bugs me, i want to scrape it clean, lol.

2010 May 25: Mark - Chuck Close

2010 May 25: Self-Portrait - Andy Warhol

2010 May 25: Shimmer Bright - Barnett Newman

2010 May 25: Stepping Out - Roy Lichtenstein (glad to see he did something else than rip off comic book artists)

2010 May 25: Galatea - Roy Lichtenstein

2010 May 25: Blue Green Red - Ellsworth Kelly

2010 May 25: Untitled - Franz Kline

2010 May 25: Number 28, 1950 - Jackson Pollock

2010 May 25: Mobile - Alexander Calder

2010 May 25: Oval Form With Strings and Color - Barbara Hepworth

2010 May 25: Untitled - Clyfford Still (I have a real bias against raw canvas).

2010 May 25: Untitled - Anish Kapoor

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2010 May 25: The Card Players - Paul Cézanne

2010 May 25: Two Tahitian Women - Paul Gaugin (also called Woman with Boobs in the Fruit Tray)

2010 May 25: Self-Portait With A Straw Hat - Vincent Van Gogh

2010 May 25: Irises - Vincent Van Gogh

2010 May 25: Study for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" - Georges Seurat (how's that for preproduction?)

2010 May 25: The Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog) - Claude Monet

2010 May 25: Water Lilies, Reflections of Weeping WIllows - Claude Monet

2010 May 25: Woman Before A Mirror - Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

2010 May 25: Dancer - Edgar Degas

2010 May 25: Reclining Nude - Auguste Renoir

2010 May 25: The Birth Of Venus - Alexandre Cabanel

2010 May 25: Florinda - Franz Xaver Winterhalter

2010 May 25: Adam - Auguste Rodin

2010 May 25: Eve - Auguste Rodin

2010 May 25: Memento (Soul II Soul) - Christian Marclay (too bad about the reflection, this photo doesn't do it justice)

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2010 May 25: Young Woman Drawing - Marie-Denise Villers

2010 May 25: The Blind Man's Meal - Pablo Picasso (they had a Picasso exhibit going on)

2010 May 25: Standing Nude - Pablo Picasso

2010 May 25: Kneeling Nude - Pablo Picasso

2010 May 25: Woman In White - Pablo Picasso

2010 May 25: linocut prints - Picasso

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2010 May 25: Rather than hike back to the same subway i'd gotten off, it was just as fast to cross under Central Park (79th Street Transverse), and hitch another line (which would be closer to the hotel anyway).

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2010 May 25: From a distance, i was worried this might be a body, lol.

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2010 May 25: 81st Street and Central Park West.

2010 May 25: My solo travels (foot and subway).

2010 May 25: I met up with Matt and Chris after the conference, and we boarded a commuter train out to Long Island, which is about like going from Union to Oshawa (except you end up in the middle of a small town, and not the outskirts of a small city).

2010 May 25: We were here for Chris to get his tattoo completed. Stupidly, i had the opportunity to take a photo of it in progress, but it didn't occur to me until after.

2010 May 25: We take photos of the passing trains as we wait to get back to Manhattan.

2010 May 25: They're going by pretty fast!

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2010 May 25: Tired?

2010 May 25: The Long Island Rail Road's windows aren't as clean as GO's, lol.

2010 May 25: The tracks at Penn Station.

2010 May 25: A platform at Penn Station.

2010 May 25: Trio travels (foot and subway - blue is to Penn Station, red is after).

2010 May 25: Empire State Building.

2010 May 25: Chris, that's a pretty stocking! Kinda goth-loli.

2010 May 25: This was the pizza place recommended by our hotel bartender. It was a bit pricey, but pretty awesome. Best pizza i've had? Quite probably. We were STARVING! I can't believe i finished a whole pizza though. Plus, they had Strongbow, the only place we went to that had it.

2010 May 25: It was actually a little darker than this.

2010 May 25: We wandered around the Soho main streets a bit, and then subwayed up to Times Square to see it at night.

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2010 May 25: The black biker gang. I can't believe i didn't take a photo of the Hispanic one, on the corer to the left.

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2010 May 25: I don't know why you're smiling, you didn't get your shoes that night, after 30 minutes of shopping!

2010 May 25: Cops lined up, just in case.

2010 May 26: Wednesday morning, i did a bit of shopping - nothing at Uniqlo, some gifts at MOMA. I'd also figured out the Apple Store near to the hotel had free internet.

2010 May 26: When i got back, Chris and Matt had finished at the conference, i met them back at the hotel, and they had borrowed the hotel's bikes for all of us. I have mixed feelings about not bringing my camera - happy i didn't have to lug it around or risk dropping it, sd i didn't get any biking photos. Anyway, we biked all the way up the Hudson River to Central Park, all through Central Park, seeing the Balto and Alice In Wonderland statues. The park restaurant turned out to be rather pricey, and we left the park briefly to get sandwiches, pretty awesome ones, as it turned out, at a classic New York deli.Which was good because i was getting kind of grumpy for lack of food, lol. We took our food into the park to relax and eat.

When we got going we came back down through the other (west) side of the park, detouring to see the Dakota Apartments, where John Lennon was shot. Then, back into the park, to the bottom, and we ended up on Broadway, which has bike lanes all the way down to Times Square, which was pretty amazing. We locked them up (in Times Square!) and each did some shopping (Chris and i for souvenirs, Matt for his shoes). We rode west on a street back to the bike lanes along the Hudson River, down to the hotel.

2010 May 26: When we got back, i took some photos of the riverfront in front of the hotel.

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2010 May 26: We rested at the hotel a bit, showering, etc, and went out to the nearby area for supper, as the sun set. My provencalish chicken was pretty good, but Chris and Matt had some amazing ribs. I forget the name of the restaurant patio - looked at the street view, but it looks different than i remember (old photos?). The (not very good) waiter recommended a bar to go to, which we did - called Hogs & Heifers. That was culture shock. It was full of bras stuck to a wall, sailors (in for 'fleet week'), American flags, country music, and a... dowmmarket crowd. We left pretty much as soon as we got there, ha ha. We went back to the Biergarten, which was louder though less interesting than before, lol. I left around midnight, while Chris and Matt continued their late night romp.

When i got back to the hotel, i did grab my camera again and took photos of the river again.

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2010 May 27: Well, 8 am, and i'm all packed, showered, and down to the cafe for breakfast. I really liked this place (i like French cafes in the first place, and this one looked really cool).

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2010 May 27: My breakfast, baked eggs, tomato, cream and basil. Interesting, tasted great, needs a spoon to eat, lol.

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2010 May 27: After brekkie, i went out to the Apple Store to check my email (opens at 9).

2010 May 27: The lobby.

2010 May 27: Uh oh, the door wasn't closed last night. They got in later than i did, lol.

2010 May 27: I sat down in the lobby and read some while i waited. We went back to the cafe for their breakfast.

2010 May 27: Waiting at the Newark airport.

2010 May 27: I think those bridges are to Jersey City, not New York.

2010 May 27: That's where the Niagara River meets Lake Ontario (so, Niagara-on-the-Lake to the left).

2010 May 27: Leslie Street Spit, The Beach(es) at the very top.

2010 May 27: Approaching the airport from the east.

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2010 May 27: We had to wait in the plane while another one boarded. Today we did cab>plane>ferry>bus>train>cab>car. Crazy man.

All in all, it was a pretty amazing trip. Just wish my feet didn't hurt so much!