My Last Days in New York City —



On Friday, very early in the morning, a good friend and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge is awesome and old, and its walkway is nicely situated high above the street so as to provide peds with an all-around awesome view.
Here is the view of Manhattan from halfway across the bridge:

(Everything is so grey because it was early in the morning and very cloudy.)
We took the Manhattan Bridge back, which has a rather ugly walkway. However, it affords a gorgeous view of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Financial District of Lower Manhattan (incidentally, the WTC towers would have been in this picture if I'd taken it precisely four years earlier):
The Manhattan Bridge crosses Chinatown at the very end, as it approaches Canal St., and I thought this view was cool.
Much later that day, Shea and her mom took me and Eblyn out to eat at an awesome pizza place. It was really fun, and I was glad to see Shea one more time before she headed back to Mississippi! Meanwhile, my return to the Mississippi River was quickly approaching too.
On Monday, after two days of strenuous academia, I was finally done with schoolwork. Yay! I decided to take a long trip around the city. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. I began by strolling up Seventh Avenue.

Behold — Seventh Avenue:
Then I took the 1-9 train up to the West 90s and headed east towards Central Park. It was a pretty nice area. This is what it looked like:
Central Park had become a deciduous paradise of green! It was beautiful.
I liked this awesome tree.
After cutting through Central Park, I headed back in the direction of Rubin by turning south on Fifth Avenue (which forms the eastern border of the park). I think the path alongside the park is cool; it looks sort of like an enchanted trail to me, with the awesome lighting — even in spite of all the cars screeching past:
Suddenly, I cried to myself, "Self, look, it's the Guggenheim!" It was at eighty-something-th street and Fifth Ave. Hey, speaking of the Guggenheim, I should go there sometime.
I think this is just about the most pretentious street name I've ever seen.
This is what was across the street from the Met (a.k.a. the Metropolitan Museum of Art), which I also encountered along my stroll. I would have photographed the Met itself, but it was covered in this ugly burlap-like material (renovation time, I suppose), and it wasn't at its most photogenic.
On Monday night, as my long and arduous packing process neared completion, I practiced moving with all my stuff. I figured out a way to carry it all, but it's tricky: two bags rolling behind me, my violin and computer case slung over a shoulder, my guitar in my other hand and my backpack on my back.

According to Dina, who took this picture, I looked very convincingly like a homeless street musician.

Note the remaining stuff on my desk and shelves, which, along with my bedsheets and towels, will also need to fit in those bags (probably the yellow one, which at the time of this photograph contained only large books and sheet music) somewhere.