Day 3: Hotdogs, Sharks, Indians, Cremepuffs, Climbing, and Pork

After waking up and deciding my hair looked good enough to not take a shower, I ate some Rice Krispies from a glass (Angela thinks I’m super weird for only liking non-sweet cereals, e.g. regular Cheerios and Rice Krispies. Maybe I am weird, but I just can’t deal with those sweet cereals…) and then made my way to the upper West Side.

I first went to Gray’s Papaya, voted best hot dog in NYC, where I ordered two hotdogs with relish, onions, and cheese and a piña colada drink. I went to Gray’s Papaya in both 9^th and 11^th grades but in the later year they were very unfortunately out of my favorite drink so I had to get their famous papaya juice. I was immensely happy when the piña colada was back in stock this time.

After nostalgically eating my hotdogs on a bench outside of the station on 72^nd and Broadway, I walked to the Natural History Museum. I then proceeded to empty my entire wallet on a ticket for the museum plus a 3D IMAX film about sharks, which turned out to be awesome. After learning about the Great White, I proceeded to the Native American exhibit to fulfil my father’s vision for me, and was pleasantly surprised at how interesting it was. My favorite parts were the dioramas with the Indians wearing the clothes and the diorama that showed a winter house dug into the ground. After getting my fill of Native American artifacts, I proceeded into the rooms with the animal dioramas, my favorite thing at almost any museum. It’s so cool seeing the real-dead animals in their fake-natural habitat. With these epic dioramas available, why would you ever need to go outside???

I then made my way down memory lane and stopped at the Shake Shack, where I bought a caramel concrete. Then, as if a massive dish of ice cream wasn’t sweet enough, I found myself in the tiny aisle of Beard Papa’s, buying the biggest crème puff I had ever seen. I walked around the corner to find myself standing in front of Tara’s favoriteset hotel in NYC, the Milburn. I got a selfie for good measure.

Soon I was back at the apartment and soon after that Angela and I were making our way to the climbing gym. We met Angela’s friend, Jenya, who graciously lent me his shoes and harness (we happened to be the same size in both the footal and crotchal regions). I dangerously traversed my way up several walls and almost died several times, but luckily for me there happened to be a rope attached to me that saved my life. Then I gave the harness and shoes back and burned a solid 500 calories on the workout bike while Angela climbed.

After finishing up at the gym, Jenya took us out to dinner at a rib house where we filled ourselves with pulled pork and brisket. Yum. Angela and I said goodbye to her friendly Russian friend and headed home, for another episode of Psych and a night of rest on the silky green covers, with a peach colored ball staring at me.