Scraping the Skies

According to Dave Barry, taxis in New York sometimes slow down to 125 mph to take better aim at wheelchair occupants. I woke up at 6:45 to get to New York on time. We walked down to the Amtrak station. Setting the tone for the day, the station was enormous, with an extremely high ceiling. After waiting a short amount of time, we boarded the train. It went to NY, stopping only 4 times. After we exited the train, we got on the subway and arrived at Columbia University. All the buildings at Columbia seemed huge, matched by the size of the city around it. While the campus was mostly closed, we were accompanied by Mr. Hillyer's aunt to give us a tour, as she is a researcher at Columbia. We explored many of the buildings. All of the exterior architecture was huge and majestic. Inside, it felt much like any school, except a bit cleaner and nicer. 

At Columbia, in the first year you have to take classes in the classics. I appreciate this desire to make students well-rounded, as it can help students discover what they are interested in along with helping them work with people in other fields. However, I worry that it may restrict the classes you have time to take too much. Mr. Hillyer's aunt says that Columbia really trains leaders. I like that instead of just trying to just help people to do their jobs in day to day life, Columbia focuses on making a larger impact. Columbia's computer science program is supposed to be great. However, though the academics sound pretty good, I do not like the location. I could not stand to be trapped in the city. I need to be in a slightly more rural environment. Though I might acclimate slightly, New York seems too confining.

After we finished looking around Columbia, we decided to explore the surrounding city. New York is massive. In San Francisco, there are certainly a few large buildings. In New York, those large buildings cover an enormous area. Everything seems big. We saw an extremely large cathedral. It had soaring ceilings, stained glass windows, all that you would expect in a behemoth of a church. Mr. Hillyer's aunt and uncle left us as we walked down a few blocks to a park. As we reached the park, they rejoined us. The park was quite nice; open green grass. At one point we even got to see a bunch of buildings behind the water. After walking through the park, we took the subway to a place to have lunch. After waiting a little while, the busy restaurant seated us. The restaurant served classic Jewish food. While others had very meaty options, I went with the vegetarian option of scrambled eggs. Jun had a sandwich the size of his head. I do not understand how he can possibly eat so much.

After lunch, we headed over to Times Square. There was nothing particularly unique about Times Square, except that it was an interesting place that I had heard about many times before. It was a plaza surrounded by stores. We also saw Grand Central Station. It was most certainly grand. I probably don't need to say this, but the place was enormous. Not even Mr. Hillyer, who is quite tall, had no need to worry about bumping his head on the ceiling in the main area. If he had been fifty times taller, he still wouldn't have to worry about hitting his head. 

Mr. Hillyer's relatives left us as we went to the next stop: the 9/11 memorial. We had to wait in a long line and go through security to get there. The memorial is made up of twin pits. The pits were sided in black stone, with water pouring down into a pool. In the center of the pool was another pit which water cascaded into. It was designed so that you could not see the bottom of the second pit. I really liked these memorials. They fit the event they memorialized - you could peer down into the depths and contemplate the wreckage that was there 10 years before the memorial was created. 

After we left the memorial, I had a pretzel. We then walked to Wall Street. On the way, I saw a  sign about the New York Federal Reserve. I have been into the San Francisco Federal Reserve. In the NY Federal Reserve, according to the sign, they keep billions of dollars worth of gold. 

We had some NY pizza. It was quite good. We then took the subway back to the station where we could get back to Philadelphia. Once again, I am amazed by the quality of public transportation on the East coast. The subway is such an enormous system, but it works extremely smoothly for its size. After a wait for the train back, we sat on it for an hour or two. By the time we got back to the hotel, we had walked 16 miles over the course of the day.