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Monday - Central Park Zoo!

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Monday was really awesome. The crowds around the theatre district near our hotel actually slowed down, just a little bit, so it didn't feel quite so hectic. We still slept a little late and didn't get ready for breakfast until about 9:30am. We are falling into a bit of a breakfast routine already. American Breakfast and a giant glazed doughnut from "Dough" in the City Kitchen next to the hotel. We decided we really wanted to go to the Central Park Zoo, so we bought tickets online and planned our route to get there. Google directed us to the 49th street subway station, so we got to/had to walk through Times Square proper. Of course the first thing that happened was that Samantha was 'playfully accosted' by 3 Disney characters and a Pikachu who proceeded to convince us to take pictures, which we did. It's kind of cheesy and we tipped them more than we planned to, but when you're in NYC you just gotta do that at least once.  :)


So we made it to the subway and over to 5th Avenue and Central Park. Of course we are so obviously tourists at the moment (the I <3 NY hoodies don't help) that we were immediately detained for 5 minutes by the carriage ride guy extolling the virtues of a ride around Central Park. We declined, but vowed to look meaner and make less eye contact moving forward :) 
So we made it without further incident into the Central Park Zoo.  The first exhibit we visited was the Tropic Zone and that was our favorite part of the zoo. The whole area is like a rain forest, very warm and steamy with lush vegetation and lots and lots of tropical birds that have no fear of people. It was really cool because you could just walk right up next to many of the birds and take pictures. We went through that exhibit twice, we liked it so much. We liked all the birds but were most impressed by the peacocks and all their elaborate plumage. 






Central Park Zoo is relatively small, but we thought it was really well kept and offered close proximity to the animals. We liked seeing the monkeys, bears and the Sea Lions too. 



Also the grounds were abloom with beautiful flowers everywhere. 







After the zoo, our feet were tired, as usual, but we wanted to explore Central Park a little more, so we walked around and found a great spot on the grass in the shade and rested and relaxed and enjoyed nature for a while. Everything is so green and lush right now. I think if we lived in NYC we would try to spend as much time in Central Park as possible. It's a very calming respite from the noise and hustle of the city.
We took the subway back to our hotel and rested for a while until we got hungry for dinner. Samantha was craving spaghetti so we found a good Italian place close to the hotel, called Carmine's. We felt a little underdressed and the staff warned us repeatedly that they served family style and everything was meant to be shared by multiple people, but they said we'd be fine, so we went in. The spaghetti and meatballs were delicious, although sadly, we were no match for the large portions and we just could not finish it all.  But it was really good food.
That was about that for Monday. We hung out in the hotel, uploaded pictures from our cameras and phones, started working on editing videos and writing a blog post. Tomorrow is Tuesday and we have tickets for the 10am NBC Tour!!!


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