I'm currently in New York for work. We're currently upgrading a server and so we're down here making sure everything works. Luckily over the past few upgrades we have automated most of the things but it's still good to be onsite to deal with things.
The only snag was dealing with triggers and that was only a snag because typing is hard. I wrote up a program for the future that will deal with triggers hopefully automatically. One minor issue and one where being onsite really helped was when we flipped ip addresses, I accidently didn't take down the old machine. Both machines were on the network with the same ip. It looked like the latest one was the one that was working though. We quickly rebooted both machines and the flip went well.
There were also a few programs that I had missed but those were quickly found and moved over. I added those to the automatic restoration script so it shouldn't be a problem in the future.
The upgrade went well and we did a full suite of testing and everything looks good, now the rest of our time here will be spent in meetings.
I check into my hotel near Times Square, it was around 50th Street and 7th Ave and it was snazzy. I dropped my things off and made my trek to Central Park. I was originally going to do this on Sunday but we finished earlier than expected and so I did my walk on Saturday.. I had found a post on reddit that outlined a trip and it had the starting point as Lombard Lamp which is on the south east corner of the park.
It was a lamp. That's all. I think it might be fun to go into what each thing was but for now I'll out line what I did and what I saw in my adventures in Central Park.
It was cool to see everyone picnicing everywhere. Large parts of the park are fenced with specific entrances where people can go and camp out.
It's wild seeing the greenery with the hugely tall towers of New York.
The next major milestone was running into Columbus and Shakespeare. Both are near each other. I was surprised that Columbus hadn't been torn down. Maybe just Toronto went through that phase of taking down statues.
Next up was the Mall and Literary walk. Gorgeuous area and lots of music and people. I've sen this in various movies and it is pretty, even on a gloomy day like today. I want to see it in the peak of fall and the dead of winter because it would be magnificient.
My favourite place in the park was probably Bethesda Terrace and Fountain. It was a very nice area and reminded me alot of Italy. This place was quite busy.
There was also a child dancer taking pictures for a show here in each of the archways. This was the only time I noticed someone taking pictures as an influencer which was surprising. I've seen more people doing that in Toronto than NYC.
I also went and saw the Alice in Wonderland statue.
Belvedere Castle was lacking. A castle is a bit much but maybe I missed something and the tower I saw wasn't the right thing.
The Great Lawn was also a favourite, it was very chill and I spent a good chunk of time watching people play softball and just people watching in general. There seemed to be quite a number of well dressed jewish people going around. It was interesting because normally in Toronto I'd see muslim people dressed nicely after going to mosque. Probably something similar was going on here as well.
I saw a group of boys taking thirst traps which was fun to watch. They were debating how hard their pictures were going and it was fun to watch them striking poses and talk in slang.
Nevermind! My favourite part of the park was the Turtle pond. I went there looking for turtles but didn't see any. I started taking pictures of the ducks and geese and then I realized, the leaves in the water weren't leaves. They were turtle noses! They were adorable and I saw so many turtles.
This one really lived up to its name. It was a pond and it was full of turtles.
The leaves:
The noses!
The obelisk was also very cool and it was interesting. Here was a 3000 year old obelisk from Egypt in New York. The other, as they were a pair, was in London. It's crazy to think that they built something that we then put on either side of the world. You can still see the hieroglyphs and it is awesome. I was surprised that its just out in the open and that there is nothing done for weathering.
This was gifted to New York by the Khedive of Egypt, the vicerocy from 1805 to 1914. He was in charge of Egypt for the Ottoman Empire.
The last thing I did was hang out at the Jackie Kennedy Reservoir. It was still and peaceful and it was a very calming place. I think running here might be a bit much but walking would be a relaxing experience. It helped that everywhere else I saw so many people that I was happy to get away from everyone here. It was still busyish but far less than the rest of the park. The reservoir was also huge and had a fountain in it.
Thus ended my trek in Central Park, this brought me to 90th street and 5th avenue in about 2.5 hours. I love that in New York I have a great sense of direction because numbers just make sense. The streets and avenues being numbered and having a sense of which way north and south is enough to figure out any route. This would be impossible for me in Toronto.
I also ate dinner at Bar 91 which had a great lamb kebab. It had a kick and the yogurty sauce was so good.
I then walked through the city later that night to get back to my hotel and that was also a fun trip. I saw so many interesting buildings and a variety of boutiques.
The Apple store especially was cool, it is below the city. Above it is a park.
