Shiney.

Sunday, January 30, 2005

grumbles 'bout the weather again.. will she ever stop?

yesterday's temperatures were at a record-low of negative two fahrenheit. go figure the conversion to degrees celcius.

i took the opportunity of "no school" to explore the new york city subway system. the trains here and in nyc are a mess. because of the cold weather, my transit train to new york penn station was diverted to hobokken station in new jersey. i had to take an underground PATH train to cross the Hudson river into nyc. stopped at 33rd street, walked up one block to penn station. poked around for abit (tried to look like i knew what i was doing/ where i was headed) and then found the platforms for subway lines A, C and E. took i think a line E downtown to 14th street, got out, walked around the block in search of french class on 13th street, couldn't find it, took subway back uptown again with the intention of going to the natural history museum on 81st street. somehow i ended up travelling in the wrong direction downtown into Queens! argh!

got out a a dingy little station called "Elm's street", stood there like an idiot for AGES waiting for the train to arrive. (certain lines were delayed because of the cold)

got on the E train, accidentally overshot the station and travelled too far uptown to 125th street! Got off, changed platform, waited like a fool for the A train or C train, found out after 20 mins that both lines were suspended, then felt completely crappy. took some time to figure out what to do, then changed to the V line, went downtown to 42nd street, changed to B line and went uptown again, FINALLY alighting at the right stop at 81st steet!!!!

classic example of what happens when a clueless toot like me is left to navigated the subways on her own. managed to turn a 20 minute journey into a 2 hour long saga!

oh well. i did arrive at the museum in one piece. i did enjoy myself there. so much to see, so much to explore. my 3 hour visit didn't seem enough.

stumbled upon a tiny corner in the "Hall of Biodiversity" which featured bacteria, protiscts, algae and fungi. had fun reviewing my microbiology lectures and lab session there.

all in all, a day well spent. accomplished a fair bit, learnt more than a fair bit, had quite enough of the subway for at least one week. i'm takin' a break from the city lah.

planted @ 1:02 AM