New York, Day Three
We’re still mostly running on California time, which suits us well when traveling. This means that the kids go to bed late, and wake up late – well, sort of late-ish. Funnily enough, Finnur’s been getting up at 7am in the morning to watch World Cup football (‘soccer’ for the Americans) and since the games don’t end until around noon, that’s when we’ve been exiting the hotel for the day.
Today’s out-and-about was driven by a desire to get Bjarki to a doctor at some point during the day. Last Monday, we all (except Finnur) came down with a cold, but Bjarki was the only one that got a fever. Like any good parent that doesn’t feel like changing airline and hotel reservations, we gave him some ibuprofen and he was basically fine on the airplane over.
As the week progressed however, he seemed to be running a mild temperature (we’re travelling so we’re not measuring!) and last night his cough got worse so we figured it was time to have him checked out. We found that one of the drug-stores has “walk-in clinics” in a few of its stores, so that’s where we headed. We arrived down at 50th street only to find out that their doctors can’t see children younger than four. Instead we got directions to a nearby hospital, and were told that the emergency room runs a parallel “fast track service” for non-urgent cases.
Since we were already down on 50th street, we decided to use the opportunity to walk to the Rockefeller building and visit the observation deck.
Across from the Radio City Music Hall. Tonight's act were the New Kids on the Block (or NKOTB). My teenage self squeed a little.
We got up to the 65th floor and the first thing we saw was this window. I thought "well, that's not the cleanest window ever, really not worth the (steep) price of admission"...
...but then we saw a door the led OUTSIDE!! At first I didn't see the glass panels and I gulped a little at the itty bitty shields that line the edge of the building. Happily, there was glass so the kids weren't in immediate mortal danger. 🙂
Bjarki, Finnur and Anna with Central Park in the background.
Anna took this one. I guess we look down at her all the time... 🙂
This one is taken from Bjarki's point of view with Anna crouching. He INSISTED on getting to also take a photo = a battle I deemed not worth fighting.
Bjarki nonchalantly puts his hand out between the glass panels. My heart skipped a few beats. Thankfully, his ribcage isn't quite that skinny.
Father and son with the Empire States Building in the background. (At this point we'd moved to the other side of the building and are looking south).
There was a sizeable crowd of people up there.
Then we discovered we could go a few floors higher to the highest observation platform. That platform didn't have any high guard-rails since the farthest one would fall is to the observation decks below. Which is still a pretty decent fall... It was interesting to see that a few of the skyscrapers were under construction.
I (and probably only I) was intrigued by the antenna structures up on the top. I wondered what was hidden inside that white ball for example. A radar perhaps?
I also wondered it the architects had seriously put a huge gaping hole into the top of this tall building just to fit a satellite dish in there. Seriously? Must be a veeeery important dish then!
This picture of Anna is to show her that the Empire State Building is featured in one of her books (Sector 7).
I appear in a picture! Our hotel is pretty close to my left ear (seen from me), on the Upper West Side.
Lots of antennas.
We made our way down again, and wondered through the catacombs that is the basement of the Rockefeller building. In the end we came out to this most impressive and empty lobby.
Outside the lobby-doors we found this fancy cathedral.
Taken from the cathedral, looking back at where we had exited the Rockefeller building.
Before we entered the cathedral, we made a quick pit-stop outside to refuel.
The refueling threesome.
It's always good to know where you are, and who's in charge!
Hello candles. You are pretty...
... and somewhat expensive.
Look at the pretty lights!
Bjarki walks down the aisle.
Most impressive organ. Anna thankfully held off on the tricky questions, but I'm sure they'll resurface soon.
The view out the front doors.
We needed to head back north to 59th street to find the hospital, so down to the subway we went.
We came out at "Columbus Circle" where this big globe lives. I feel like I've seen it before...
There were lots of tourists there, and street performers to please them.
We got a little lost trying to find the hospital, and ended up entering Central Park instead. This guy sat outside the entrance and was making a fancy sand-picture.
After a short pit-stop, we needed to find a restroom, and the nearest one was at a nearby huuuuge playground. We decided to hang out there for a while, and during this time Bjarki came to me for a hug, and didn't want to go play in the water again. This was highly unusual.
Anna on the other hand found a best buddy instantaneously and started running around in the water.
The water was pretty cold!
Running, running...
Look at meeeee!
Still very wet.
We finally called it quits and got her dressed again before heading off.
Something about the buildings flanking the trees is very special.
We stopped at a sushi restaurant for dinner. Bjarki was looking quite droopy at the point, and literally fell asleep in my arms, and slept right through the entire meal! He even slept through a bunch of really nasty coughing fits... Since we were really close to the hospital at that point we decided to have him checked out, even though it was late. (We weren't running to the hospital because he's had coughs like these before and we've just had to wait them out). Anyway, we found the emergency room and the triage nurse figured he might need an x-ray so he got sent to the proper emergency room, and not the "fast-track". There we saw a doctor right away who ordered some ibuprofen for him (he had a mild temperature), and an x-ray.
Although the doctor had seen us right away, we had to wait a long long while for the ibuprofen and the x-ray. Our sanity savior was our fancy phone that we used to play music videos off of YouTube for the kids while we waited.
The nurses put us into a "quiet corner room" in the ER, but on the whole the place looked pretty deserted which was good!
The final diagnosis was a "little spot of pneumonia" so antibiotics it was. We had entered the building at 19:30, and we left it around 22:30. I've seen worse. 🙂