Day 8 - Central Park, Guggenheim and Depeche Mode

Last night we were told the hotel would be charging us an “amenities” charge, which includes WiFi and unlimited phone calls

This morning I saw how much that was and so not only did we phone home, twice, I also phoned all my work colleagues in every African country plus someone random in each US state

Well, they started it

We decided to go to the Guggenheim museum today - so we walked

First we walked through Times square 

Then we had breakfast - possibly the best omelette ever

The route to the museum took us through Central Park

We also passed the Met museum 

Before we made it to the Guggenheim 

Now, I’m a philistine - I never said I was any better than that

So, whilst I wanted to go I knew it would be too high brow for me

It’s a bit like the emporer’s new clothes for me - people finding hidden meaning in things where there just aren’t any hidden meanings

For example:

And

And not forgetting 

I do, however, like a Kandinsky 

The best part, however, was the girl calling out “watch out for the carrots “ every time we walked past this exhibit, which we did often, just to annoy her

Afterwards, we got lost in Central Park

Luckily for us, I used my 6th sense to find an Irish bar

We made a sensible choice of not staying there too long before going back to change for our night out

We took the subway and without doubt, New York has the least intuitive subway system going, simply no signs or maps of where trains go

More by luck than judgement, we made it to Brooklyn where we had dinner

We then headed over to the Barclays Centre to watch these guys

The last picture doesn’t look like much, but as it’s the most expensive pint I’d ever bought, I thought it was worthy of mention

The concert itself was, well, bloody AMAZING 

https://youtu.be/Ryc5pC6_V_k
I simply can’t describe how good a front man Dave Gahan is - the whole thing was fantastic 

Afterwards we made it back to the subway and hours before I’d already googled that we needed the same train going home as we had before - a C

We guessed which platform to go on (signs really are shit) and watched an A train arrive and leave

That was weird

Check google again

Oh I see

C trains have stopped for the night, we need to take an A

Brilliant 

Well, we got the next one and despite not understanding a word the announcer was saying about cancellations, we made it home

A dodgy end - but it shouldn’t take the shine of a truly memorable evening