Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

So, I made it to the Bronx Zoo today, and despite some mild shadiness in the two-and-a-half blocks between the subway (actually, really El stop, since halfway through the Bronx the subway stops being a subway) and the entry to the zoo, it was actually fine (something I have learned about New York: have an I-am-pissed-off and unpleasant face, and people will leave you alone. Good defense mechanism). And I am glad I went. I am always a sucker for animals, if you couldn't tell from this blog, and this place had quite the selection, way more extensive than the Central Park Zoo, and surprisingly not much more (at least if you got the general admission ticket. With some of the add-ons, or the "full experience" ticket, it could start to get up there price-wise). Anyway, it was a nice afternoon, although now I can barely move from stiffness brought on by 3.5 hours of non-stop walking. But it was worth it. Rather than me blabber on, I am just going to let the animals do the talking, since they are the stars of the show.

Entryway to the Bronx Zoo from Boston Ave. in the Bronx

The first animal to greet me, were camels. Camels are silly animals. They do a really exaggerated chewing motion, and it is entertaining. I actually went on a camel ride around the ring. I am glad I didn't get spat on

Don't know what kind of bird this was, but it looked suitably exotic. Something from Asia, since that was the section of the park I was in at the time

An Asian species of crane, drinking from some skeezy-looking water

Big Kitty (aka Snow Leopard... no, not the OS) taking a silly nap

"Ugh. I gotta learn to lay off the weekend parties. All those rum-and-cokes make for a really unpleasant Monday, ya know? What, you thought all those drinks in those commercials were "soft?" How else do you think we get through 30 takes for a 30-second shot?"

Polar bear totally flaked out. Don't blame him. The North Pole New York in the summer is not

Tee-hee-hee. Polar bear bum. He's being silly. I thought this was absolutely adorbes

A baboon of some type. They are kind of intense in person, actually

Cheekeh monkeh!

Some Ibex (Ibi?)-- which are basically Savannah goat-type animals

So, there were like, all these peacocks, just chillin' all over the zoo. Not in enclosures, just allowed to roam free. Is this normal? They didn't give a shit about humans being there, either. I think they excepted us to move out of the way for them, in typical peacock fashion

Some kind of Savannah deer-like animal. From the "African Prairie" habitat enclosure. Many different species of animals put all together in one

Including lions. I have always wondered how like zoos, when they put predator-type animals and prey-type animals together in the same enclosure, prevent the predators from, you know, eating the prey, when clearly that is not the goal...

King of the jungle, man. That dude is not to be trifled with

When I first saw the lions, that old familiar song popped right into my head and, well, I can't resist:

Now good luck getting THAT out of your head for the next two hours :)

Peacock sighting number 2

Giraffes. What to say, other than that they are pretty bamf animals just generally

Freaking peacocks, again!

Some exotic-looking white bird

No trip to the zoo would be complete without seeing the pink flamingos

You know there are more plastic pink flamingos in North America, than there are actual pink flamingos in the world? That is sad, both for what it says about the status of pink flamingos as a species, and for what it says about the tastes of the American public

Lemur! Silly lemur, eating food while hanging upside-down

...Because this isn't terrifying at all. Nile crocodile, looking like he is going to eat you

Ring-tailed lemurs just chillin'

Another cool looking bird. Don't know the species

Tortoises native to Madagascar. I always thought tortoises were bigger

C'mon, lil' dude. Don't be shy, some say "hi!"

Some cute red-tailed mongeese(gooses?). Cute, that is, until they take down an MF-ing king cobra...

Some red lemur-like animals hanging out behind a mini waterfall

I got to watch the sea lions get fed fish. They were very excited to get fed. It was adorable

Another sea lion hamming it up for the onlookers

PENGUINS!

Not sure what he was, but this guy was a handsome looking fellow, so I took a picture. Some kind of sea bird

Puffin!

Another regal-looking bird, I think in the crane family

The stork. Poor guy looked kind of lonely in his habitat by himself. I felt bad for him

Vultures...are frickin scary birds. You should have seen the wingspan on this thing. Not surprising that they are descendants of freaking velociraptors

Bald Eagle, aka 'Murica, aka USA! USA! USA! Seems appropriate since it is Olympics season

Grizzly bear was hiding behind a fallen tree, trying to cool off in his little pond

Can kind of see his head peeking up from behind the log

Getting up-close and personal with a tiger. Thank god there was glass

Hands-down my best picture of the day. And a fitting end to the day, as well

And again, on that note, because I can't resist:

And with that, there was my day at the zoo. Very fun, but also very tiring. I hope you enjoyed viewing these pictures of the animals, as much as I enjoyed taking them.

If you are interested in visiting the Bronx Zoo, you can find the information at the zoo's website.

The Bronx Zoo is located at:

Bronx Zoo
2300 South Blvd
Bronx, New York

There hours are as follows: March 31-Nov. 4, they are open Monday - Friday 10:00AM-5:00PM, Weekends & Holidays 10:00AM-5:30PM. Fall/winter hours are: Nov. 5 - March 29, daily 10:00AM-4:30PM.

This is family-friendly entertainment. Bring the kids!

And finally, lest you think I didn't do anything Sunday, I did in fact go out and explore Chinatown a little more in-depth (sad, considering I live on the edge of it). I wandered around the (very) crowded streets, and even managed to pick up a few things I had been wanting, namely: some steel chopsticks, some of those ceramic Chinese soup spoons (which are far superior to regular spoons for things like soup), and a Chinese tea set, ceramic. Which, considering that was a fair amount of stuff, did not set me back too much. Chinatown prices I guess. You know what was ridiculous, though? My boyfriend has been wanting a real cast-iron wok to cook with (he is a foodie, and a pretty intensive cook). So I thought, New York Chinatown: logical place to find such a wok, I will look there and have an authentic one shipped back to Chicago. Damn, you would have thought I was looking for the Holy Grail. I only found one shop that had them, and then they were ovepriced. I talked to the BF about it, and we both decided we could get a better one for less online. It was just sad.

Anyway, here are some shots I took down some of the streets of Chinatown.

The unfortunate thing about Sunday was, it was super hot and super humid. I kept drinking fluids, mostly water, but just could not keep up. I think I got pretty peaky and dehydrated, in the end. After Chinatown, I went over to the Antiques Garage Flea Market in Chelsea, but I really only could stay for about 20 minutes before I literally had to find an air-conditioned Starbucks, and just sit for awhile. Otherwise, I was getting very parched and a little light-headed. But, I did manage to find a cute decor piece for the apartment before I had to abandon ship. So not all bad.

Still can't believe tomorrow is my last day in the city. It's gone way fast. I had a blast, and I am sorry to see it go. But, on to the next thing. Can't beat the clock, in the end.

War Horse Weekend

At last, the long awaited update about what I did last weekend. Let's see if I can remember.

Saturday I saw War Horse, which is playing at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at the Lincoln Center. Had never had a reason to go to the Lincoln Center, so it was a nice two-for-one culture + famous landmark outing in the city. The Lincoln Center is pretty impressive: home to several theatres, the Metropolitan Opera, and somewhat randomly, the Juilliard School. So, there was that. One disappointing thing about the Lincoln Center, though: the complex is done up in that pre-stressed concrete cinderblock architecture that-- for some reason-- was thought to be a good aesthetic idea. It's just sad when bad taste happens.

Anyway, War Horse did not disappoint. I was curious to see how all the battle scenes were going to get translated to the stage from the screen (I had seen the movie when it came out in movie theatres last December), as in the movie they were very intense and very true-to-life. Obviously, you can't really get that kind of realism on a stage. But wow. The battle scenes on stage were just as bit as affecting as the scenes on the screen. Because of the limitations of the stage, they had to do a lot more with less. So whereas a lot of the wrenching scenes and emotion of the battles came from just the intensity of the fighting and the carnage, here the same intensity came through by really focusing on the characters, on their relationships with each other (both man and beast) and having the emotion of the entire battle come through in the emotion between the characters. That, and some well-played pyrotechnics and sound design, which made it sound like you were surrounded by canon fire.

All of the characters were very well developed, and the actors did a phenomenal job of pulling the audience into the scene, into the world on the stage, and actually caring about everyone who was up there. For it being a "war" story, there was no enemy, no hero or "right" side. The Germans were every bit as sympathetic and their stories as heart-wrenching as the British. Which I think says a lot of good things about the story generally, but also about the production, that they were able to convey the humanity of both sides, equally. And man, I never thought I would be so emotionally invested in a puppet. The puppets and their masters who were playing Joey (the main horse) and Top Form (the other, ill-fated horse-pal of Joey)did a wonderful job of conveying a real character through the movements of the puppetry. This was all the more impressive as the horse roles, unsurprisingly, were silent (minus some neighing).

What was interesting about the production in relation to the film, is that while the overall arc of the story, and each mini-story within the store, are at a macro level the same (same idea, same general resolution. They even had the goose!), the minute details (such as the exact characters, their relations to each other, minor details about what happens when) were often different than that in the movie. Which I suppose is not surprising; someone I know who had read the book also said that the movie differed from the book and the stage play (both the play and movie were based off the book, so it wasn't like the movie was based off the play or anything). So that was interesting. Overall, a fabulous production that I would recommend to anyone who likes solidly good theatre.

Here are some photos from that day, around the Lincoln Center, and the Upper West Side just generally.

As I was making my way to the Lincoln Center, I ran into an office building type area that had in and around it a bunch of sculptures. Did not see a sign or anything, so have no idea who made them. But these look like a statute of a lil dude in bronze, that sits on the bench at one of the subway stops. I'll be damned if I can't remember right now which one, though

See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. I really like these brass guys, because they are just very whimsical. And I am a fan of the whimsy

Globe near the entrance to Central Park, I want to say it is in front of a Trump tower? Anyway, was part of this larger square/roundabout area on the Upper West Side

Really intense entry gate to the west side of Central Park. They really don't make things like they used to. This apparently was dedicated to those who died in the Spanish-American war. It is apparently also a fountain. And has all of the gold plating. Man, I wish we would go back to crazy Victorian-and-Edwardian era decor. So much epic

Main view of the Lincoln Center Plaza/The Metropolitan Opera house

Awesome fountain in the plaza of the Lincoln Center

Apparently, I found Juilliard. Didn't know it was at Lincoln Center. I guess at this point I should be used to randomly finding famous things in New York

Anyway, if you are interested, here is the production information for War Horse:

Vivian Beaumont Theatre
Lincoln Center
150 West 65th Street
New York, New York

According to the website, the show scheduled to play for the next few months anyway. From the ticket schedule, it looks like it plays: Sundays at 3:00PM, Tuesdays at 7:00PM, Wednesdays at 2:00PM and 8:00PM, Thursdays and Fridays at 8:00PM, and Saturdays at 2:00PM and 8:00PM. More ticket information is available online at their website.

On Sunday, I had a bit of a calmer day. I decided it would be a nice day to do something chill... so I went to Chelsea Piers (which is also rumored to be a hangout of sorts for NYC-based celebs; alas, I did not see any) to go ice skating, which I don't think I had done since around Christmas of my senior year in college (mostly due to my screwed up toes...the last time I went I could only go for like 15 minutes before my feet were dying). But, now my feet are fixed, so I can enjoy it again! And it was a very nice way to spend an afternoon. It's calming, fun (and you get to listen to music), and apparently a pretty decent workout. I didn't realize it because it was cold on the ice, but I was actually breaking a sweat. I skated for about an hour; unfortunately the skate shoes were chaffing a lil on my ankles, so after the hour I decided to stop before it became a full-on blister. I was surprised how quickly skating came back to me. When I was really little, I used to take skating lessons, and actually was getting fairly decent (just starting jumps), but then I broke some bones (not from skating, but still) which took me out of lessons and I just never went back. I wish I had though. I think I might try to look into taking lessons when I get back to Chicago; it would be a good way to get some much-needed exercise, and a nice way to take myself away from all my law-related stuff, and actually have a life outside of school.

More information on Chelsea Piers (which is a massive sports complex with many different things going on in it) can be found here.

So that was pretty much that weekend. Finally got around to updating! Huzzah!

It's the Beginning of the End

Today was my last day of my internship. Technically I am not done, because I need to finish a project (as it would be a shitty thing to just not finish something). But still, last official day of work. Turned in my security badge and all. Really kind of sad. I have enjoyed this summer, and have enjoyed being a "working girl." Much more fulfilling than being a student. In all, it was a great experience, and extremely eye-opening. I still can't believe some of the things I have seen, that people really act like the (we think--we would be wrong) exaggerated criminals we see on TV. I hope that one day this can be my life. Tiring, a lot of work, but fascinating. Particularly once you get into court, which happens a hell of a lot more often in the public sector than in private practice.

At any rate, I have to finish this project. I probably should have worked on it tonight, but I was just so tired from the week, and staying up late every night. Will work on it tomorrow, hopefully finish. Then I will have to decide what I want to do for the next few days, before I leave New York. Depending on the weather, I think I am going to try to hit Coney Island on Monday or Tuesday. I am a sucker for amusement parks, and it is a fairly big New York "thing" to do (incidentally, I went to Central Park over the weekend to go on the carnival rides, but upon closer look...they really are just kind of kiddie rides. I am more of a throw-em-up-spin-em-around kind of gal, so it didn't really cut it and I didn't go on. Rather disappointing). I may also try to hit up the Bronx Zoo and the Aquarium...but I am kind of terrified of the Bronx. Although, given what has been going on in Chicago lately (namely, violent "flash mobs" of ghetto kids beating up on people in the tourist areas), maybe the Bronx is safer. Except not really.

I got my On-campus interview schedule today. For those of you not in the legal field, OCI is an annual ritual that all rising 2Ls go through before the start of the year, to determine if they will be going to work at a "Biglaw" firm in the summer after their second year (and, assuming a job well done, an offer for permanent employment upon graduation and successful completion of the Bar exam). I exclusively applied to firms in New York and Washington, DC. Which lead to an interesting conversation with my boyfriend. Jesus this thing is basically Sorority Rush, except with suits and not cocktail dresses. As per NALP guidelines (don't ask), I don't think I can (and really shouldn't anyway) go into details at this stage; suffice it to say that there are several days of going to multiple 20-minute interviews with representatives of the different organizations. Which is also basically the definition of sorority rush, at least at Northwestern. Well, at least I have good practice.

Man, I can't believe it is only a few more days. Sad. I really like New York; I am sad to see it go. I am sad to see myself go. I will be updating the blog about my final days in the Big Apple. I will also blog (probably tomorrow) about what I did last weekend; was going to tonight, but too tired.

Anyway, in tribute to the fun (and sometimes challenging), and ultimately rewarding times this city has given me over the last couple months, here is a YouTube video of Empire State of Mind. I listened to this song when I found out I would be in NYC for the summer, so it seems fitting for the twilight of my time here. Enjoy.

I also need to locate a shipping box, packing tape, and some packing padding. I bought some stuff while I was here, but considering I was already maxed out on my weight limits flying out here, will need to send things ahead to Chicago. Plus, I am not sure I could physically fit anymore into what was already in my suitcases. Here's to hoping there is a UPS store or something.

And finally, some random thoughts I had today, that I thought were interesting enough to share:

First, some professor at U.C. Riverside is getting five million dollars to study ("scientifically") if there is life after death. Uh, pretty sure you can't really prove that one there, Skipper (in a factual sense, not talking faith here people). Unless this guy knows something we don't, we don't even have the technology it would take to cross whatever physical and temporal dimensions stand between our life and eternity, if such an eternity or afterlife even exists. Sylvia Brown's contentions aside, there is no real way for us to access the "other side" without croaking ourselves, at which point it would then be impossible to furnish physical (non-ghost-like, which doesn't last anyway) evidence of such an existence to the living. Aka, it's impossible. I am all for humanities getting funding (because it *all* goes towards like, pharma research), but couldn't it go towards something more realistically obtainable?

Second, (and this is real random-- thought of it while I was reading an article about STDs. Don't ask. And no, I don't have any) but have you ever noticed that a disproportionate number of creative geniuses (or "geniuses" in other, non-IQ type ways) back in the day had syphillis? I'm serious. There is a lot of scholarly research that while perhaps already gifted, people like Van Gogh and Beethoven reached the height of their genius while under the peak influence of syphillis' influence. Right before they descended into madness and death. If guaranteed to produce the next Ode to Joy as a side effect of the illness's brain-screwing, would someone willingly get syphillis? Despite people's probable initial reaction of "hell-to-the-damn-no," I don't think it is necessarily as obvious a "no" as people might first think. While somewhat extreme, what's the old saying, "it's not the years in your life, but the life in your years?" Not that I want to run out and get a nasty STD, but it does make you think. Creating a lasting piece of genius, or changing the world, is -- so far as we know anyway-- the only real way to achieve any kind of immortality. Making your mark lets an individual "live on" by having a place in the world's collective memory. Look at the ancient Egyptian pharaohs: they built those tombs now on display for all the world to see, and underwent elaborate burial practices so that they could forever live on after death in a new world. And through our knowledge and study of them through the elaborate and intentionally-preserved artificats they left behind, in a way, they have.

Quick shout-out

To my loyal readers (if any of you still exist):

I know, I know. I have been super lame about updating this blog in the last week. I got unexpectedly busy with a huge final project at work, so have gone into hibernation mode. Tomorrow is my last day, though, so this weekend and into next week I should have lots of updates about this week, and things I do in the next few days, as my time will be spent doing last-minute exploring of the city. So I have not disappeared, or died, or gotten sick of this blog. Never fear!

Incidentally, in light of my having given up Facebook, I now have a LinkedIn account (Facebook's more respectable, well-behaved cousin), and a Twitter (what can I say? I need outlets for my random thoughts. And I am a busy-body about what other people are doing). For privacy reasons, I am not giving out my LinkedIn account, but if you so choose, you can find me on Twitter under @tootiefruitie52.

Anyway, back to regular updates soon. For your patience, here is a cool photo of the arch at Washington Square that I took while waiting for a cab (which took *way* too long to hail. This is New York; the place is lousy with cabs. It should not take more than five minutes to find an empty cab):

Washington Square is pretty impressive when lit up at night

Also, I cannot believe that I leave New York in less than a week... So the great adventure is winding down.