The day after Thanksgiving is known as 'Black Friday'. Its a shopping holiday, so named because the stores go from being in the red, to being in the black after this day. However, we decided not to partake in this tradition of going shopping and instead furthered our whistle stop tour of Albany with a visit to some remarkable architecture. First on the tour was the State Education building. An impressive building with huge pillars.
It looks like the Parthanon! I think Greece is selling off it's buildings to recover some of it's debt, but Sam reassures me, it was here long before Greece thrifted away the Euro. We saw the state Capital building and took a little peeksee inside. Again, as always, I set off all the metal detectors and had to get patted down, I'm starting to get used to this 'special treatment'.
After this, we walked a little further down the road and, just to make something clear, this is NOT Teddy Roosevelt.... It's Sheridan. Ok got that Sam? SH..ER..I..DAN!
Across the street are the Albany branch of 'Occupy Wall Street' Not sure anyone was actually home but we did take a tour of the real estate. The market seems thriving!
Plenty of plots....
After lunch of Pizza in the park, we went to the NYS Museum. Very interesting, explaining the archeology of the state including the native people history and local wild-life. Such as....
the (chocolate) mouse and of course, for Duana, I found members of my family, although they were not to interested in becoming re-antiquated.
Further into the Museum there was an exhibit of 9/11. Housing many items curated from the landfill after the event. Some things were incredibly sobering, personal belongings of those lost and twisted, gnarled columns from the tower itself. Thick heavy steel, deformed and twisted as if they were nothing but cardboard and clay. One item really caught my attention and really, to me, said a lot about that day and those who put their lives second to those they needed to rescue. It was Engine number 6...
caught, crushed and destroyed as the tower fell upon it. A machine used to help others was, itself, not even immune to the devastation of that day. I'm sure I will see many more symbols of that event when I actually go to ground zero.
The monthly Troy Night Out was next on our agenda. Troy is the birth place of Uncle Sam, who was a butcher, supplying the American Army. Sam will be so proud that I am retaining all of this useful information. Although, Randomly, we found a very angry Yeti. It's significance is yet to be discovered.
There was a fair amount of walking today, thankfully, I had many painkillers and there were plenty of benches. So when Sam suggested taking a tour of the Albany park Holiday lights, my heart sank at the prospect of even more walking, however, I was pleasantly surprised!
The quality of the video is a little low I'm afraid but because it was dark, the exposure wasnt brilliant, but I think you get the idea. I could not show you all the lights in the video, there were many many more. Its been a long time since I have enjoyed Christmas lights, seeing as I'm quite the Scrooge. I somehow think this trip to NY may change that. We visited the shop at the end and caught sight of some Reindeer, no doubt relaxing before they get bound to a sleigh and whipped hard enough to fly around the world, carry a fat man and delivering gifts. The animal rights people really need to look into that. In the meantime, they seem quite content.
We then went for a few drinks in an all American Bar. All part of the American Experience! I'm off to bed, rest my aching, painkiller filled body and I'll be back tomorrow.
Yay for bigbear visiting bearfamily *smiles* You had an animal day it seems! Bears, reindeers, yetis, moose, you sure you was not in a zoo? =)
ReplyDeleteI thought you'd like that *smiles* We did kind of see a lot of animals that day. There is a zoo in central park, maybe I'll see even more.
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