One Minute, I'm in Central Park

 "Why should I worry? Why should I care?" If you have seen Disney's Oliver and Company, you may recognize the title from the movie. Billy Joel, one of the most beloved New Yorkers, was the voice of Dodger in the movie, and he sang a song about being in New York.

 Mr Duffy and I got up to catch a LIRR train to NYC.

 This was Mr Duffy's first time on a New York public transit system. I told him it was like Light Rail and CalTrain but he couldn't remember if he had been on either one of those.

 He was looking at the sights, but it was mostly industrial, or some ver worn-down looking places covered in overgrown foliage and graffiti.

 We arrived at Penn Station and had to decide if we wanted to get a coffee and pizza, or did we just want to get our day started.

 We caught a real NY City cab and Mr Duffy got the real experience this time. When we first arrived in New York, it was night time, and we went straight for Long Island. Now he was able to see the gigantic buildings and get stuck in traffic.

 Our destination was the Excelsior Hotel. We checked in, put our luggage down, and made a plan of what to do. We were on the same street as Central Park, so that is where we went.

 Before heading out, I snapped a few pics of our room.

 The bed was nice and roomy for us to spread out.

 This was the view from our room. It is kind of unbelievable how full New York is with buildings.

 So we headed out and walked down to Central Park.

 It is so beautiful here with all of the greenery.

 There was a giant rock for us to climb and sit on.

 We wanted a snack and looked at the map posted in the area. We were near the outdoor theater, so we went there.

 We had a real hot dog. It wasn't from a street cart, but it was in the city, so it had to count.

 After our hot dog, we went to Turtle Pond.

 There are lots of turtles here, and some fish.

 It was a quiet corner, and there is a small deck tucked away where you can get closer to the animals.

 More beautiful greenery.

 Off to the right of where we were is Belvedere Castle.

 We said bye to the turtles and fish and walked more.

 There is so much water here, it is serene.

 Squirrel!

 I don't know how many different flowers and plant species there are in the park, but there are a lot!

 We walked and actually found a path up to Belvedere Castle.

 This little section reminded me of Sleeping Beauty's Castle in Disneyland.

 This skyline looked familiar to me, I think this is where the people from Friends live.

 We left the castle and walked until we found another pond. This one had small sailboats that people could control remotely.

 It had been quite a while since the hot dog, so we consulted our map to find where we could get dinner.

 We settled on the Boathouse. It was very expensive and quite fancy, but my human wanted to treat her companion and it was thoughtful and sweet.

 The tables are at the water's edge so you can see the people boating.

 Hey, you will never be able to guess what I ordered. Well, of course you will. It is what I always get. The pasta dish with seafood.

 My dinner was so delicious, but I could barely finish it. There was just enough in the bowl to scrape, but I couldn't even finish that.

 We walked for a long time after dinner, burning off all we had eaten. Then we went back to the hotel.

 I wanted something sweet, so I looked at what could be delivered. There was a restaurant that had ice cream sandwiches on their delivery menu, so we bought some.

 We got a few different cookies that were all good.

 The sandwiched came unassembled, so I just ate the ice cream and cookies separately. It was still satisfying.

Our day was long and took a lot out of us, so we went to bed. We had more of NYC to explore the next day.