da travel journal - day three

we slept in a bit this morning after all the walking yesterday. today, we are supposed to meet kambri for brunch and then check out the american museum of the moving image (ammi). though i have been to new york several times, i have never left manhattan. kambri lives in a different borough, so i had visions of us getting on the wrong train and ending up in connecticut. fortunately, kambri is a very good giver of directions.

we made our way to grand central station (yes, it's grand and it's central) and found the 7 train with minimal wandering. since it was a sunday, the trains weren't coming as frequently as they would on a weekday. we had to change trains once, and there was some sort of problem which left us sitting on the platform for a good 20 minutes, but that just gave kambri time to walk to the station where we were exiting.

we had a great brunch, though punkin ordered popcorn shrimp - and if those were popcorn shrimp, i'd hate to see the full size ones! they'd eat you instead of vice-versa! anyway, punkin turned her nose up at the "big shrimp" and ate her curly fries and my bacon. we only had to walk a short distance to the ammi, where the employees almost washed kambri's feet when she showed them her pass (which was apparently rare and expensive).

the museum was amazing. they had just about everything that chronicled the history of film - the moving image. punkin made her own flip book that animated her when you flipped through the pages quickly (as this was how the first films were made - and is really still the backbone of the moving image). she also got to dub her voice over judy garland's in a snippet of the wizard of oz. it took a few tries because punkin wasn't speaking loudly enough, but she enjoyed it. there was a "green screen" where you could change the background and foreground. we made punkin into a weather girl and put her on a suspension bridge in the middle of an earthquake. we also got to make our own silly short animations. mine was an astronaut bouncing in a meadow, then a fish comes through and the astronaut bounces on top of the fish and "rides" out of the frame. and before you say i'm demented, we only had several odd things to work with such as fish and mayonnaise jars. besides, i know i'm demented anyway.

after the museum, we went to kambri and christian's apartment to meet paquita, her chihuahua; maybelline, the rabbit she rescued from new orleans; and larry bird, the parakeet. we had a nice visit with much taunting between punkin and christian, but then it was time to head back to the hotel.

and can you believe that after all that, we went to the empire state building, too? i bought what they call an "express pass" which lets you cut through all the lines. It was an extra $24, but it was worth its weight and more in gold. i think we'd still be in line if i hadn't bought it. punkin really enjoyed looking out as far as her little eyes could see...such big world out there.