A walk (run) in the park

Ok so this entry is actually from November the 10th, quite soon after arriving. My stupid uni has decided to schedule my stupid exam on the second stupid week of exams instead of the usual first week and the stupid course coordinator wouldn't let me postpone my exam because my trip was for pleasure and not business and it was all just.... well.... stupid. So here I am, heading to the upper west side (posh) to a lady called Katherine's apartment on 72nd street right next to central park so she can watch me take my exam.

Her apartment is very Harry Potter like and I feel like I am in an old boarding house. The apartment is over 4 very small all open mezzanine floors. The first is a small hall (where I take the exam on a creaky wooden fold out table which takes up almost the the entire hall space) plus there is a small bathroom and tiny kitchen, up a few stairs and you have the lounge with extremely high ceilings (but again small in floor space) with a bedroom off it - the only room that can be closed privately. There is beautiful wall the ceiling glass french doors that you can open up to the noises of the street you can take one step out but that's all and I imagine the real estate considers it a proper balcony. A few more steps up and you are on the level directly above where I am taking my exam. It's a long thin hallway level with what seem to be another front door that apparently goes nowhere (hmm???) You can then climb a ladder to what the real estates refer to as the 2nd bedroom but really it's a 2 x 2 loft with a height of just over 1m. A crawl in bedroom I am told but really it just looks to be storage space to me, but with the prices of the upper west side - I would be calling it a suitable bedroom too.

There is a ginger and white fat cat called Sam, who meows a lot and is very friendly. He is super cute until I start my exam and then he just becomes bloody annoying. Katherine feeds him and this shuts him up. I had 120 minutes for the exam but I only took 60minutes. I think this may have been a combination of the simplicity of the subject and my eagerness to get back into exciting Manhattan.

Once out of the exam room I head towards the orange coloured park (the king of fall), I enter the park at Strawberry fields (an area they have named in honour of John Lennon as he was shot only a street away outside his upper west side apartment). Now some of you will think me crazy but I think it was one of the most beautiful ways to take in my first meeting of the famous central park.... I ran. I ran the entire way around the park which by my calculations was around 10 or 11km's - it's a really big park. It is a really beautiful run with nice hills and twists and turns and I suggest that if you can make the distance you try it yourself when you are here. I ran mostly on the road and sometimes on the path - there are people everywhere, fellow runner, tourists, bike riders (I also took a bike ride at sunset around the place - highly recommended), buggies, horse and carts and squirrels - gazillions of squirrels racing around everywhere - they run beside you looking like slinkies that have been thrown down the stairs only stopping occasionally to inspect the condition of a nut.

Running in central park was probably the closest I will ever feel to being a local, you are always more at one with environment around you when you are running in it. (It took me 60 minutes).