NYC for a day

Well yesterday was the trip to NYC with Muya from Kenya, and it went pretty well. It was freezing cold and pouring which sucked, and it was mostly freezing rain...that made it quite difficult to see the things we had planned on like Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Instead we went for indoor activities...

We started at the Wax Museum just outside of the Grand Central Station where we arrived. While the celebreties weren't as big of a hit for Muya, the room of famous politicians was amazing. He LOVED it. Muya had his picture taken with almost every person in there...from the Clintons and obamas to louis armstong and ghandi. We arrived at noon and were there until 1:30.

Then we took the subway to the natural history museum, where Muya also had a blast. I was pretty beat by the end of it, since we were there from 2-5. But Muya did tell me at one point "This is perfect, very smart of you to take a naturalist to a place like this, amazing, I could spend weeks here!". Of course, at one point he had bought me lunch, and was shocked by the price for two salads and two sodas and a snickers bar for him, and made a comment that he hoped his credit card would not exceed its limit....which made me nervous.

After the museum we went to the apple store since Muya had tried to stop at EVERY electronic thrift store to look at ipods and computers....I told him it would be better to go to the source. BIG mistake on my part...we spent over an hour doing nothing there....he would stare off and debate whether or not he should buy an ipod. I told him realistically it was not a good idea for him...he had misconceptions and thought it came with music already. At one point we actually ran in to someone from Niger and were able to talk about apple products in Africa with him. I finally convinced Muya it was not a good investment for him...he wanted the nano but he owns 20 cds total, and he refused to buy the shuffle as it was too small.

So we left after that painful hour and went next door to the FAO Schwartz building, toured the toy store. As we were leaving Muya said he was very sad and wanted an ipod and that buying one in NYC would be better cause it would be like a souvenir then. I finally obliged and took him BACK as long as he promised not to spend another hour deciding what he wanted. We went straight up to the cashier and got his silver ipod, only to have his credit card declined. Poor Muya, but I did not have enough money to help him out either.

We grabbed a beer in grand central station and then headed back to Connecticut, arriving back at 9:30. We ordered chinese food for dinner, which was DELICIOUS since I was famished by this point.

Well, that was the day in a nut shell...now we are just relaxing today since I have to go to work at 2pm, and Muya is screwing around with my phone trying to call Kenya with the calling card...(I pray something doesn't go wrong and I end up with an enormous bill this time).

Tomorrow I take him back to the airport in the morning and hope that I will see him again in Kenya, sooner rather then later.