New York, New York -- June 2002: Day 4

Matt Lauer and Katie Couric at last!  We got out lazy buns out of bed and made it to the Today show.  We surprisingly did not get out of bed that early and still got a pretty good perch on Rockefeller Plaza.  It was a bit crowded when we got there, but people tend to file in and out, so we just kept pushing our way forward until we were second row back from the barriers.  Al Roker, Katie and Matt all came out to work the crowd.  Katie was very little, with very nice legs.  No good guests were on that day, so we didn't get to see anyone else in person.  It was interesting to see how the show worked.  If the anchors are inside, you're basically just standing watching the show on TV, which we could have done from the hotel.  But we had some good bagels after though!

We needed our strength as we were about to embark on a bike tour through Central Park in 100 degree heat.  We met up with our bike guide in Columbus Circle (this was the last excursion included in our tour package).  Our guide was a college-age Brazilian woman with a lovely accent.  She had a helper with her and they were smart enough to hand out water to all of us dummies who did not bring some.  We set off with a pack of soccer moms to tour Central Park.  I had no idea before our ride that Central Park was so huge, and had so much cool stuff -- carousels, ice skating rinks, castles, and Strawberry Fields (a section of the park, memorialized for John Lennon).  Our guide would point out landmarks, including buildings around the park.  When she told John Lennon's story, she pointed out how he lived in "Da Da-Koda" (The Dakota) across from the park.  She also brought us to "Ba-desda Therez" or Bethesda Terrace, where many movies were filmed, such as Home Alone 2.  It was not a strenuous ride, but it was so damn hot and were were dripping with sweat.  I thought we might melt away to nothing.  After we returned the bikes, we needed to cool off, fast.

We still had some more time to kill, so we went to the Central Park Zoo.  This was not a large or very nice zoo.  Some of the animals had gimpy eyes and they were damn hot too, so the polar bears were looking pretty pissed off.  The rain forest section was not a fun place to be.  Finally, we discovered the penguin cave.  Ah, sweet penguins.  It was a small little room, dark and about 30 degrees F inside.  We sat on the floor and just collected our thoughts.  School kids kept wandering through giving us dirty looks -- two sweaty old people heaped on the floor.  The zoo keeper lady asked us if we had any questions about penguins.  Our only question was how long we could stay before we got arrested for loitering.

After creeping out humans and penguins alike, we grabbed lunch at a little market and ate it in the park (we couldn't get enough, I guess).  After that, we did some souvenir shopping in Time Square, changed our clothes back in the hotel and caught our train.  We had to say goodbye to New York for the moment, but we knew we'd be back . . .