A Manhattan Experience

April 25th

Today my BFF, Heather, came into the city for a long overdue visit. Her bus was delayed coming though the Lincoln tunnel leaving me plenty of time to hang around the Port Authority. While the city may be cleaner and safer than it was ten years ago, there are certainly scumbags and shady characters aplenty near the bus depot.

Later that night we decided to check out a new dance party at the National Museum of Natural History called One Step Beyond. It's hosted in the Rose Center for Earth and Space and the venue really lends itself to something of this nature. While the concept of a Friday evening spent drinking, dancing and people watching at a planetarium sounds amazing, we were less than enthused.

Just slightly below a velvet rope event (yuck), the place was packed with people there to see and be seen. While I'm in favor of people expressing themselves, this particular genre of New Yorker is not really my cup of tea. In addition, the event logistics had annoying quirks like entering through the main gate, getting stamped and searched a thousand times, and trekking down the Galaxy Walk (or whatever its called) to get to the floor due to lack of directional sinage. Once at the party, we encountered more lines to purchase drink tickets from a machine and at $6 a pop, our beer selection was limited to Amstel and Heineken in cans. (Double yuck. )

The worst part is, all of this would have been overlooked had the music been popping and people giving it up to the dance gods. Instead we spent two hours listening to the same repetitive beats and electronic pulses. I know this is an intellectual arty style music, but personally it drives me insane. Without the use of serious recreational narcotics or lyrics to break the monotony, this "music" becomes loud annoying white noise.

This was our general sentiment of the DJs.

The highlight of the evening was by far the space show. We did have an enjoyable tipsy time in the planetarium doing the wave and listening to Harrison Ford tell us "we're not alone".