New York is awesome! The city is all that I thought it would be and more! Yellow cabs (To my mom’s chagrin, we did not find the cash cab), skyscrapers, and tons of dogs! I had no idea that New York was such a dog city. People walk their dogs everywhere, at all hours, it’s great! The only thing is that most people aren’t super friendly about letting you pet their dogs. I come from a family where it was totally cool to ASK someone to pet their dog, but don’t just go up to them and start pawing at their animals (No pun intended). And here in California, that seems totally cool and ok, but it just seemed like New Yorkers aren’t down with the pooch petting. Oh well, I still thought it was cool to see all the puppies! 
Emily and I went to the Met in the morning and I must say, the Met is an amazing museum! It’s like a combination of the best of the Louvre, The D’Orsay, and Le Centre Pomidue in Paris. You have the best of Ancient and Classical Art on the ground floor (Where Emily and I spent much time, she being a Classics almost grad student and me being an anthropology and archeology buff) alongside the best selection of Post-European American Art and Aboriginal Art I have ever seen! Then we went upstairs and they have an amazing Impressionist section. Rooms and rooms full of Van Goghs, Monets, Degas’, Renoirs, and Seurats. I was in impressionist heaven. My mom loves Monet, so I took a virtual picture tour for her, every single Monet there is now cataloged in my computer for her and she really liked them. The only downside to the trip to the Met was that the Modern Art section was closed for refurbishment, oh well, it looks like I will have to go back again!
After spending the morning immersed in amazing art, we decided to fill the afternoon exploring a whole other, but very important, culture: SHOPPING! We took the metro down to SoHo and lazily walked the crowded streets while stopping into shops we wanted to. Their Bloomingdale’s is pretty awesome, and I came really close to buying a cool DVF dress that made me look like a bird (Really, it was pretty cool, not tacky) 
but decided to not completely drain my bank account that day. After wearing ourselves out on shopping overkill, we went to Dean and Deluca, which is this amazing gourmet grocery store where I got a superbly tasty chocolate-peanut butter brownie and some special cinnamon for my mom. We took the subway back to the hotel and decided on a low key dinner (We had to get up really early to get me to the airport). All in all, I really really REALLY liked New York, and I can’t wait to go back.