New York Diary - Day 2

Our motley crew had mostly managed to shake the crippling jet-lag by the time we assembled in the trusty YMCA in the morning. Following a walk through Times Square to a breakfast buffet, we were informed that only one solemn trip for the collection of food was allowed, leading to the heaping of an ungodly amount of food onto our small, struggling trays.

From here we continued onto the interactive Maths Museum called Momath featuring a multitude of exhibits; the majority of which begged several explanations before they made sense.

Several pupils and most of the staff members clubbed together to build a Menger sponge big enough to merit inclusion in the MoMath hall of fame - we still haven’t got word on whether we succeeded... There were several physical exhibits with all of us having the opportunity to test out bikes with square wheels; a running game that demonstrated the difference between position, velocity and acceleration; and a very competitive set of logic puzzles including Harvey setting himself up as the expert in tic-tac-toe. Mr Shelley was delighted to finish one puzzle that had eluded Chen for some time!

From creating fractal versions of human trees, to creating wheels from non-circular shapes with constant diameter, to covering walls with magnetic, tessellating dinosaurs, to proving Pythagoras’ Theorem in several different ways, we tested everything MoMath had to offer and still had to drag Miss Maguire out the door at the end of the visit

We were then released into the streets to grab some food before we gathered outside of the monstrous Museum of Natural History. It was somewhat disappointing to discover the Museum did not totally resemble the ‘Night at the Museum’ vision we expected, but this disillusion was shattered by the interior of the Museum -featuring an enormous taxidermy bear in addition to the numbers of other floors and exhibits we didn’t quite have time to make it around.

By this point it was afternoon, and we had a few hours to roam around the streets of New York or Central Park or just downright spend the time shopping.

Dinner that night was Ellen’s Stardust Diner; with singing waiters expressing their broadway aspirations and entertaining the diners throughout the night.

Truly exhausted from a fun-filled day we headed back to the hostel ahead of a 6:45am meet the next day.

By Anna D