Saturday, October 26, 2013

October 21

By Al

Today we started by going to an early service at Christ Church.  This is a United Methodist Church in mid-town.  It is a beautiful church.  Sally had visited here once before and enjoyed the early service.  However, this time the homily was given by the senior pastor who had just been honored for his years of service at the church.  He talked about the honor and his history at the church, but it was more a personal story than a homily.  I am sure for people who knew him, it was interesting.  However, it was not so much for us.  But, it is a beautiful church to see, as a most mid-town churches.  With the cost of land, I am sure that churches in this area are either rich or sold.


The sanctuary.

After church we went to see the Intrepid Air and Space Museum.  The main part of this museum is the World War II aircraft carrier.  It is at a pier on the Hudson River.  It has several different planes on its flight deck and on the inside.  It also has several exhibits about life on an aircraft carrier and navel warfare.  It also has a submarine docked next to it, the USS Growler.  This was a sub that had missiles, but which had to be on the surface to launch the missiles.  It has a Concorde Supersonic Transport that you can go on.  It also has the Space Shuttle Enterprise in a special structure on the flight deck.  It is more than a half day trip, but we thought we would give as much of it a try as we could.  It was very interesting.  We went on the submarine but did not go on the Concorde or go to see the Enterprise.  We will do that another day.



The Intrepid.  The pier is on the other side.



This is the pier.  The Intrepid is to the left.  The bump at the end of the Intrepid is the housing for the Enterprise Space Shuttle.  You can see the Concorde at the end of the pier.





A closer look at the Concorde.



Planes on the flight deck.  Manhattan in the background.



More flight deck.



A MiG-17 as flown by the North Vietnamese Air Force during the Vietnam war.




The Growler submarine alongside the pier.




One of the missiles on deck in the launch position.



Looking south from the flight deck.  The buildings in the far distance are New Jersey.


That evening we ventured to the Bronx to the Lehman Center at Lehman College to see the Royal Drummers and Dancers of Burundi.  This was a new part of the Bronx for us.  It was an easy train ride and about a half mile walk to the college.  The campus is kid of set aside from the neighborhood and is quite nice.  The performance was very interesting, although it got a bit repetitive after a while.  But, the drummers danced and drummed.  Sometimes, they danced with drums on their heads.  It is an art form that has been passed down from father to son for centuries.  It is also considered a sacred art form.  It was impressive and fun.



The drummers enter drumming.



And they dance and drum.  At a point they put the drums in a semi-circle and then take turns dancing while the rest of the drummer drum.



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