findme.typepad.com > A Trio of Escapes

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The breeze off the East River was brisk but the view was crips. You can see the 103rd Street Pedestrian Bridge in the distance (on the left).

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I didn't know if I would find the center of the bridge lowered but I lucked out.

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I had the entire bridge to myself and it felt surprisingly massive whereas it appears almost fragile from a distance.

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The view of the Upper East Side from the center of the bridge.

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This is Mill Island which I saw for the first time from the center of the Bridge. I had never even heard of it. Since my walk, I read that it got its name because a mill was built on the island in 1701 and later, there was a farm there. It's hard to picture this being a good place for a farm with those smoke stacks looming in the background.

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As you can see, there are no stairs on the stanchions but they are tall!

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This is the Manhattan Psychiatric Center for the criminally insane which is the biggest building on Ward's Island. I didn't linger here too long.

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A view of the bridge from the shore of Ward's Island.

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This is one of the two operator pods that are perched on the bridge.

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Here you can get a sense of how high the top of the stanchions are.

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I've always heard there are chapels in airports but this is the first time I actually saw one. In fact, I found four in a row. This is the catholic one where I popped in and relaxed after being picked over by security.

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Another view of the Catholic Chapel.

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This is the neighboring synagogue.

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And the protestant chapel is next door.

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And then there is a general meditation chapel that seems to be mostly used by muslims.

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And now to the zoo in Prague and a sleepy komodo dragon.

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Even though I can't tell you the type of monkey's I can tell you they were much cuter in person.

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This poor polar bear seemed really stressed out. He would move away from the stream and kept shaking his head back and forth. In a neighboring pen, there was another agitated polar bear so I could only guess that maybe they had recently been separated and didn't like the new arrangement. Copy the link below into your broswer to see a short video of this bear so you can see what I mean when I saw he was agitated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3Pq6bYEWg

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This was the neighboring bear that I think was stressing the other bear out. They were beautiful beasts but it was sort of sad to see them so stressed.

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Now to a more peaceful tortoise.

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This cutie was fascinated by the wrist cord on my camera. I guess all cats, big and small, love strings.

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And they clearly love to eat and sleep. Look at the belly on this cat!

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Another sleeping beauty. I'd never been this close to such a big cat. There was only about 3 inches of glass between us.

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Being so close, it got a good sense of how big its paws are. Very intimidating!

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Ah, even The Czech zoos have flamingoes!

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This bald eagle was more beautiful than any I've seen in the States!

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And finally, a funny little guy that certainly seemed out of place in Prague.

Copy this link into your browswer to see a short video of this guy and his friends:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjgfH0_P-kk