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Travel Pensieve: Aeroplanes in the night sky

There is a song that is being played on commercial radio at the moment and the chorus goes like this:

Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?
I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now.

When I listen to this song I'm reminded of standing on the observation deck of the Empire State Building in New York. I can remember standing there, looking out into the night sky and noticing bright points of light. At first I thought they were stars but then I realised they were moving. They were aeroplanes on their way into one of New York's three airports (probably JFK). It was amazing how many you could see. There were dozens of twinkling, shiny (very slow) shooting stars in the sky.

Andrew and I visited the Empire State Building at about 11.30pm after seeing the Knicks play basketball at Madison Square Gardens. It was the perfect time to visit as there was no one there. We breezed through the queuing area and went straight into the lift. I was glad that we had chosen such an unusual time to visit as it was quite a long walk through the snaking catchment area. If we'd have gone during the day that catchment area would have been crowded with people.

It was freezing on the outdoor observation deck. Andrew spent most of his time outside trying to take photos of the view which was quite difficult because of the low light conditions (and because his hands were frozen). I would go out periodically for a little bit of a look and then head back inside to thaw out.

Empire State Building: Brrr, we look cold

Empire State Building: Shine like the top of the Chrysler Building

Here is a photo of a cranky man. Andrew was taking photos of the lift area and this man yelled at him because he was in the photo and how dare Andrew take photos of him. He was really rude about it too so I'm posting it here on fushmush just to spite him. Rudeness will get you nowhere.

More photos (slideshow) of New York on Flickr.

Our visit to the Empire State Building was part of our trip to New York. We visited New York in December 2007 to celebrate New Year's Eve in Times Square style. We also did heaps of other New Yorky stuff. This is the first entry from that trip.