Yesterday my brother and I checked out of the youth hostel - it was a nice place, but I think it would have been better if we'd had the time to focus on the youth hostelling experience. As it was, I felt like we were just interlopers peeking into a world where we didn't belong.
We headed across Central Park and visited the Met, which is huge - and noted with some satisfaction all the things that came from England. When we left, it was raining, and we walked down Fifth Avenue in the downpour. After so much heat, it was a great relief - but it'll probably be straight sunshine for a few days now.
After a visit to a Barnes & Noble (which was a novelty, since I don't think they have a UK presence - I bought a book on JQuery), we went up the Empire State Building on a whim. Quite a view, and a cheesy but informative audio guide. Then after fetching our luggage back from the youth hostel, we went our separate ways to our respective accommodation.
For me, this meant finding Columbia University. I don't have a great track record with the whole "taking a note of where I'm meant to turn up" thing, and this time saw me wandering around the campus asking directions of people who couldn't understand me. For anyone else with the same habits: you want to find the corner of Broadway and 114th St. (you might get off the #1 subway at Broadway and 116th and walk south), and then proceed down 114th and through the first set of gates on the left. There's a green sign on the gates saying something about "Tech Campus". The Carman building is the first entrance immediately on the left after that. Alternatively you could go through the main campus entrance on Broadway opposite 115th St, and follow the path round the large building on your right until you get to just before the gates.
So then stumbling into all the DebConf people, we went for dinner at a local restaurant; and later out to a bar. Now I need to haul my ass outta bed (it's almost 12pm local time) and find the hacklab, or maybe breakfast.