A Day at a Park

This diary entry is dated August 2nd, 2024. It might help if you first figure out which park the writer was in.

It’s a sweltering summer day - soooooo hot! Even so, there are tons of people trying to get into the park today. After a quick bag check, I make my way inside.

What are the chances that the first person I meet here is some weirdo proclaiming himself a divine monarch?! He's standing next to 9 bottles of rum, so maybe that explains it.

"What time is it?" I think out loud, and a pair of nice passersby with 2 very old-fashioned timepieces tell me that it's one thirty.

I walk straight until I reach the south end of the park. My reception is much better here - I somehow have 9 bars! I'll make sure to come back, if only once.

I'm a little bit lost, but wherever I am, there are 6 fedoras here.

As I walk under some trees, I see a girl sitting in the grass surrounded by no less than 11 squirrels. Definitely no bad blood there! At around a quarter past two, I get in line to buy a T-shirt from a nearby stand, and have to wait for over two hours!

3 people talking over each other nearby interrupt my thoughts, and I realize that I have been biting my nails. I've been doing this since I was a kid but I really should stop.

A group of people are eating 14 hot dogs (topped with sport peppers, which seems to be a local favorite) while trying to convince me that the park we're in is a national park. I try to explain to them that it's just an urban park that happens to be named after a president, but eventually I decide to move on.

I’m back at the rum bottles - there are only 3 here now, next to a cat with orange, black and white markings.

I make my way to the opposite corner of the park, where I find 3 pink notebooks with some very mean things written inside.

I've returned to the 3 rum bottles again.

I’m not sure where I am now, but I've been here before. There’s a guy here playing with 2 drones. I chat with him, and find out that he was born in Russia but that he lives in Germany now.

After crossing a road named for a civil rights activist for the sixth(!) time today, my final stop is a place I've only been to once so far. Here, I see 3 red lights. Then, I exit the park, next to an art museum and not far from a legume-shaped steel sculpture surrounded by throngs of tourists.

All in all, I had a great day! I had twelve interesting interactions, and even though I didn't spend as much time with some of them as I could've, I think I still learned something unique from each one. I know I haven’t done a great job keeping track of everything I did, but I’m sure that future me can work it out!