As far as experiences go, I’m willing to try almost anything once.

So when the US Virgin Islands Department of Tourism invited us to the US Open, I immediately said yes.

No matter that my knowledge of tennis is limited to this: two people hold rackets and bat a neon green ball back and forth across a net.

Seriously, that’s all I know about the sport.

Francisco and I headed out to Flushing last week to watch a few of the qualifying matches before we attend the games with the USVI this week. The qualifiers, held the week before the Open itself, are free. And they’re a lot more fun than I expected.

If you’re attending the US Open for the first time this year, here’s a beginner’s guide. And if you’re interested in attending next year–or you’re on a budget–consider the qualifiers.

*
1. Don’t bring a bag.
Security isn’t as tight as I expected–no metal detectors–but they’re picky about what you bring into the venue. No backpacks. Period. There are lots of other prohibited items, too, so read the full list before you show up with a flag, banner, sign, noisemaker, or laser and get turned away.

2. Wear a hat, sunglasses, and sunscreen.
Though there are evening matches, daytime matches are brutal, and the Monday and Tuesday games, at least, are going to be scorchers; the temperature is predicted to top 95F. There’s little, if any, shade on the courts, especially the numbered courts outside the Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong stadiums. Is there some unwritten rule that says the fans must sweat and squint along with the players?

3. Bring cash.
The venue is a small city, with food vendors (everything from BBQ to sushi) and shops, all waiting to capitalize on your enthusiasm and your lack of alternatives. A bottle of water can set you back $5.00 or more, and you’ll need to shell out $13.00 for a Grey Goose “signature” US Open Cocktail.

There’s gear, of course- t-shirts, hats, tennis racquets, books, and oversized balls you can buy, made especially for autographs.

In short, bring cash. Or your ATM card; Chase has machines placed strategically for your withdrawing convenience.

4. Brace yourself for the bourgeois.
Tennis is not football.

Ball boys and girls stand with their hands clasped behind their backs (which, by the way, are emblazoned with enormous Ralph Lauren logos; he’s a sponsor of the games). You are asked to put your cell phone on vibrate, to refrain from talking, and to restrict your coming and going to breaks between sets. Which, by the way, is when the ball boys and girls produce gigantic umbrellas to hold over players’ heads, shading them from the punishing sun:

It’s more formal than Broadway theatre.

**
To see all of Francisco’s photos from the 2010 US Open qualifying matches, visit his portfolio.

Whether you live here or you’re visiting, this city isn’t cheap.

For all of its expenses, though, there’s plenty to do and see for free in New York City, so save your money for New York City hotels or a memorable meal at one of the five boroughs’ thousands of restaurants.

Here are 30 of our favorite free things to do in New York City:

1. See a live performance of world music during the annual Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival. Susana Baca, Buika, Carlos Varela, Ruben Blades. We’ve seen them all give full length concerts for free at this festival.

2. Visit The Bronx Zoo on a Wednesday.
Wednesday is suggested donation day at the zoo.

3. Check out the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s calendar.
Public art installations and performances, lectures, and programs like “Poems and Pints” are mostly free. The goal of all projects is to “draw audiences to little known or overlooked locations citywide.” Check their calendar to see what’s going on while you’re in town.

4. Take a photo with the New York Public Library’s lions, Patience and Fortitude. They stand guard outside the main branch of the library on 42nd Street and 5th Avenue.

5. Then, go inside and see the NYPL’s current exhibitions…
The main branch of the NYPL hosts rotating exhibits in two main floor galleries and on the third floor. The listing for exhibits and other library events (most of which are also free) can be accessed here.

6. And visit the Main Reading Room.

7. Visit the United Nations.
If you want to take a tour, there’s a fee, but visiting the main hall and the gift/book shop is free. The main hall hosts exhibitions, often of photographs.

8. Swing in a hammock at Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City, Queens.
Getting one of the hammocks is almost a competitive sport in the summer, but if you’re not successful, there are plenty other places to spread out a blanket or take photos of the Manhattan skyline from this park on the East River.

9. Listen to a lecture at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center.
You could almost get a college education for free by attending the lectures at CUNY that are open to the public. Some of the university’s departments also host their own lecture series; one such department is the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies, which presents lectures about the Americas.

10. Attend an event at the Americas Society.
The Americas Society presents lectures, talks, and readings that are intended to “promote the understanding of the political, economic, and cultural issues that define and challenge the Americas today, from the Arctic Circle to the southernmost tip of Argentina.” These events are held in the Society’s headquarters, a lavishly designed building on Park Avenue.

11. Participate in the PEN World Voices Festival.
The festival, held each April, brings together writers from around the world to venues around the city. They read their work, they talk about it, they discuss current and historical events. Always something fascinating on the agenda at this festival.

12. Go kayaking.
There are plenty of launch points around the city: Red Hook, Long Island City, Piers 40 and 96, and the pier on 72nd Street. These are volunteer run, so drop a donation if you can.

13. Visit the dead.
Just because you don’t know anyone buried at the Woodlawn Cemetery doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go pay your respects. The cemetery is an incredible place to learn about New York history, architecture, and design. Read more about it here.

14. Explore New York’s Masonic Hall.
One of the entries in our ongoing series, Overlooked New York, the Masonic Hall offers free tours.

15. See sculpture at Socrates Sculpture Park.
In addition to the sculpture on display at this outdoor, interactive museum, Socrates hosts summer movie festivals, an annual “Makers Market,” an arts and craft fair, and other seasonal events.

16. See a Rooftop Film.
During the summer, the group Rooftop Films shows films on large screens on rooftops and in parks around the city.

17. Participate in a cultural day parade.
Puerto Rican Day Parade, Dominican Parade, Greek Parade… practically every community has an annual parade. Check the city’s calendar to see if a parade coincides with your visit.

18. Take advantage of museums’ free admission days.
Most museums have a day when admission is free or by donation. Newyorkology maintains a comprehensive list of these museums here.

19. Browse the Union Square Greenmarket.
Even if you’re not buying, it’s fun to browse the farmers’ stalls at the Union Square Greenmarket, a popular farmers’ market for the city’s chefs.

20. Spend time in Hudson River Park.
When we moved here in 1999, the Hudson River Park was just starting to be developed. 11 years later, it’s New York’s best park, running the length of western Manhattan and offering recreation opportunities for almost everyone. There are many paid activities, but plenty of free things, too.

21. Visit a memorial.
The Irish Hunger Memorial is our favorite; you can learn about that one and some others here.

22. Pass by Poets House.
With cozy places to read a book and windows overlooking the Hudson River, Poets House is a lovely place to visit any day. They also offer readings and other programs.

23. Go to Governors Island.
It’s incredible how Governors Island has become an epicenter for arts and cultural programming in the city in just a few short years. Hop on the ferry (free!) and enjoy some of the programming.

24. Participate in OpenHouse New York.
Each year, OpenHouse New York gives people a peek into places they can’t normally visit.

25. See Scandinavia House.
New York has many cultural institutions open to the public that offer loads of free programs. Scandinavia House is just one.

26. Go to an auction.
As long as you don’t plan to buy, attending an art auction at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, or one of the other famous auction houses won’t cost you a penny.

27. Go through Grand Central Terminal.
Walk through the main hall and look up at the gorgeous ceiling. And check out that clock… it’s valued between $10 and $20 million.

28. Check out Chelsea Market.
You could spend some cash here, but it doesn’t cost a thing to browse the shops here (Posman Books, Anthropologie, Imports from Marrakesh) and you can usually find a free sample at Fat Witch Bakery.

29. Visit FAO Schwarz.
Even if you don’t have kids, visit FAO Schwarz to see just how crazy American consumerist culture can be. Thousand dollar stuffed toys? Yes.

30. See the US Open.
The qualifying competitions the week before the US Open are free! See top-seeded players without a ticket.

Riverside Park South isn’t really overlooked, but it’s just far enough beyond the daily path of the majority of New Yorkers that walking through sections of the park this weekend felt strangely solitary. We could hear the cars speeding by on the West Side Highway, but we couldn’t see them. The tall grasses and thistles going to seed made me think of rural South Carolina, where I grew up, but these were juxtaposed by Donald Trump’s persistently controversial condo complex overlooking the Hudson River.

Riverside Park South runs from 59th Street to 72nd Street on Manhattan’s West Side. For more information about the park, visit the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, and to find out what’s going on in the city, check out our favorite local site, Newyorkology.

My photo essay about scientific research at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base was published by DISCOVER Magazine about a week and a half ago; it subsequently hit the front page of Digg. I started working on this piece almost two years ago, so it was gratifying to see everything finally come together.

A travel feature about our trip on Puerto Rico’s Ruta Panoramica appears in the September issue of Latina Magazine, which just hit newsstands today. Hope you’ll pick it up and read it! The article also features a couple of Francisco’s photos.

And speaking of the Ruta Panoramica, that’s one of the subjects I wrote about for Fodor’s Puerto Rico, 6th edition. The guide book should have appeared on bookstore shelves around the US this past Friday. If you decide to buy one, we wouldn’t mind if you clicked through from here:

Francisco’s been keeping his camera busy; in addition to covering the Carlos Varela, Garifuna Soul, and Susana Baca performances at Lincoln Center last week, he was also credentialed to shoot the Larry Harlow, Ruben Blades, Adonis Puentes show a few nights later. It was a pretty big deal– this marked the first time Harlow’s suite “La Raza Latina” has ever been performed live. The photos of Susana Baca are particularly good; you can see them all here.

Together, we’re working on (finally) completing an iPhone app for San Juan, Puerto Rico, which will be available soon through iTunes. To promote the app and to share more advice and insight into Puerto Rico, we’re also in the process of setting up a new website- PuertoRicoTravelGuides.com. We’re also on Twitter: @PRTravelGuides.

Finally, I’ve just published an article over on MatadorChange about a female Bolivian wrestler who has dismantled gender barriers in her country. The article, accompanied by Francisco’s photos, represents the first piece in a new editorial vision we’re rolling out at Matador. Expect to see “deeper” feature-length articles about the issues Francisco and I have always cared about- the environment, immigration, social justice, and the like.

The Matador team launched its online travel photography course last week and already students are enrolling and working on their first assignment, one component of which is to introduce themselves and talk about why they’re interested in photography.

One student mentioned that he’s interested in the stories that photos can tell, especially stories about the environment, about marginalized people, and overlooked corners of our world.

I agree that photos can convey urgency, feeling, and acuity that words may lack.

Sometimes, though, photos only start to hint at a story, and without any context at all, you’re only left with questions that rattle around in your brain, unanswered.

Francisco shot this photo in the subway station at Union Square yesterday. I didn’t ask him anything at all about it, but I had a hundred questions. Who is she? Where is she from? What does she think as she pulls on her black mariachi pants, the ones with the silver adornments sewn down the side? How did her group come together? How much money do they make? How does she feel when people stop to take in the whole scene? Or when they walk by, pretending not to notice or trying to block out the sound? What is she feeling at this exact moment?

You can see more photos of the mariachi–and of other interesting New Yorkers– in our New York People set on Flickr.

The Statue of Liberty is definitely NOT an overlooked place in New York, and it makes an appearance in my MatadorTrips article, “What NOT to Do in New York City.” You’ll have to click over to find out why (and what I recommend instead).

And if you take my advice to skip the Statue, you can get a much better view of Liberty here:

Municipal buildings are like cemeteries, I think: We tend to avoid them unless we have some inescapable business there.

I don’t know why this is, though; as with cemeteries, the buildings where formal business is conducted tend to harbor ambitious elements of art and design that are rarely in evidence–at least not in quite the same way–in our more quotidian spaces.

Last night, we attended a talk sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council as part of its “Access Restricted” series of “nomadic lectures” about the law. The setting was the New York County Supreme Court, a grand, landmarked building whose entryway leads into a rotunda painted with a mural depicting seminal figures and moments in legal history.

Rotundas… you’ve probably never seen a travel article about them, but this is at least the second one I’ve seen (the first being the rotunda of the Capitol building in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a gorgeous mosaic also depicting an epic sweep of history) that has caught my attention and held it, almost distracting me from whatever I was supposed to be doing. There’s so much happening in this mural; I could look at this tiny detail of the scene unfolding beneath Lincoln’s leg for at least a day:

There’s no drum roll and take-away here. Just this: don’t overlook the obvious in your search to find something extraordinary.

More photos of the Court are here.

To be fair, we can’t complain about the winter.

The almost daily blue skies made the hard season bearable.

But still.

The sound of bird song outside the living room window last week and the crocus and daffodils pushing their way through the soil were welcome signs of the new season.

We opened the window, sat Mariel on the sill and watched as birds flitted in and out of the tangle of ivy that creeps up the wall.

Laura Kammermeier said this is a red-winged blackbird. I don’t know how I’ve lived 32 years without noticing one.

We’re not the only ones with spring on the brain. Here are a few friends meditating on the seasonal change:

Elizabeth Eslami: Birds and Other Miracles of (Western) America

Lola Akinmade: Postcard: Palm Fronds and Psalms

Linda Golden: My First Spring in Two Years

I may be wrong, but I’m willing to bet that most visitors to Washington, D.C. don’t make it across the river to Anacostia.

Though it’s designated as an historic neighborhood, Anacostia is down on its heels. As we were driving through, Francisco said, “No way! That guy’s selling crack in broad daylight!” And then, just up the hill, “That guy’s carrying a gun! I just saw him wrap it up in a plastic bag.”

Anacostia’s difficulties are well-documented. The neighborhood has been described as one of the “most impoverished and polluted neighborhoods in America,” and as you look at debris that blackens the shore of the Anacostia River, you’re not inclined to dispute that claim.

But like any place, if you’re willing to look hard enough, you’ll find something to counteract the narrative of devastation and destitution.

In Anacostia, that something is Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum. It may seem an unlikely place for a museum, just a few paces up the hill from a community recreation center, its parking lot marked with the sign “Park Here At Your Own Risk.” We wouldn’t have known about it had I not read about the museum in Smithsonian Magazine.

The reason we detoured through Anacostia on our recent drive from South Carolina to New York was because we wanted to see the exhibit “The African Presence in Mexico: From Yanga to the Present.” Francisco and I have long nurtured our mutual interest in all things Afro-Latin, and were excited to see a US museum take a similar interest.

We were full of ourselves when we arrived, fairly certain we knew a great deal of what there is to know about the African diaspora in Mexico, sure, at least, that this general interest exhibit wouldn’t be likely to teach us much new.

We were wrong.

The exhibit, in both English and Spanish, is exceptional, simultaneously ambitious in what it wants to convey and concisely curated in order to deliver maximum impact. Whether you know a lot about the subject or nothing at all, the exhibit is presented in such a way that both types of visitors will be deeply satisfied.

Highlights included large-format photographs by Agustin Casasola, with this photo of a female Afro-Mexican soldier from the Revolutionary Period so compelling that I would have bought it on complete impulse had it been at a gallery (and had I had the money).

Other take-aways?

*The Underground Railroad actually had at least one stop in Mexico. The first “freedom station” on the Underground Railroad that has been identified outside the US is that of Mazamitla in the state of Jalisco. Slaves who escaped and fled to Mexico were given citizenship by the Mexican government and were granted land rights in Coahuila, where a significant Afro-Mexican community remains today.

*The Mexican Postal Service issued a stamp honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a full 10 years before the US postal service did so.

*Langston Hughes wrote his first piece of published prose in Mexico- Mexico Games. But damned if I can find it in print anywhere.

The exhibit runs through July 4, 2010, which somehow seems fitting. Entry is free and the museum is open 7 days a week.

Though it was published in 1949, E.B. White managed to observe New York timelessly in his lovely little 56-page book, Here is New York

There are so many observations that resonate with me, and one of them is White’s taxonomy of New Yorkers. As those of us who live here know, there are different kinds of New Yorkers: (1) the ones born and raised here, whose roots are so stubbornly planted here you couldn’t pay them to live anywhere else; (2) the commuters, who just experience New York during the day; and (3) those of us who moved here, those of us White refers to as “settlers.”

White recognized that each of these types of New Yorkers gives New York something. The “natives,” he says, give the city “solidity and continuity”; the commuters give it its “tidal restlessness”; and we settlers, well, we give the city a passion akin to the “intense excitement of first love,” each of us “absorb[ing] New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer….”

As I wrote the other day, those fresh eyes grow cloudy after a few years, as the city that was so exciting and so new becomes Chipotlicized and every corner has either a Starbucks, Duane Reade, or Chase Bank.

Sometimes, you just have to remember to look up.

A shop making and selling hand-rolled cigars on the second floor of a building near 34th Street