Day 34 - New York City

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New York City - 33°c

After not heading to sleep until around 2am, it felt so great not to wake up until just before 10am. I think if it hadn’t have been for Aaron, and knowing I should get a move on, I probably would have carried on sleeping until mid-afternoon! After 26 consecutive days of very early starts, sleeping in has become what can only be described as the Holy Grail, and the ultimate reward!

Once awake and dressed, Aaron and I headed down from our 50th floor (top of the building!) hotel room to the 44th floor’s Platinum member club lounge for breakfast. With Aaron being a Platinum club member and getting access, it’s meant we gain access to the exclusive lounge for free food and drink in very plush surroundings! It’s such a treat to reach the end of my trip after staying in so many hotels ranging from fantastic to sub-standard, to now be staying in such an amazing hotel, up on the top floor, and getting access to the club lounge too. I feel very lucky.

After breakfast, we headed down the other 44 floors in the elevator that moves so fast it makes our ears pop, to catch the subway up to Yankee Stadium. It didn’t take too long considering we went from 53rd street right the way up to 161st! Thankfully we were able to pick up the express subway line rather than the local, meaning that we skipped out many of the stops in between and had a much quicker journey.
Once we got to Yankee Stadium, we took some photos, had a look around the New York Yankees store where I picked up a couple of souvenirs, and then onto the Hard Rock Café located next door for some further souvenirs. It’s now the final Hard Rock Café on my list of branches to find and visit, and I’ve now managed to pick up glassware from each one to add to my collection back home.

When we finished we caught the subway back from the Bronx area of New York City back down into Manhattan once again, all the way down to 34th street by the Empire State Building. We went into Macy’s for a while, just up the street from the Empire State Building. With 9 floors, it’s apparently the world’s biggest department store. I’ve been there many times before, but Aaron thought it was pretty cool. Especially the fact that there were 4 Starbucks inside of one store! There was also a McDonalds inside too, and Aaron and I went to find it for a small snack. - It was quite surreal to find a McDonalds not only inside a department store, but also just around the corner from the children’s clothes section of the store. With the smell of McDonalds fries wafting out across the clothes, it was quite surreal!

After Macy’s we walked up to the New York Public Library and Bryant Park just out the back. As we were walking along the street we bumped into (Brit) Kate from the Contiki tour! It was amazing that with so many thousands, even millions, of people wandering up and down every street and avenue around Manhattan, that it was possible to bump into someone I recognised! Aaron, Kate and I chatted for a while, before (Brit) Danielle got off a coach after doing the ‘Sex and the City’ coach tour, we all stood chatting and catching up on what we’d been doing since last night, and Danielle and I made plans to meet up at the airport if not before, since we are both on the same flight home.

Aaron and I walked all the way up 5th Avenue, which was extremely busy with both cars and people. With the sweltering humidity it was quite exhausting, but we stopped in a few shops along the way, including the World of Disney, the Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store (I mercifully managed to refrain from buying anything this time!) and the amazing glass Apple store right by Central Park and the Plaza hotel, which is a giant glass cube above ground that descends down under the ground where the actual shop is. From there we walked back down to 53rd street where our hotel is located and headed back to the club lounge to use the free wi-fi and enjoy some afternoon hors d’oeuvres!

Aaron headed out around 7pm to go meet his girlfriend Jen from Penn Station where her train was getting in from her and Aaron’s hometown of Dover, Delaware, whilst I stayed back at the hotel for a while to sort through my belongings and divide them between my existing suitcase and the new suitcase that Aaron brought for me from his home. Once Aaron brought Jen back to the hotel room, we soon headed back out for some dinner.

We walked down to Times Square to Ruby Tuesday’s and had massive hamburgers and ‘endless’ refillable fries! After dinner we had another look around Times Square, but no sooner had we left the restaurant the heavens opened. There was an enormous thunder and lightning storm above us, with torrential rain following immediately after. We hid under the awnings of several shops, slowly making our way around Times Square, slipping and sliding on the wet pavements, before deciding we were drenched enough and to just head back to the hotel around 11:15pm to catch up and watch some TV.

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Comments

[Trudy]

Fantastic!
Hi Carl, Well you have been, seen and conquered! Well done. Six weeks, has it really been that long, reading all your daily timetables have sounded like although tiring so much has been achieved. As I said before leaving, go for it, and you cedrtainly have. The memories you now have will seem surreal after a while, but always there and when you look at what you have bought as momentos and the photos of friends made, you will recall and remember and the dream will come back for ever. Looking forward to seeing and hearing all about it. Take care Lots of love Auntie Trudy xxx Loo