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Tuesday
We took the 10am Megabus out of South Station to New York. I managed to dash on the bus and get the front seats on the top deck which had a great view and helped alleviate any travel sickness. The bus had free wifi and power outlets so we spent the 4 hour ride on the Internet. We arrived in New York at 2:30 to rain. Lots and lots of rain. We grabbed our coats from our cases and started walking up from 27
th Street to 45
th Street. Our hotel, Hotel St James, was right next to Times Square. We made it there, soaking wet, and checked in. We were in room 301. We headed up to the room to check it out. It was a great size considering our location and the bed and bathroom were fine. We checked out the Cranberry Deli next door, I got a slice of pizza and Oli had some spicy chicken. We headed over to the United Nations Headquarters to try catch the last tour of the day at 4:45. We made it in time and we ventured around the General Assembly and looked at various gifts given to the UN by
different countries. Then we were given a tour on the different types of work the UN do. It was $16 each lasted about an hour and well worth it. Then we walked to Grand Central and had a mooch round there. I loved the building and the atmosphere. We walked through the Grand Central market then met JJCB in Times Square and went for cocktails at Planet Hollywood. I was quite hungry so I grabbed some chicken in Cranberry Deli to eat back at the hotel. By this point we were pretty tired and had a big day tomorrow so we headed off to bed.
Observations from Day 4:
There are a LOT of skyscrapers in New York and you feel like you’re in a giant maze.
Their naming conventions of streets is a lot easier to navigate around.
Boston is nicer than New York.
People honk their horns a lot.
Wednesday
We had breakfast at Cranberry Deli and met JJCB. Then we headed to Central Park and spent the morning wandering around the lake marvelling at all the tortoises cruising by on logs. Beano, Cara, Oli and I hired a boat for
an hour and went out on the lake. It took us (well me and Beano) a while to get used to the rowing and a couple of boat seating position changes had to be made (very carefully as we did not want to fall out) but once we had it sorted we powered across the lake. Oli took us into a couple of hairy situations where the depth of the water was not near deep enough to accommodate our boat but he managed to navigate us back out. We were making our way back across the lake when one of the oars broke off the side of the boat. All the commotion nearly caused the boat to tip over but thankfully it didn’t. Cara managed to skilfully steer us back to shore within our allotted time with the dodgy oar and all was well.
In the afternoon we went to the Museum of Natural History. We had some lunch in the canteen then looked around the exhibits. This was not as impressive as I hoped. There was a T-Rex but I thought it would have been bigger. We spent a couple of hours looking around and then we meandered
back towards our hotel.
We went over to JJCB’s hotel on 40
th Street for dinner. We went to a diner near them which had good reviews called Scotty’s Diner. We all had burgers except Oli who opted for the Honey mustard chicken. It was very tasty and the burgers were very tender. Then JJCB had a look round Grand Central as they hadn’t been there before. We stopped for a quick drink in TGI Friday’s then had a few more in a bar called Patrick Conway’s before heading to bed around 1am.
Observations from Day 5:
Central Park is huge.
Tomato sauce is only known as Ketchup.
Oli is no longer the family navigator. He has been relegated to follower due to his poor sense of direction in NY.
Thursday
We had arranged to head down to the financial district today as we had prebooked the 9/11 Memorial for Thursday. We met the others in our favourite Cranberry Deli for a NY style breakfast – lots of sharing each other’s bacon, eggs, enclosed in various carbohydrates such as croissants, pancakes and French toast. I went for a healthy fruit option. We then headed
for the financial district on the tube. We were allowed in to the Memorial early so we queued up and went through security and in to the Memorial around 11am. The Memorial was emotional, with large waterfalls places where the twin towers had stood. We would have liked to visit the museum but it wasn’t open yet. After this we went to admire the new One World Trade Center building, this was already the tallest in New York and set to be the tallest building in America when it’s finished.
The second booked event of the day was a tour of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at 3.15. So that gave us enough time for a trip on the Staten Island ferry and back. We rushed on the ferry to the top deck on the right hand side, with the best view of Manhattan. New York seems to look better when you take a step back and can see all the skyscrapers. We didn’t venture very far once off the first leg of our Stanton Island ferry, just sat in the sun and enjoyed the view until the return ferry came to pick us up. We were
impressed with the free ferry service, I can’t imagine they’d be free in the UK, but then we have other things to pay for, like the NHS.
We left the others after a walk round Battery Park and headed for our bank tour. This was another free tour I’d found out about from Tripadvisor research. This was by far the most secure building I’d ever been in. We went through airport scanners, airtight vaults, and massive automatic revolving doors. There was reason for the intense security - £350 billion worth of gold. As part of the tour we went 80 feet underground to the same vault as the gold. We could not see all of it, but could see enough, hundreds of stacked gold bars. Our tour guide gave us a financial presentation about US inflation and interest etc, but my questions didn’t tax her much and were all about the gold. She had heard them all before, we found it interesting that she didn’t know which countries owned the gold (only a handful of people did know, the US held 5% of it). The bank also holds 20% of all the gold in the world and there have
been no attempts to steal any of the gold, except in Die Hard with a Vengeance of course.
After the bank we walked up walked up the whole of Manhattan, this was a very long walk, especially as we’d already walked from the 911 memorial to the Staten Island ferry terminal. The walk took us through China town, little Italy, Union Square, Bryant Park, New York Library, and past the Empire State Building. One of the parks had a spinning class, with all the ladies wearing sports bra’s they were advertising. Bryant Park had a massive yoga class, there must have been a couple of hundred of people down dogging all over the place. We headed into the massive Toys R Us in Times Square, it had a huge moving dinosaur in it and a big Ferris wheel which stretched over 3 floors. We finally got back to the hotel then got ready to go out for dinner.
In the evening, JJCB came to our hotel and we walked over to Hell’s Kitchen. We settled on Hourglass Tavern to eat. 4 of us had medium rare steak with mash and broccoli, Oli had ribs and Jen had chicken
meatball pasta. The food was delicious. Then we headed back to our hotel and turned in for the night.
Friday
Today I ate two of the best things I have ever eaten in my life, if not the best.
Oli and Beano had been talking about going for a run together on every day of the holiday so far, but then they kept having too many beers or not enough time to run. So they took drastic measures to fit in a run and arranged to meet at 7:30am. Both was unsure if the other one was joking and worried they would not turn up, however they both met on time, early even, at Beano’s hotel. The plan was for them to jog to Central Park, then round it on the main route. After running up about 30 blocks they realised they were running next to the park, so headed into it, then to the top, up hills, even did press-ups. This resulted in a 20km run; the furthest Beano had ever run. It was perfect weather for it, clear sky and not too hot as it was early.
I was not far behind Oli and
woke up at 7:30, when Oli got back and showered we headed next door to Cranberry Deli for breakfast as usual. I had a vanilla and strawberry yoghurt with oats and a banana, Oli got a shake and apple. The sun was shining again and we headed to the Rockefeller Centre on 49
th Street to go up Top of the Rock. We bought tickets for $25 each and headed up the elevator to the 70th floor in 42 seconds. The ceiling in the elevator is see through and you can watch as you go up the lift shaft which was a nice twist to the ride up. It was a clear day and we could see all of Central Park on one side and the other side had Empire State Building and One World Trade Center. We were up there about 20 minute taking photos then we headed back down the elevator. Next on the itinerary was Magnolias Bakery, which was on the corner of 49
th. This was the location of the first best thing I have ever eaten. We perused the cakes on offer for a while, before settling on a Magic Cookie Bar, which was a coconut pecan
bar for $2.50. We made our purchase and headed out to the fountains in the sunshine to eat it. When I opened the bag it didn’t look that great, and I was already formulating a plan on how I was going to offload it onto Oli. But when I took the first bite, no words could come out my mouth, only muffled sounds. It was delicious. And in that one mouthful it knocked my mum’s Christmas dinner straight out of the top spot. Sorry mum. Oli had a bite and agreed it was amazing. Whilst we were munching, we spotted JJCB heading into Magnolia’s Bakery so we ran over to meet them. Jen got a chocolate fudge brownie, Jack got a Macadamia nut cheesecake and a cookie and Cara also got a Macadamia nut cheesecake and a slice of pumpkin pie for later. Oli made a last minute purchase of a peanut butter toffee bar which tasted just like Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, but on top of a flapjack and ranked in the top 20 things I have ever eaten.
Next we headed up 5
th Avenue to 57
th Street to the huge 6 storey Tiffany’s. We spent some time
on the 3
rd floor; the only floor mere mortals can afford, and then moved down to 2
nd floor to check out the huge glittery engagement rings. They were so sparkly it made our eyes hurt. The three girls were loving it, after twenty minutes the three boys were sat down on chairs looking like they were kids being dragged around shops by their parents. We headed back out in to the sunshine and headed down to 56 Street to the Le Parker Meriden hotel. I had researched on Tripadvisor before coming to NY that this hotel had the best burger in NYC for under $10. It wasn’t very easy to spot, but Jack’s eagle eye spotted the neon burger sign to the right of the check in counter. The queue was coming out the door. We got in line and patiently waited. Once we got in there, it was like a different world. The queue started inside the hotel, which was a grand and posh hotel, the queue finished in a hectic room, full of people all drunk on the world’s best burger, it looked like something out of the Bacardi advert. We were unsure if we should abort the
queue, I’m so glad we didn’t. We ordered two cheeseburgers, mine medium rare and Oli’s medium with the works - including salad and many sauces and a fries to share. Burgers were $8 each and fries were $4 so only came to $20. We walked down to Central Park and sat on the grass to eat it. In the first bite of the burger, the Magic Cookie Bar went straight down the charts to No2 and in came the Le Meriden Parker hotel burger at the top spot of my all time favourite foods. The beef was so tender it melted in my mouth. I tried to savour it but it was gone in about 4 bites. We headed into the maze that is Central Park and made our way to the bridge over the lake where Jen’s friend was getting married at 2:30. It was a coincidence that Jen found out her colleague was getting married in Central Park after we arranged our holiday. We didn’t have much time to make it to the bridge for the wedding at 2:30, as we’d spent ages queuing the burger; JJCB had set off ten minutes before us. While we were rushing
through Central Park to find the bridge, debating between us which way to go we bumped into the others with only minutes to go, we all made it to see the bride and groom meet on the bridge, it was like a scene from a romantic comedy. We didn’t want to intrude but we watched them exchange their vows from a distance and it looked to be a lovely ceremony. We made our way back out of the park and headed back down to Rockefeller center. At this point we said bye to JJCB as they had packing to do. We headed down from 49 street to 34 street and across to 10
th Avenue, where we started the Highline, an elevated railway line which has been changed into a park for people to enjoy. We meandered along the mile long trail which takes you through the Chelsea District and ended up coming out at 12
th Street. At this point my feet were about to fall off. It was 6:30pm, prime commuter time, and we were due to meet JJCB at 7:45 for dinner so we did what any sensible people would do and ran back to the hotel. Running through
Times Square was not easy; dodging people and cars was an experience in itself. We made it back in time and got ready to go back out. JJCB arranged to come to ours a bit later to finish packing. We went to our second home, Cranberry Deli, to get some drinks to take back to our hotel (Hobo style in a brown paper bag) while we waited. We headed out around 8:45 to Hell’s Kitchen. A last minute decision was made to go for Thai food, and we ended up at Yum Yum Bangkok Thai. We had a 30 minute wait for a table, in the end they cobbled one together for us and we were seated around 10pm. I ordered the shrimp (prawns) Pataang curry with brown rice and Oli went for Duck red curry and we had a bit of each. We had a few strawberry mimosas and I had my first alcohol of the holiday. The Thai food was amazing, Oli has been gradually increasing the amount of spice in our curries at home, so I was well trained for this, it was still very spicy. We headed back towards Times Square and JJCB left us at
this point to head down to 5
th Av 27
th Street to a rooftop bar called 230 fifth. We headed back to the hotel, finished packing and went to bed at midnight.
Observations from Day 7:
New York is huge. And it is not possible to see it all in 4 days, but we gave it a good shot.
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Phyllis Farrand
non-member comment
New York
Lisa, what a wonderful story about New York and all of your excursions.Good to talk to you Ollie and we'll see you here in Austin tomorrow. Have fun in Miami.