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Published: March 16th 2015
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It's 20.29 on Sunday the 15th March. I've got 2 days worth of stories and pictures to upload in a single post so it may be a long one, although we haven't crammed these days as full of activities as we have done the previous few days.
We rose late, around 10.30, on Saturday morning as the night before the owner of the house had had a loud, drawn out argument with one of the tenants about changing beds in the middle of the night. Once that had finally reached a conclusion we drifted slowly off to sleep to the sounds of a pair of backpackers talking loudly in the yard in mixed French and English. Anyway, we got ready in the morning and, after Matt and I had trained legs we headed out to the laundrette. The laundrette itself was hassle free and, after picking up some food from the Red Apple and seeking out Brooklyn's closest Starbucks, we headed back to the flat to get ready to go out into Manhattan for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.
We left the apartment at around 7, getting into Times Square at around 8. The cafe itself was huge and boasted
suits, guitars and autographed memorabilia from Elvis Presley to Adam Levine. As for the food - it was amazing. After the two courses we were struggling to move, so made our way very slowly to Times Square to have a final look around. The amount of lights and people and noise was incredible - it was like Piccadilly but on such a larger scale, as everything over here seems to be.
We left Times Square and headed down Broadway, which would take us all the way to Brooklyn Bridge, and then the 10 minutes back home. The whole walk itself took us around two and a half hours at a decent pace. It was a fantastic walk too, taking us through the theatre district, the clubbing district, the shopping district and then on into the business section of the city. It was odd to walk down the streets while they were relatively quiet as we have become so accustomed to the constant hustle and bustle of day-time Manhattan. Having said that, even at 12 midnight a astonishing number of restaurants, bars and even shops stayed open and busy.
Walking across Brooklyn Bridge the whole of Manhattan at night came it
view. It was fantastic, such a sight. We even attached a padlock with initials etched in to the bridge, just to complete the night. Once home, it was straight to bed - probably getting to sleep at around two.
This morning Kate and I awoke even later than before, around 12 noon, and had to quickly get ready before catching the metro once more into Manhattan. This time we got off at a station on the bottom left corner of Central Park. Our next quest, as always, was to find a coffee shop. We eventually, on the 6th attempt in a blistering wind, found a Starbucks with seats free so we spent a couple hours Skyping, coffee drinking, people watching and generally warming up.
As we'd got up late and spent a fair time finding our daily caffeine fix, it was already half four before we started walking through Central Park. In actuality this wasn't too much of a bad thing as it was bitingly cold outside so we couldn't really spend too long walking before we ducking into the nearest subway station. What we did see of Central Park was lovely - and very reminiscent of the large London
parks.
On the way back from our local subway stop we popped in to the deli to grab some dinner, and have been sitting around in our little hovel again since then. The shoddiness of the apartment has lost any humour or novelty it had earlier in the stay so there has been a little, understandable tension this evening - and the others have gone to bed early. I certainly will be missing Manhattan, but God we'll be glad to stay at a proper hostel in Boston.
Tomorrow we are staying in Brooklyn, doing a little shopping and getting a bite to eat before packing and moving on for the first time. Can't believe how quickly a week can go!
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