The flight was early and due to helping Katherine and generally faffing I ended up with only 4 hours sleep. So I slept most of the flight. And was still tired, so when we arrived at 5pm and took 2 hours to get to the hotel all I wanted to do was go to bed. Luckily Katherine wasn't wanting a crazy all nighter so we had some dinner at the local diner and went to bed.
Saturday morning we both felt tired and groggy (planes = sinus) but attempted to get on with it anyway. First we took the subway to 23rd (we failed to swap tracks so ended up on the wrong block) to find the High Line, an elevated garden on a disused train track. It's a great project, making green space out of wasted space. There's art on the way along too. It ends (or starts??) in Greenwich Village so we then wandered through there and SoHo to Chinatown and Little Italy. Neither of us were hungry enough for lunch so we kept on going by walking to the World Financial Centre to take in the Winter Gardens. This was right next to the 911 site, where a lot of construction is going on but we didn't investigate fully. After the gardens we grabbed deli lunch and ate it whilst waiting for the Staten Island ferry. Battery Park, right on the point of Manhattan, appeared to have some storm damage. The last subway station is still closed, benches were missing and the globe sculpture is dented. Our ferry out to Staten Island was in light so we got a good view of the Statue of Liberty, then we returned in the dark so had a great view of the Manhattan skyline.
By this time despite me buying a new coat and Katherine a new thermal vest we were rather cold, so the only thing for it was to go indoors and that means shopping! Grand Central Station had a holiday fayre so we went to view the artisan stalls on offer. Fortunately we didn't spend our life savings. Next stop was the Rockefeller Centre, which was PACKED. The Christmas tree and ice rink are just up so it was exceptionally busy for a Saturday night. We had to leave the crowds so headed to Times Square, which although it was busy we could still manage to find a space to sit and watch the world go by. We were just about ready for dinner then so hopped a subway to Big Nick's, recommended by our dad. It was brilliant! We were ushered through the kitchen to a few tables at the back. The menu had every conceivable dish on it. And jugs of beer. And it was the cheapest USA meal out so far. A brisk 20 block walk back ended the evening brilliantly.
Another slow-ish start but when we did get going we went NYC-style with coffee and bagel in Central Park. We then spent a couple of hours in the park meandering and watching birds. Katherine hadn't brought her binoculars as she didn't want to be an annoying bird nerd and making us stop all the time, but I was stopping more! I managed a few good bird photos. We also went to the zoo in the park, which was pretty good for $12 (luckily it was $12 as we'd decided that was our limit as Melissa will pay $12 for rhinestones). The park is a pretty brilliant asset to New York - such a good space for the people. There were loads of dog walkers, families, joggers - even in the freezing cold.
Next we went to see what was on at the cheap ticket hut on Broadway and grabbed tickets to Elf at half price. With a few hours to spare we went on another boat trip about dusk, this time a proper sightseeing one on the Circleline. Views were better but the other people were far more annoying! As well as the good views and commentary it gave us an excellent reason to sit down for a couple of hours. This revived us for the walk back to Broadway. We were early so went for a pre-theatre drink in the Scottish bar (it's part of my acclimatisation . The show was brilliant, as you'd expect from Broadway, even being on the very front row and having the member(s) of One Direction directly behind us meaning everyone else in the audience was distracted. I enjoyed being able to see every bead of sweat, hidden giggle between the cast and banter between the orchestra.
On the way home Katherine and I had a subway race - I thought waiting for 4 minutes for the train that missed out 5 stops was a better idea than the immediate train that stopped at all 7 stops - it was. We went to Two Boots, a small chain store, for a slice of pizza. The two boots represent Italy and Louisiana (both boot shape) but I was mostly drawn in by the mosaic.
Our last morning we managed to get up and out the quickest ever! That's what the last day will do to you. First stop was Rockefeller to watch the ice skating. I intended to skate, but once we were there I realised that it was just going round and round in circles! So we went up high to view NY from the observation deck. The sun was in our eyes so not the best view of downtown Manhattan Also I'm not sure if it's the time of year or pollution or just the day's weather, but we couldn't see very far at all - it was hazy. Still, gives you a sense of the epic proportions of the place. Next we attempted to go shopping, however neither of us knew what we wanted or where we wanted to go! Mild success was had. We stopped for a breather outside the library where Katherine took a tumble and broke the mug I'd just bought (and her knee!). We slowed down slightly but ploughed on. The last mission of the day was manicures. Time was tight, but we just about managed it. Unfortunately Katherine's girl was rubbish so her nails are not as good as mine.
JFK is small and rubbish and I had possibly the worst restaurant service of my life. That is all.
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