Day 14 - Sunday 15th October 2006

Yet another sleep-in. How can 3 people who sleep in just about everyday be so continuously tired? Toni is a massive Beatles fan so a trip to John Lennon’s memorial ‘Strawberry Fields’ in Central Park was always going to be an important part of our NY Itinerary. Our unit was about 4 blocks from the park but it is towards the south of bottom end of the park, so we walked from about 75^th Street to 82^nd Street so that we could get a better look. The park itself is amazing. The city planners did a wonderful job leaving such a large space of land in a jam packed city that could be enjoyed by everyone. It has plenty of sports fields as well as dedicated quiet areas were people can relax. It has areas for wildlife, plenty of lakes and cycling paths and is a serene beautiful place. We spent a couple of hours meandering around the bottom half of the park, looking at statues and fountains, the castle, the pond where you can hire remote control sail boats and around beautiful areas of native fauna and flora. And there was heaps of squirrels, as the girls know full well seen as I took a photo of each and everyone!!! I love squirrels

Central Park was fantastic. I’m not a big park person but this was not a park in the sense that you get them in Australia. I would love to see it in winter when it was covered in snow and the ponds frozen over with people skating on them and I could imagine sitting there on a hot summer’s day reading a book or playing my guitar. I would have easily spent another few hours just wandering but the girls had had enough and it was time to move on.

We headed into Time Square and booked a harbour cruise for that night so we could have a good look at the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan Skyline at night. We then headed to Bloomingdales which is over on the East side of the island, which is the part of the island that we didn’t spend much time exploring. What a waste of time. Although not as big as Macy’s, it was still a massive 9 story high department store, but it really only caters for the top end of the market. The store was beautiful but we only spent ½ hour in there as there was no way we would buy anything from there. The well to do were walking around in there in their designer dresses with their dog’s on a leash following behind. I guess if you have the money to shop there, you have the right to take your pets in with you as well!!!

We grabbed a beer from a local pub and watched a bit of the footy. It seems to be a real thing over here not to have coasters for your drink. We were under instructions from a few people to pick up as many coasters as we could to bring home, but everywhere we have been you just get a napkin to put your drink on. There’s going to be a few disappointed people when I come home with soppy torn napkins instead of American drink coasters.

We ate at a Italian diner where I tried a Stromboli, which was only just a half a step above ordinary and the pizza wasn’t any chop either. We then headed cross town back to Macy’s as Toni decided there were some suits there that she really wanted. She walked out with a Calvin Klien suit heavily discounted and I walked out with a Calvin Klien jacked which was no where near as heavily discounted. And Macy gives an 11% discount on top of all other discounts/savings for international visitors. Bonus!!!

It was then a mad dash to try and get a taxi to the pier for our cruise. It was right in the middle of the taxi driver change over and even though there was thousands of taxis about it took us a long time to get one that would stop to take us. We made it to the pier with a few minutes to spare and then embarked on our 90 min cruise.

We started half way up the west side of the island in the Hudson River about 30 mins before sunset and made our way down around the bottom of the island (and the statue of liberty at a distance) and then up the East River up to the United Nations which is about ½ way up the island. We then turned around and headed back with a close pass by the Lady Liberty. This cruise was excellent and the commentary was really insightful. We learnt really interesting things like the whole area around the world trade centre used to be underwater. To build the WTC, they had to dig so deep that the soil and rock that they dug up was enough to create the landfill used to create the rest of the whole area at that end of the island. We got to go under the Brooklyn Bridge a couple of times and got to see Manhattan at night which was spectacular. The Statue of Liberty herself was a sight to behold.

We finished the cruise and walked to Times Square to find somewhere classy for dinner. We walked across Times Square and then a few blocks to the east and north without running into anything interesting. Actually just about everything was closed. So much for the city that never sleeps, not much is open at 9pm on a Sunday. We ended up back at the Rockerfeller Centre and had a great dinner at a restaurant there that is located next to the ice rink. The service was excellent and we worked our way through the entire list of cocktails, so it wasn't exactly the cheapest dinner in NY. MMMMM Margaritas MMMMMM. Almost as good as beer.

We then went out to the ice skating rink and Toni and I hired a set of skates each and had a good 1/2 hour skate which was all we could get in before they closed for the night.


Toni and Mum then called it a night and caught a horse and carriage ride back to the hotel

I headed back to Times Square to watch some blues at the BB King place, but got there to be told they were only open for another 8 mins and they would still charge me full price to go in. Um no thanks. Instead I headed to the ESPN Zone to drink some beer and watch the last 5 innings of the NY Mets playoff match. I worked my way through the beers they had on tap there, drinking out of steins and had a good time. They shut up at 1 but let me stay up there and keep drinking while the bar maids were cleaning up which was great. And the greatest idea ever, they have LCD tv's above the urinals so that you don't miss a second of the action. This should be compulsory for all bars and sporting venues world wide. Anyway they then recommended me another bar but it was a bit of a dive and so about 2:30 and with a cross-country flight ahead of me (that and I was pretty seriously smashed), I thought I better call it a night