DAY 8 (the 20th): Polly's birthday and quite a busy day as it turned out so no sleep-in today. (Polly here: Cara was very sweet and got up early to go buy me flowers and set up a lovely table with presents and breakfast for me. Our over-friendly neighbourhood cat Dupes also popped in to say - well, meow actually - happy birthday!).
So after presents and breakfast we sprinted off to 37th street via the subway to get tickets for that day's Sex in the City tour. We got to the building where the ticket office was on the 10th floor of a high rise only to find the lift was being serviced so up we went and up, and up and up! It was so much easier coming down!
The Empire State Building was just around the corner so we headed off to squeeze that in before the afternoon SITC tour.
Wow, what an amazing view! They say you haven't seen NY until you've seen it from the top of the Empire State Building and we completely agree. It was seriously cold and windy at the top, brrr! Lots of tourists up there which we're not used to as this was the first touristy attraction we've been to. We were starting to feel like real New Yorkers in our Chelsea suburb and then this gave us a reality check, oh yeah that's right, we're tourists too! We then strolled up 5th Avenue towards and stopped for a birthday lunch at Trump Tower.
We then hot-footed it to outside The Plaza Hotel (very beautiful foyer) and met our tour for Sex in the City which took us on a coach ride all around Manhattan. Pleased to report we had our first cocktail in New York (a cosmopolitan) in Steve and Aidan's bar Scout. Oh and the supermodel Helena Christensen walked right past our coach which was pretty cool.
The tour was really good but we were tired afterwards and we still had 20 blocks to walk home so we just quickly grabbed some dinner then went home to put our feet up. This travelling lark is hard work on the soles!
Polly here again: so back at the BnB a really special birthday surprise was waiting for me as on my bed was a beautiful tin of baked goodies from our favorite bakery just around the corner, Billy's Bakery. It was from my amazing friends at work - thanks guys, you know who you are!
DAY 9: No sleep in today as we had an early meeting with the lady renting us her apartment in the upper west side at 85th St and Riverside. We caught the subway up there (we're pros now!) and collected the keys to move in tomorrow and she gave us a little tour of the neighborhood. Next off we had to get back to midtown at 50th on Madison Ave for a Gossip Girl tour. It was funny to listen and watch the other people on the tour as some were VERY SERIOUS fans and had dressed up as characters from the show! Only in New York!
Walking back to our BnB after the tour we had to stop and buy some goodies from the local French patisserie and also to call in again at Three Tarts to get more macarons. Hey, it's our last day in Chelsea after all!
Next up a relaxing afternoon chilling out in the garden of our BnB and catching up on the blog. We love the architecture of this BnB which is a classic 4-story brownstone and has the most beautiful ceiling architraves, check out the photos below.
After a rest we then headed out to a local French bistro for our last night in Chelsea and belated birthday dinner for Polly. It was a very popular little place and not surprising as it had great food at reasonable prices. Cara had a delicious risotto and Polly had a creamy carbonara. We then shared a creme brûlée - yum!! Then it was time to head home and start packing.
Catch you on our next blog from Manhattan's upper west side!
xo xo
Location:All Over The Place!
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