New York: Day 12, 13, 14

Hi again, Cara and Polly here ...

We'll really quickly skip past Day 12 and just call it a 'rest' day and not go into discussing the hours of American tv we watched while having a day off!

DAY 13: A much more active day! We had a day pass for New York Water Taxis which included a visitor pass to the Ground Zero Memorial in the World Trade Centre area. It was so beautifully done - 2 identical sunken water features built into the foundations of the original footprints of the 2 towers that were lost so they're absolutely enormous in size. Our photos won't do justice to how serene and lovely the memorials are. We were lucky with the weather too as it was such a perfect day with blue skies and hardly any wind. There's a very impressive (and highly organised!) queueing system to enter the memorial and lots of security checks - we must have shown our passes at least 6 times.
























We also got to see the new No 1 World Trade Centre Tower they're re-building which will become the tallest skyscraper in New York at over 105 floors. So far they've built up to floor 85. The new building and the memorial has had lots of trees planted around it so the site of such an immense tragedy has been turned into a tranquil, serene park.





Next up we hopped back on the water taxi and went to Brooklyn and had the most delicious pizza at Grimaldi's who cook their famous pizzas in a coal-fired brick oven. We tried to go there last week at 6.00pm and the queue outside to get in would have taken over an hour's wait. This time we went at 4.30pm and there was still a queue but it only took a 5 minute wait and it was worth it! We also shared a really good butter-pecan ice cream with hot fudge sauce from the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory which is right under the Brooklyn bridge. Yum!





























After a little stroll around Brooklyn's waterfront (which may have included a slight detour thru a candy shop!) we got the last water taxi back to Manhattan which was just as the sun was setting over the Statue of Liberty - it looked amazing. We both took dozens and dozens of photos! The water taxi was a great way to get around and we had a great day (we really recommend it!). Be prepared: below are LOTS of photos of the Statue of Liberty!




































DAY 14: We're on holiday so that means no alarms - so another relaxing sleep in was had today, yay, we love sleeping in! We had to force ourselves to turn the tv off and go get out and about in New York, ha ha. Once we did get out we decided to explore our upper west side suburb. What we love about New York is that you turn the corner and make a new discovery of either an amazing building, quirky shop or fantastic Halloween decorations on display. We constantly keep finding things that delight and amaze us. It's such an entirely different - and fascinating - world and way of life that we're living in at the moment.













So this afternoon we walked all around 70th to 85th street mostly along Broadway and our purses took quite a walloping! Polly bought a new handbag off a street stall and Cara bought several handbags, pair of shoes and clothes from this great store we discovered called Filene's which sells all the department store end of season products at amazing prices! Next up Cara needs to shop for another suitcase to carry all her new purchases!

Thanks for reading and we'll end this blog with some words of wisdom spotted on a billboard today....

Location:Ground Zero Memorial, Cruise, Shopping!!

New York: Day 10 & 11 Upper West Side

Hi everyone, Cara and Polly here again with day 10 and 11 of our New York blog. Day 10 was our move to an apartment on the upper west side to live like real New Yorkers! We did it the easy way and hailed a yellow cab as it would have been too hard getting our luggage there on the subway. Mind you, we had such a crazy taxi driver the subway would have been safer! Our apartment is on the corner of Riverside Drive and 85th street and is really comfy. With each accommodation move we gain more space - including our own bathroom which we've had to share up till now. It's also so nice to have a kitchen to cook in as we are getting a little sick of eating out all the time. Our apartment has a beautiful view of the Hudson River which looks over to New Jersey and, wow, the view is spectacular at night! How lucky are we?!





After settling into our new home and doing a big grocery shop at Zabars (Harry/Dad you would love it!) we decided to get some fresh air and took a lovely stroll from 85th st along the boardwalk to 69th st as the sun was setting behind New Jersey. Then we walked back via Broadway to make a yummy home-made dinner of pasta with pesto sauce and garlic bread AND wine! We haven't been doing a lot of 'drinking' so we pushed the boat out that night and used the whole bottle up!

Day 11: Woo hoo, sleep-ins are back on!! Once we finally got up and ate (oh, and watched couple hours of very addictive American tv!) we headed off to explore beautiful Central Park. This place is truly amazing and so beautiful. Oh and you could very easily get lost if you're anything like Cara (no sense of direction!) as it is so huge with lots of different paths in every direction and not many signs. We've become a little besotted with squirrels too as they're so cute and bounce around the tree branches so quickly.
















After we made it through the park and out the other side into the upper east side we did a little shopping at Bloomingdales, Dylan's Candy Store, Tiffany's and the very cool toy store FAO Schwartz. Polly spent up big at the candy store (no one's surprised by that!) and Cara bought herself a special souvenir pendant necklace from Tiffany's (incredible place). What we constantly find is the amazing customer service and friendliness of shop assistants. These New Yorkers are a real friendly bunch and also very helpful with answering our many questions. They're also incredibly polite and have such good manners.









By the time we decided to head home it was 6.30pm (shops stay open so late each night) and it was dark. We were at 60th street and had to get back to 85th so we quite bravely (or maybe foolishly) walked some of the way thru Central Park - in the dark remember!? Once again friendly and helpful New Yorkers assisted with directions when we needed to double-check Polly's internal compass was pointing in the right direction so we didn't get too lost!

On the way we kept stopping to admire the Halloween decorations people have put up. Some are definitely more scary than others!!


















After a quick stop at our local supermarket for dinner ingredients we (well, just Polly actually) got home just in time to watch the American broadcast of rugby world cup final All Blacks -v- France only about 16 hours after it was live in Auckland. Thank God the kiwis won or the All Blacks would have been hunted down and .... well, I hate to think!

Another home-cooked meal of Polly's corn chowder and we settled in for a few more hours of awesome American tv, ah, this is the life!

New York: Day 8 & 9

Hi everyone, Cara and Polly back again with the next chapter of our holiday in Manhattan.

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!