Hi everyone,
Cara and Polly back again with a special Halloween blog for you all.
DAY 18 (the day after the snow):
Today we moved from our upper west side apartment to our last stay in a New York hotel right in the centre of things in Midtown on the corner of 7th Ave and 55th Street. We're now in a fairly touristy area and have well and truly left our lovely quiet upper west side suburb behind. On the plus side we're now super close to Central Park and lots of dangerously good shops!
We took it pretty easy today just checking out the damage caused by the snow with all the broken tree branches around Central Park and then walking around the upper east side.
We also got our third dose of culture by visiting the Frick Collection. Basically a tycoon willed to the public his beautiful old mansion across the road from Central Park with its amazing art collection and we called in for a look-see. We were blown away by the beautiful, ornate architecture and interior design - oh, and the art collection was pretty impressive too! Sorry no interior pics to show you as photography not allowed. Luckily we'd pretty much finished at the point when Cara was politely escorted by a security guard from the museum as she snuck in her water bottle which is a big no-no and against their rules. We knew this was a rule but Cara let slip showing her bottle whereas Polly had hers more well hidden and got away with it!
After that we just had a cruisy few hours checking out our new suburb with our final stop for the day being a return to Bouchon Bakery in the Rockefeller Centre for more macarons and delicious hot tomato soup served with an oozing grilled cheese sandwich - perfect comfort food for cold weather.
DAY 19 HALLOWEEN: Definitely one of our best days in New York. Those crazy Americans certainly know how to do Halloween! We had a low key day to conserve energy for this evening when we were doing a 6 hour bicycle tour.
In the morning we took a stroll around the upper east side and stumbled onto a tv crew filming Gossip Girl. For those GG fans out there you should be very jealous to know we saw 'Blair' and 'Dan'!
Then at 5.30pm we hopped on the subway to the East Village to meet our bicycle tour. They broke us into small groups so in ours was 9 people total - 2 guides and 7 of us tourists. One guide did all the talking and led the tour and the second guide was like our bodyguard who stayed at the back to make sure we got through the traffic okay.
The tour was just amazing (we give it 10/10!) and we learnt lots of interesting things about New York (www.bikethebigapple.com). We cycled all over the place and went through the East Village, Soho, Chinatown, Financial District including Wall Street and stopping to walk thru and spend some time at the big protest at Zuccotti Park. That was amazing to see as it was tent city and looked like they were living in pretty rough conditions. Our tour leader knew the guy organizing power for the protestors by having some pedal bikes connected to generators which people could then plug their phones or computers into. We then got back on the bikes and headed onto Brooklyn Bridge and stopped halfway to check the stunning view back to Manhattan which looks spectacular all lit up at night.
We then headed to Greenwich and the West Village to check out their annual Halloween parade. We saw some incredible costumes. People were really embracing Halloween and just going for it!
Our tour guide knew a guy who lives in the very famous Chelsea Hotel and was throwing a Halloween costume party which we gatecrashed for a very bizarre 15 minutes! The Chelsea Hotel is amazing and very haunted apparently, which after having been inside we easily believe. They're in the process of closing the hotel for renovations so as residents leave (or die!) their doors get padlocked shut - literally! - so it was quite eerie walking past all the empty rooms then suddenly very surreal walking into this elaborately painted and decorated apartment in full swing with a crazy Bohemian party full of people in fancy dress. The funny thing is they thought that us in our safety vests and helmets were in costume as cyclists and couldn't comprehend why we would want to cycle around New York. Actually we got that a lot as we passed people on the streets who thought we'd dressed up as a group of cyclists for Halloween!
Next we biked through the Meatpacking District and Chelsea area (our stamping ground in New York for our first 10 days so it was nice to bike thru our old 'hood). We rode all the way up 7th Avenue right through and into the madness of Times Square. Anyone who's been to New York knows how crazy this area is and we were cycling thru it holding our own against all the dozens of taxis! We did wonder if our tour leader had lost mind as we had all the cars beeping at us while we took over a lane to ourselves and it turns out they don't usually take tours thru Times Square but this was a special one-off biking itinerary for our six hour Halloween tour so it's just us fearless types on Halloween that get to do this!
We then finished the evening by biking south down Broadway back to the East Village and the bike shop.
By the time we walked to the subway, caught a train then walked home it was well after 1am and the 'city that never sleeps' certainly looked like it was dozing to us with hardly anyone out on the streets.
DAY 20: Oh, our aching bones and muscles!! We subway'd to Union Square and did some power shopping at some great outlet stores. Next we walked through beautiful Washington Square which was stunning in the sun and packed with locals soaking up the warm rays of sunshine and listening to a busker who'd somehow managed to bring along a grand piano to perform on!
After stopping for the compulsory squirrel in the park photo (Polly again!) we carried on walking thru the beautiful streets of Greenwich and the West Village to end up in our favorite suburb of Chelsea to make some more purchases at Anthropologie before heading to our old favorite Morans for one last amazing dinner there.
Time then to head back to the hotel and rest our worn out feet. Next blog will be our final blog from New York and we hope to report back with details of ice skating in Central Park if all goes well.
Till then, thanks again for reading our New York travel blog.
Cara and Polly out!
Location:All Around Manhattan!
