The travels of Tim and Megan: New York...again (Part 1)

Fans,

Thursday

On Thursday we left for our second trip to New York! The down side to going to New York is that you fly out of (and back in to) Heathrow. However, things were surprisingly easy for a change. The flight dragged a little bit but we were kept amused by our little TV screens, managing to cram in a lot of movies and games of Battleship.

New York was a little grey and drizzly when we arrived, but no worse than London had been! After ditching our bags at the Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel (which was really good, although we didn't even see one tree), we headed to an old favourite for lunch: the Tick Tock Diner (8th and 34th, diagonally across from Madison Square Garden). This place is the finest eating establishment in the world. You can order pretty much anything imaginable and the size options are XL, XXL or XXXL. Tim ordered a triple BBQ bacon cheeseburger that was so huge it hardly even fit on the plate. He made a brave effort but could not finish it.

After lunch we rolled out the door and caught the subway down to Greenwich Village in south west Manhattan. We wandered the beautiful tree-lined streets of Greenwich and checked out some of the crazy little shops along the way. We also ventured back to the Magnolia Bakery and Megan got one of their famous cupcakes (Tim could still barely walk at this point).

Next stop was Times Square and as always it was packed full of tourists and buzzing with excitement. We ducked into a few stores and bought a few New York mementos - Tim some New York Yankees pictures and Megan some New York fridge magnets to add to the international magnet collection. We also stopped in at the Hershey's and M&M super stores and stocked up on chocolates!

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped in at the Rockefeller Centre, which was decorated with hundreds of American flags and looked amazing. The Monday that we left New York was Memorial Day holiday to remember all of the fallen soldiers, so we assume the flags were there because of that. It looked very patriotic! After a bit of a rest at the hotel (we had got up at 4.30am UK time and by the evening New York time, we were stuffed), we grabbed a drink at the bar next door and got some Japanese for dinner before calling it a night.

Friday

It was a fairly early start on Friday morning and we went next door to the hotel to the Metro Cafe for breakfast. We knew it would be good because there was a massive queue! We had some cereal, yoghurt and pancakes and fresh orange juice. Friday was a beautiful hot sunny day in New York.

Our first adventure of a busy day was to conquer the Rockefeller Tower. Unlike the Empire State Building, which we had "climbed" during our last visit to New York, there were no queues at the Rockefeller Tower so we went straight up to the 68th floor viewing platform. The views from the top were spectacular, even better than from the top of the Empire State building, as you get to see Central Park and the Empire State building itself. They also have glass walls rather than steel bars to peer through, so the views are clearer.

Back at ground level, Megan had booked us in to a walking tour around Chelsea Market. We walked through the city, past the Empire State building and Madison Square Garden to Chelsea. The Chelsea Market is situated inside an enormous building that runs all the way from 9th Avenue to 10th Avenue between 15th and 16th streets. The building was originally the Nabisco biscuit factory but is now full of specialist food stores, including dairy, gelato, fruit and veg, seafood, Italian food, a bakery and our personal favourite, a cupcake / biscuit store called Eleni's.
As part of the walking tour, we stopped in most of the stores in the market and as well as hearing a little about the history and background of each place, we were given samples to eat and drink along the way. At Eleni's we tried the "Cranberry Everything" cookies, which were easily the finest cookies we have ever eaten. They were oatmeal cookies, packed full of big chunks of chocolate, cranberries and...everything else. They were fantastic. We also sampled seafood chowder, chocolate milk, an Italian platter, freshly baked bread, cheese, gelato and some red tea...but not all at once.

The walking tour continued outside the market in the meat packing district. This area is undergoing massive transformation at the moment. It is one of the few areas of Manhattan yet to be developed, although that is changing quickly. There used to be around 150 meat packers operating within a 4-block region, but today there are just 22 remaining. Many of the others have been squeezed out by rapidly rising rents and have been replaced by apartment blocks, boutique fashion stores (including Stella McCartney) and bars and nightclubs.

It looks a little strange at the moment, as in some parts you have brand new, high-end shops and nightclubs and on the other side of the street are abandoned warehouses covered in graffiti. The three hour walking tour was excellent value and our guide was extremely knowledgeable but also pretty crazy, which made things amusing. One of the highlights was when the guide picked up one of the live lobsters in the seafood place and was telling us some interesting lobster export stats and another lobster, desperate to escape from a crate behind her, crawled over the edge and fell a few feet into another crate below - quite acrobatic.

Once the tour was over, we had a quick change of clothes and then caught the subway out to The Bronx for the baseball. We had drinks and dinner at Yankee Tavern again (a block away from the stadium) and it was just as good as the last time we were there. The menu is full of cheesy baseball puns such as the "Double Play" which is a cheeseburger and hot dog and the "Triple Play" which is a Double Play with buffalo wings. Hilarious. We had a couple of Budweisers and marvelled at the amazing collection of Yankees memorabilia decorating the walls of the bar.

Then it was game time and when we eventually found our seats at Yankee Stadium, we settled in for a very entertaining game. There was loads of action and the good guys won 13-2 (massacre). We had really good seats, low down near third base, so it was a really fun night. This is the last season that the current Yankee Stadium will be used. It was constructed in 1923 and is one of the most famous sporting venues in the world. A shiny new Yankee Stadium is well under way across the road!