Goodbye to New York

Tomorrow (Thursday) we fly out early to San Francisco and I am not sure if we will have access to the internet so I thought I would do today's (Wednesday's) blog tonight before we leave. You lucky little readers!!!

Today was bright and sunny in the morning but the clouds rolled in and the wind came up which made it icy in the afternoon! We went up to 88 Orchard for breakfast, they do a good bagel and jam. Then we headed back to the apartment to do some packing and cleaning up.

The boys went uptown for one last visit while Trace and I had a last look around the Lower East Side.

A few streets over there is the New Museum of Contemporary Art which actually featured on Masterchef - one of them was booted off when she tried to recreate the building using a cake, pretty dopey idea but it is a nice building. It was a very different museum, not many exhibits and some of them were a bit odd - a giant slide that goes between floors (one and a half hour wait for that one so we skipped it), and a mirror carousel that you could ride on.

Like I said a bit odd but very popular and worth seeing.

Then we wandered around and found the Australian restaurant Bondi Road. It was closed and looked a bit of a mess but the write up was quite good. We went further down towards the East River and cut across to the Williamsburg Bridge. This is the third bridge near the Lower East Side, the others being the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. This bridge is the one that we came in on the first night and is at the end of the movie 'How to Lose a guy in 10 days'.

Trace and I walked up to the first pylon as it was a tad cool. The bridge is surrounded by high-rise tenements, see the pictures below, it would be hard living in one of these. The bridge had great views and a very pink framed walkway for pedestrians and bike riders.

By now Trace and I were a bit cool so we headed back to the apartment to try and defrost.

Food time! We checked Linda's list of recommendations and the Meatball Shop sounded good. Dave has been battling a cold and wasn't hungry so we left him at home and walked the few blocks to the restaurant. It sure hadn't warmed up at all but this restaurant was excellent. It was packed with a few individual tables, people sitting at the bar, and one long communal table down the middle of the room. You ordered your food by marking off the menu with a dry-erase marker and giving it to the waitress. The food was really good. Tracey had beef meatballs and salad with spaghetti, Ewan had a beef meatball hero, and I had a spicy pork with mushroom sauce and cheese on a wholemeal roll. Desert was caramel ice cream and ginger snaps sandwich for Trace and I, Ewan had an ice cream float.

Afterwards we rolled home for our last night in New York.

Tomorrow we climb aboard the Delta plane to San Francisco arriving there at about 1.30pm. I'll give you all a full report as soon as I can.

Goodbye New York. Things that stick in my mind:

- The architecture
- The Christmas displays
- The noise
- The crowds
- The shopping
- The museums

I would definitely like to come back but next time aim to get to Boston, Washington, and a few other highlights outside of New York.Read more