Day 21. New York

This morning, we had a bit of a sleep in! The weather here could best be described as "grey". We had made lots of plans, but they all started to fall by the wayside, as the drizzle kept falling! Cory found it quite amusing that I had an inflight pyjama bag over my head as I could not find my eye shades!

One of the things that Cory has always wanted to do is to walk across the manhattan bridge. We decided to head down there and see what it was like and whether it would be a good idea with the way the weather was. On the way, Fred and I stopped into a barbers to get a haircut. We have done this together many times and tried lots of different barber shops, all run by Russians. 

Cory and Fred at Brooklyn Bridge

Cory wishes this was parked out front of our house!

Old buddies at manhattan Bridge

We caught the F train from 23rd St to York St, Brooklyn and went to an area now referred to as DUMBO. This stands for Down under Manhattan Bridge Overpass. The area, formerly trade warehouses and riverside dockyards is undergoing gentrification and has quite a buzz. one of Fred's friends sent a whole lot of information about where to go and what to do there. She explained that a businessman had bought all the warehouses in the area about 30 years ago for 75 cents per square foot and is now selling them as apartments for $1000's per square foot. 

Manhattan Bridge

The area is popular for people not wanting to live on Manhattan island as it is only 1 subway stop away and offers a different style/type of living. The main draw card for us was the bridges crossing the east river, but it was great to look at all the shops and warehouses. There was certainly lots of space. The bridges looked amazing! For some reason, Cory and I seem to like bridges around the world. We have photos of heaps of them! The Brooklyn bridge, the older of the two, was completed in 1883, while the Manhattan bridge was completed in 1909. There are no tolls for cars to use the bridges, while the easy to access tunnels connecting to Manhattan have fairly high tolls. eg. $6.50 for the midtown tunnel.

Love is in the air under Brooklyn bridge- so was rain!

The rain showed no sign of going, so we decided the bridge walk was sadly, not going to happen today. Instead, we decided to have lunch and shop around a bit more. Fred's friend had recomended a place that served only organically grown food, and served locally brewed beers, so that was an easy choice for me! Delicious!! I got to have my first burger of the trip!! YUM!!!

After lunch, we headed back into New York and up to the Rockefeller Centre. When we came out of the subway, it had started to snow! We had tickets to Radio City Music Hall to see the Rockettes at the convenient time of 5pm, which was perfect! The area around the rockefeller centre has an ice skating rink where a massive xmas tree was being put up. Apparantly tomorrow is the famous "lighting of the tree" occasion, and there was a lot of media and showbiz types setting up for the filming/staging of the event. the decorations in the streets were amazing and clearly festive cheer was in the air!

Grand chandelier at RCMH.

When we went into radio city music hall, we were astounded by the size of everything. In the foyer, there is a massive chandelier, and very grand high ceilings. The venue has been hosting the Rockettes and the Christmas spectacular for 85 years, so it was all geared up for a "schnitzy" celebration. When we walked into the auditorium, I gasped. The place is massive! I have never seen a venue so large! The stage too was HUGE!!! The Rockettes started right on time and tapped and highkicked for 90 minutes. These girls were all amazing and their high kicks went up higher than their heads!! 

Charlotte, you would have loved the dancing and the show numbers. There was also 3D segments which were amazing. Cory had been dreading seeing this show, but he thoroughly enjoyed it and said he could have sat there and watched it again. He even said he wished it didn't finish! It was a lot of fun!!!

quail eggs

After the show, we headed home for a debrief and wine time with the boys! Cory picked up some of his favourite donuts from Donut New York, which he enjoyed as an appetiser before dinner. Fred, Cory and I headed out to a cute little Spanish - Basque Tapas place called Txikito and had a lovely meal of little plates like lamb meat balls, potatoe croquettes, shrimp and mushroom pancakes, and chorizo. There was also a little dish of fried quail eggs on pancetta which was very elegant and tasty! It was our last dinner in New York, so we reminisced on some of the highlights of what has been an enormous and fabulous trip!! A very enjoyable evening!