Day 17 - New York City (30 October ‘23)

simonmtalbot

Oct 31, 20233 min read

With a really good night of sleep under my belt I was much more ready for New York than I was yesterday.

As it was late morning we headed for brunch. There was a highly recommended diner just one block away so that was where we headed. It is known for having queues down the street, but luckily we only had to wait a couple of minutes. Kirstie had a breakfast wrap and I had a...wait for it...a 'Corned Beef Bene' which is basically eggs benedict with corned beef hash. Weird but delicious! We got chatting to an American couple from Philadelphia sat next to us who said that they made a special trip across New York to have brunch there as it was so good - and indeed it was.

After brunch we headed over to the Rockefeller Plaza on our way to Central Park. It is a nice little public space outside of the Rockefeller Centre with an ice skating rink and the state flags and quite a few bits of public art - and it was pretty busy! After doing a lap of the plaza we continued onto Central Park, picked up some scooters and did a lap of the park. The size of Central Park is hard to get your head around, but it basically took us two hours to make it all the way round on its dedicated cycle/scooter track (including a few photo stops etc). In Central Park there are various statues, art installations, lakes and ponds, an(other) ice skating rink, boat house, play parks and lots of dogs! Toward the end we noticed they had closed off a section of the road and park to set up for the New York Marathon which is next weekend. They were setting up the finishing line, spectator stands and toilets. There was a hive of activity.

After riding our scooters back to the rental place on the busy New York roads for a couple of blocks (which was much less leisurely than cruising around Central Park) we decided to jump on the subway and head to the 9/11 memorial to have a look around.

They have two 'pools' that have fountains flowing into them, that are the outlines of towers' footprints. Along the side are the names of all of the people who died - both workers in the tower and all the emergency services. The sound of the fountains are designed to dampen out the sound of New York (remember yesterday, honking horns, police sirens etc..) It is a pretty tasteful memorial. There were quite a few people doing posed photoshoots in front of them. I am not sure it is quite the appropriate place to do glamour shots for the 'gram, but there you have it.

After looking around we walked around a little bit and then headed back to Times Square for a pre-theatre dinner. We opted for an American Diner, which had good reviews and it didn't disappoint. We then headed over to the theatre to watch Kim Akimbo - a musical about a Teenage girl with Progeria (a disease that ages people too quickly). I had never heard of it, but it has won loads of theatre awards. Kirstie managed to snag cheap seats in the centre of the front row, which was amazing. It was a really great show and despite the subject matter was genuinely funny.

When the performance finished we headed back to the hotel. It was the last night of our trip and we needed to check out fairly prompt in the morning to make the most of our final day...