Tuesday 13 May 2014

USA Trip 2014: New York City

Over the Easter holidays, The Beard and I took a little trip out to the USA. We did a little tour of the East Coast, taking in Washington D.C., Philadelphia and New York City. As is the way for two people with a passion for photography, we took rather a lot of photos between us - somewhere close to 4000! I wanted to share our trip, so each city has it's own post complete with edited photographic highlights and a link to the bigger album, should your curiosity get the better of you!

New York, New York!

The final leg of our journey took us to New York City. The first night we stayed in the Ravel Hotel in Queens, under the Queensboro' Bridge. The room was significantly cheaper than the equivalent standard in Manhattan (and it was very nice), and there was a fantastic Penthouse bar and restaurant, with amazing views of Manhattan!


The only slight downside was that they are doing some renovations to the Penthouse so it was a little chilly up there, but the view more than made up for it!

Our first order of business was the Statue of Liberty. I booked tickets months ago, because they usually sell out pretty quickly for the Crown. It was windy and cold on the boat, but beautifully sunny. The climb to the Crown of the Statue is not for the faint hearted - I had to get The Beard to talk to me all the way up and down because I was so terrified! But the view from the top is amazing!


We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around, after lunch in a deli behind the World Trade Center. Mmmm Turkey club sandwich....


At the Rockefeller Center were all the Easter Eggs from this year's Easter Egg Hunt.


We ended up having dinner in this crazy little Italian place in the Theater District, called Da Marino. We literally just stumbled on it, and although the wine was a little pricey (a common theme we found in the USA), the food was good and reasonably priced for Mid Town Manhattan.

We finished the day with a trip to Times Square at night, and somehow managed to miss a proposal happening right in front of us!


The following day we got sandwiches from a deli round the corner from where we were staying on the Upper West Side and headed into Central Park. What is better than a BLT in Central Park?

We wandered through the park from the West side in the middle down to the South East corner, taking plenty of photographs along the way! We were even lucky enough to see a hawk in the park, having a quick lunch of squirrel! It was a few degrees cooler in New York than it had been in D.C., meaning that the cherry blossoms were just reaching peak blossom, and the gardens were a riot of spring colour.

What followed next was an abortive attempt to go to B&H Photography - we got there just as they were closing. This did save us some money though...
As we were at this point incredibly hungry, we decided to make our way to Katz's Deli for lunch. This famous diner, home of the When Harry Met Sally diner scene, serves pastrami on rye sandwiches as big as your head.


After lunch we headed down to the Brooklyn Bridge, to do a slow penguin shuffle across it. We got as far as the first upright before decided to head back, mainly as we had to be at the Rockefeller Center for 5pm to do the trip to the top.



The view from the Top of the Rock is amazing, and I particularly loved looking down on Manhattan and seeing all the tall buildings from the top!


That night we went out for dinner with one of my NYC colleagues in Brooklyn (Williamsburg to be exact), to a Peruvian restaurant where I had an awesome Pisco Sour and probably the first meal in over a week that wasn't cooked in butter! We also drank water out of jam jars....

Our final morning was spent packing our cases and then a lovely breakfast with our host at Pershing Square, a diner under the roadway into Grand Central Station. We had to queue a little but not too long and the breakfasts were huge!

Sadly my camera battery died just after we got into Grand Central, but I did manage a nice shot of the Chrysler Building!

You can view my full New York Album here and the full Rockefeller Egg Album here

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