Day 4

We were on the road by 7am in our sparkling white Chevy Malibu, heading away from New York onto Philadelphia

We did the poses in front of the Rocky statue and jumped up and down in front of the art museum in the fashion of Rocky Balboa – great fun. Funny what stupid poses we can do in these places and it's perfectly acceptable...to an extent.

And now on to the main event in Philadelphia. Philly Steak Sandwiches (Of course) The two most famous are Pat's shop and Geno's, who are conveniently placed opposite eachother. We had one of each and they were both good, but we thought Geno's tipped the scales slightly - the cheese was better.

Then we drove on to Baltimore for lunch No. 2: Crab cakes and soft shell crab at Jimmy's Famous Seafood. So so good. The crab cakes especially, 8oz. patties of pure perfection, big chinks of white meat in a creamy sauce, deep fried. Awesome. Our server, Anne, was really friendly, and she let us take a crab smashing mallet :D

We arrived at our hotel in DC around 7 - we had a fabulous room witch had not only a coffee maker but fresh beans and a coffee grinder as well! Dinner was a 'Whole foods' Market buffet which was surprisingly good, pulled beef brisket, Texas chili and pork with cannellini beans. The Texas chili was especially good, really spicy.

That's all for Day 4, tomorrow we do the sights of DC, should be fun!

Day 3

Day 3

Another great coffee start, followed by Dunkin’ Donuts and a bacon and egg muffin AND a coconut coffee, which was interesting. Good breakfast. J

Then we attempted to make our way to the American Museum of Natural History, I’ll not go into how many trains it took us but it was definitely more than was necessary. Never mind, when we finally made our way to the Dinosaur section, it was totally worth it. Really super cool. Dad counted 26 steps from head to tail of the Apatosaurus. The whole museum was beautiful, really nice exhibits.

But lets skip to what was the true highlight of the day. Lunch. We walked all the way across Central Park to have what I can only describe as the Best. Cheesecake. Ever.

Ever.

It was in this tiny little bakery called ‘Two Little Red Hens’ and it was fabulous, we ate nothing but cheesecake and pecan pie for lunch, and it was bliss.

Then we headed to the Empire State Building, stopping at the New York Museum on the way just because the building is so so beautiful. We didn’t go up the Empire State (views from the Rock can’t be beaten), so we just had a look around the lobby before heading into the bar that was on the ground floor ‘Heartland Brewery’. Dad ordered 8, 5oz. samples of their home brews and a Long Island Ice Tea (How could he resist?) and we sat and chilled for a good couple of hours.

For our final meal in New York, we could have nothing but some good old fashioned order-by-the-slice New York Pizza, which we got from Joe’s, just round the corner from our hotel. The pepperoni was seriously good. Hot and crispy and fennely.

We got an early night in preparation for tomorrows drive to Washington DC, stopping over in Philadelphia and Baltimore on the way for cheese steaks and crab cakes. That rhymes J

Day 2

I was awoken by the rich aroma of hazelnut and vanilla infused coffee, picked up from our local 711. What a perfect way to start the day. For breakfast Niki and I went to get a couple of bagels (what else when in new york!), a bacon one with jalapeno cream cheese (really good) and a sundried tomato one with sundried tomato cream cheese (really really good). Then, around half 8, the 3 of us headed down to Battery Park to see if we could catch a boat to see the great Lady Liberty.

From Battery park it was surprisingly easy to get our tickets and get onto a boat ($18 apiece for Liberty and Ellis island including an audio tour), although there were a couple of attempts to scam us $30 each along the way, but once we were on, the views of the Manhattan skyline were truly awesome. It was maybe a 10 minute ride to the statue, and we spent a good 40 minutes taking her in.

We found this awesome Japanese guy who saw me on the floor taking pictures (you know, to get the whole statue and Dad and Niki in, not because I’m crazy) and he asked if I could take his picture. Of course I did, and then he took our camera and took some of us, and he ended up almost lying down in the middle of the path! I love it when people genuinely want to and try to get a good picture of you.

After the statue the boat took us to Ellis Island before Manhattan, but we stayed on the boat because who wants to go to an immigration museum? Where are the dinosaurs? Exactly. So we went on to Manhattan, then walked up to Wall Street just because, then got on a train to Katz Deli, where Harry Met Sally! Sort of.

Now the avid film fans all go for the scene location, but we are here for the food, so we went for a Reuben on rye (Sauerkraut and provolone on top of pastrami). The Pastrami was truly excellent. Warm and tender and succulent. My mouth is watering. I think my exact words as I ate it were: “This is really…mmm…yeah” So good.

Then we headed to Rockefeller centre to get to the observation deck on the Top of the Rock, where we were told our time to go up was in 2 hours. “You can’t possibly walk to Central Park and back in time the ticket seller informed us…really?  10 blocks at 1 min per block – it was a stroll to the park…

I had read about this place called Luke’s Lobster and knew it was very close to Central Park in a Plaza of some kind. But we seemed to be surrounded by plazas, so we asked a man in Central Park if he had heard of Luke’s, and he told us that there was a food court in The Plaza Hotel, and we thought, bingo, that’ll do. Sure enough, Luke’s Lobster was there and WOW. The Lobster Roll we ordered was $15 dollars and worth every penny. A pan-fried buttery roll stuffed with lobster claws and tails, lightly dressed with something delicious. That was special. Best lobster roll I reckon I’ll eat. Yum. I’m having trouble forming coherent sentences.

After that mindblowing sandwich we took a walk through the park, listened to a man playing chill music under a bridge, saw loads of turtles (yes, turtles!) swimming in the pond. It was really lovely just sitting and relaxing. I like Central Park.  Dad wanted his picture taken on the bridge where the scene from Highlander was shot, so we did that to keep him happy.

Then it was time of the Top of the Rock, and honestly if we had been in New York for a year we couldn’t have picked a better day for it! The views were amazing, astounding, so so beautiful. Worth every penny. I could have stayed up there for hours.

Apres ca we took a leisurely walk to Times Square, stopping at a Five Guys on the way (good burger, better fries), and sat on the red steps in the square, just taking in the atmosphere watching this latino lady preparing mangoes…

Observations on Mango peeling

Remove the top of mango (near the wider part)

Stick a stout screwdriver through the top just off centre of the stone

Peel away form the top towards the pointy end with a potato peeler while rotating the mango using the screwdriver handle

Once peeled, cut the mango still holding it with a screw driver

The whole process should tale about a 1min per mango

Options:

Sprinkle dry salsa chilli powder mix, salt, and hot sauce and lime.

There is something special about Times Square, bustling, full of lights and people in costumes, some more child-friendly than others. We sat for a while waiting for our Restaurant reservation at Guy Fiyeri’s place.

We ordered a Steak, Nachos and Chicken wings, and the food was really good, better than I expected, especially the steak. Then we got a tumbler from the Hard Rock Café and took some night shots before heading home. We couldn’t help but get another slurpie from 711 (pina colada flavor yum) and some ice cream from  Baskin Robin before finally hitting the sack.

What a day.

Day 1

The look on dad’s face was an absolute picture when the immigration officer said “Sir, I’d advise you don’t repeat that out side of here”.   The grin on dad’s face evaporated so quick, I think I saw a puff of steam rising from his cheeks.  “Er…what? Excuse me??  Er what…what did I say? Or what shouldn’t I say – out side of where???”  Dad stuttered.  “Like, you know, in the parking lot or somewhere like that”  Replied the officer in a New York mafia-esque droll.  Then, a big grin flashed across his face.  “I’m only messin withchyu – don’t tell her she’s got a funny face – welcome back to USA – have a great vacation” he said chortling to himself nodding towards my sister with an even bigger self satisfied smirk on his face having just confused the hell out of British dad trying make fun of his daughter.

What had actually happened was Niki’s automatic immigration facial recognition check had failed and dad had made some ‘dad comment’ about her face in the passport and now.

Immigration officer 1, Dad nil.  It was really funny and dad took it in his stride..

Took the ‘Air train’ to Jamaica station in Queens, J line to Broadway junction and L line to 14^th street and took a stroll through the scene set of ‘Friends’, How I met your mother’ etc to our hotel 17 on East 17 street.

Couldn’t check in, so left out luggage and walked 10 blocks to Madison Square park for our first meal.  

At the original Shake Shack,  we had Burgers, ‘Shake Cago dog’, cheese fries, malted caramel shake and peanut butter shake – and dad had the IPA which is brewed specifically for Shake Shack.  We didn’t treat this as fast food – in fact we spent an hour in the chilling in the park with the Empire Sate building providing the backdrop.

Stopped off at 7-11 to buys Pina Colada slushie on our way back to the hotel.

Got ready and took the NQR line to Time Square.  Dad is desperate to buy something from Hard Rock with New York, but couldn’t make up his mind.  Anyway came a restaurant owned by the presenter of Diner Drive-ins and Dives and booked a table for 7 tomorrow.

And the main event – Phantom of the Opera.  Just wow – pitch perfect performances from all.  The Phantom’s last aria (solo) was really quite emotional.  The sound effects from where the phantom’s voice switches from every corner of the auditorium were superb. 

So Niki had this thing about going to the back stage exit to get Sierra Boggess’ autograph and so we made our way to the back of the Majestic theater.

And we weren’t disappointed.  Sierra was out in just minutes.  She signed our program and posed  with Niki.  Norm Lewis (Phantom), however made us wait, but when he came out… omg what a nice man.  Not only did he pose with us, when I said “you were amazing”, it wasn’t a ‘Thank you (in a I know kind of way)’  What he said was “God bless you”.   DanRad – you are out!  Norm has taken your place. 

Took the NPR line back.  We were welcomed by a familiar noise emanating from the hotel safe.  It was the alarm on Dad’s Blackberry which had been set for 3:30 UK time.   We’d just completed our first 24 hours.