I slept early and woken very early each day in New York, it may help me to fit into routine at home better - at least that was my thought at the time. I have actually been knackered all week. It's the following Friday as I write this and just about recovered!
For breakfast I was feeling peaky and not hungry but Clare was keen to try a bagel place. Crazy queuing out the door for this famous place Ess A Bagel that has been there since the 1970s. Then subways down to World Trade Centre.
We did not attempt the memorial, thought it would be to distressing. Wandered around the mall looking for access to 1 World Trade Centre, it look like you're inside a giant rib cage of a whale or something. It is a Westfield mall so very similar to Stratford, even similar brands.
Wasn't sure how expensive it would be to go up 1 World Trade Centre, but we had to do it anyway, for the boys really. They love record breaking buildings and this is the tallest in the USA, one of the tallest in the world (sixth as I write this). A lot of queuing for tickets, then could see there were levels of tickets, including paying more for "access at a time of your choosing"... concerned we would get to the front and find it was another $20 for a ticket "today", but unfounded, so straight in. Fast lift to the top, with a cool video shown on the way up of New York being built up from ancient times. Really quite a view from the top, unsurprisingly. Take that, Spinnaker Tower. A similar sort of experience though, just a bit taller.
After WTC I came back to hotel for a bit while Clare went to MoMA. I arranged the surprise visit with Kev and Guiselle, so we went for a cocktail in the Barclay hotel bar (pretty posh, far too nice for the likes of me) just as they arrived. Was lovely to see them and great for Clare, as she was just resigning herself to an early night with me being ill. Instead I handed her over and they went to nearby very fancy restaurant and had expensive steaks without me holding them back. They didn't stray far from the hotel, don't think Kev and Guiselle like to walk far.
I went straight to bed and slept in the afternoon, a mistake, I should have had fizzy drinks and stayed up and slept better later...
Paul Clarke's weblog - I live in A small town. Married to Clare and father to two, I am a full stack web engineer, + I do js / nodejs, some ruby, python, php ect ect. I like pubs, running, eating, home-automation + other diy jiggery-pokery, history, tree stuff, Television, squirrels, pirates, lego, + TIME TRAVEL.