5th November 2022 - Saturday - Day 1

I have not got my laptop this holiday so I'll be doing a paper based one first, then type it up later.

Currently, its dark, 4am and I am fully awake! Had a great, if not also busy and stressful first day. I thought it best that I get up for a bit, do something, and then go back to bed for a bit.

We were up and out of the house pretty much bang on schedule, around 7 to 7:15am. The drive over to the airport was good. It was the first time we had done this, so there was a little bit of added stress. 

We seemed to get stopped at every set of red lights driving through Bradford. And then we narrowly avoided an accident that was block 2 of 3 lanes, but just managed to squeeze around it. Kathryn did a great job of directing me around Manchester and we eventually found our way into the multi-story car park at terminal 2. We arrived about 8:30am, and within an hour we had checkin and got through security.

The airport seems to have expanded a bit since we were last here three years ago. I think there were building works last time we were here, the results has been an expanded and shiny new check-in, as well as some more restaurants and seating in the departures lounge. 

We made it through check-in despite a new "self service" system which seemed to take longer. Security was fine. We got a coffee from the Pret in the departures lounge and we ate the pastries that I got from Laynes yesterday. We also got a sandwich that I ate later on the plane instead of the plane food (which was terrible IMHO).

The flight was okay, it always feels a lot longer going out (7 hours versus 6 on the return). The seats we had were good, at the back of the plane. I read by book for a bit, and then played on the Nintendo Switch and also read some of the newspaper. Unfortunately, we had turbulence for a good 2-3 hours of the flight. This also included about 30 minutes of significance turbulence. The passengers were very quiet during the time and it did seem a little bit tense.

It was a relief when we saw land as we reaching North America. It is still a little bit longer from their, and we had a nice view of the East Coast as we flew over Boston and on to New York. We had a short wait at the gate as we arrived a little bit early. Immigration was also pretty quick, thankfully we seemed to be the only flight that arrived. For the first time we didn't even have to give our finger prints. By the time we were through security, our bags were already on the carousel waiting for us to collect.

I was briefly considering getting a taxi as we were feeling quite highly strung with the stress of the flight. But we did go for the subway in the end. And we were glad that we did. We were about to board the AirTrain which takes you to the subway, and we 'bumped' into this guy who we ended up speaking to for the almost the whole journey. It turned out this guy was called Cliff Dawson, and was returning from a MoTown tribute show he had sung at in Seattle. It turned out his career was in music, and he lived in Brooklyn. Initially we talked small talk about British politics (obviously) and weather, etc. But eventually he was telling us about his career and where he had travelled to.

It really wasn't too long until we arrived back at 99 John Street. It was hard to imagine that it had been almost 3 years since we were last there. The councierge was polite and friendly as they always have been, and gave us the keys to Smiti's appartment. We arrived and Gio was there to greet us. We did our best to make sure he didn't escape! We fed him, and then made the effort to go straight back out. We made the short walk down to Stone Street, and went to a mexican place called Mad Dog & Beans. It was super busy being a Saturday evening, but we managed to get a small table inside. We had a small plate of tacos, some nachos and some margaritas. We didn't stay out too long, and the headed back for bed at about 8pm.

6th November 2022 - Sunday - Day 2

This time I seem to be experiencing jetlag worse than I have before. Either that, or I have forgotton what it feels like. It was 3am today I got up to have breakfast and update the journal. I have had a head cold type pain in my head/nose. So today I took an antihistamine and then went back to bed. I woke again at 6am groggy and tired.

I went out to run the route around the two bridges; Brooklyn and Manhattan. It was pretty warm and I was glad that I had packed my running vest. Noticeably there seemed to be many more tourists than when we visited in March 2020. Even at 7am there were many people already on the Brooklyn bridge taking their photographs. I felt very achey and had to stop to walk quite a bit. But I had wanted to do this so that I could savour a bit more of the scenery.

I was amazed that I remember the route quite well, and looking back at the GPS you can see that I didn't make any wrong turns. I tried to get some breakfast on the way back, but it being a Sunday meant that there wasn't anything open or available at the Jubilee Market.

So we got ready, slightly hungry. We went down for breakfast at 9am at the Hole in the Wall cafe next to the appartment buidling. The cafe had outdoor seating now, which meant that there was less emphasis to be there at time to get a seat, or need to queue. 

After breakfast we went for a walk around Battery Park. It was warm but cloudy. We stopped by at the WTC, the Westfield Mall to be precise. Interestingly, this is the same place we stopped all the way back in 2014 on our honeymoon. I don't really have a memory of that, but we do have the photos! Seems odd to me to be visiting the same spot 8 years later! We had a coffee and cookie before heading over to the Whole Foods shop to get our groceries.

It started raining on the way back, so we walked through the Westfield Mall. My back had been hurting a bit from the run, so we walked back slowly. 

We had an early dinner too, Kathryn cooked for about 3pm. After that, we went over to Manhatta for some drinks. It was a bit different then last time. You were allocated a place to stand/sit. Thankfully, we had a short wait but were then able to sit at the bar. We had two rounds of drinks, and stayed for about two hours in the end.

After we got back to the apartment we popped up to the rooftop patio in Smiti's building to look at the skyline.

The view west looking up John Street.

The view east looking down at John Street.

The view north from the rooftop.

This is the rooftop patio.

This is the view from Smiti's apartment of the building that Manhatta is in.

And here is a summary of the weather we are expecting this week.