The rain disappeared as quickly as the supermoon. Wednesday dawned with another great day. We’d planned lunch on the upper east side, followed by a museum visit and walk in Central Park. 

Although our morning was interrupted with no hot water in our hotel.

A call to reception revealed something wrong hotel wide with the water. It could be ten minutes it could be a while. Hmmm. What to do. We decided to chill out for a while and have a cup of tea and breakfast. 

Ten minutes turned into forty and we decided the first world problem of no hot water wasn’t going to deter us. So we heated a kettle and did a quick wash behind our ears and decided to head out. 

We caught the subway uptown using the shuttle from 42nd to Grand Central. Then uptown to 86th street. We had lunch at a quaint little French restaurant called Le Paris. 

We decided to go to the park. It was just too nice to be inside. We started at 86th street on the east and walked across the park to the west side st around 106th street. We’d never visited the top of the park in this area before. The Ravine is an area of winding hilly tracks that wind their way around ponds, waterfalls and creeks.

The foliage was just magnificent, the squirrels were out, including a couple of black ones, which proved too elusive to photograph. 

We discovered hidden waterfalls, old bridges, fallen trees and an array of colour. The afternoon shone through the trees making for a magical afternoon. 

We worked our way around to the Harlem Meer and skirted it as we crossed back to the east. We left the park and walked along 5th Avenue taking in the million dollar apartments. We caught a bus for a few blocks to rest our legs and hopped off at 86th to stop in and have a hot chocolate. We visited Cafe Sabarsky. An Austrian/German cafe. Interestingly we were bag searched and had to walk through a metal detector to get in. Admittedly the cafe is attached to a grand residence on 5th avenue that houses Neue Gallerie. So fair enough, although the museum was closed at the time. 

We sat and enjoyed afternoon tea before heading backed to midtown. 

Next stop, the diamond district. My brother Ben was after a watch, he’d sent me some details so we popped into the store on 47th street – did you know 97% of all diamonds in the USA pass through 47th street st dome point in their life before retail sale. Anyway, we found booth 308, a heavily secured building, with even heavier level of security on the third floor. We entered to an array of watches on display. You name it they had it. Breitling, Omega, Rolex. You get the idea. I love watches so looking was fun. They found the one my brother was interested in. A nice piece. They held it for me as I checked with Ben. Time will tell if he ends up getting it. 

We then walked the few blocks home. Crossing sixth avenue I was worried a car was going to hit us and almost knocked Mardi over. We were fine. 

A bit leg weary after a few big days, with a few big walking days ahead and some shopping and nights out planned next week we ate in. 

I spoke to work for a catch up. All smooth back home and the team is doing a stellar job while I’m pounding the pavement here in NYC.


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