We started the day by going to Dunkin' Donuts for brunch. Any place that we could not visit back home was on my to-eat list. I had a cinnamon and raisin bagel with cream cheese, and let me just tell you that the cream cheese you get in New York tastes like rainbows and happiness. I followed this with a jelly donut. Normally I'd pick a fancier one, but I wanted something that is quintessentially American, because I'm a full on tourist. It was amazing. Worth every single calorie.
Then we went to do the Circle Line boat trip. This was a huge boat trip all the way around Manhattan Island, so we got to see Brooklyn and of course the Statue of Liberty. Honestly, and this is bearing in mind that I have skied in -18 degree temperatures, I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO COLD IN MY LIFE. It was BITTER. It was also unbelievably windy, to the point that there is no way you could stand upright when a gust blew. But it was also just so much fun. The sky was bright blue, and it was so lovely and sunny. I had the best time. I managed to stay outside for all of it minus about 15 minutes, when I had to go indoors to warm up. I went in when we went by the Yankee Stadium because I wasn't too bothered about seeing that.
For dinner we went to a restaurant called the Blue Smoke, and it did barbecue food. Not gonna lie, I wasn't expecting to love it, but it was actually one of my favourite meals of the whole holiday. I had a beetroot and goats cheese salad (faaavourite starter EVERRR) followed by salmon with sides of sweet potato fries and the most glorious mac and cheese you can imagine, (yuuuum) and then I couldn't pick a dessert so me and dad shared a platter of ALL THE DESSERTS which is basically my ultimate Dream Come True. This consisted of apple crisp (basically a crumble), chocolate cake, sticky toffee pudding, key lime pie and banana cream pie. There is something about how pies are done in America. I feel sorry for Americans who come over and order pie in the UK.
After this we went to B&H, which is basically an absolutely enormous techy gadgety camera-y shop COMPLETELY RUN BY HASSIDIC JEWS. I thoroughly enjoyed this, as did my dad.
Following this, we met up with nana and grandpa (who had gone for dinner with their friends who live in NY that evening) and decided to go for a Spot of Tea. My grandpa absolutely loves stopping for tea wherever we go, and New York is no exception. Every year for about 6 years my family has had a huge meal at the Intercontinental in London, and we found the one in NY so decided to go there for our tea that evening. When I say the service was bad, I really mean it was so appallingly terrible that it was borderline hilarious. 40 minutes after ordering, nothing had arrived, and 20 minutes later when it did arrive it was all wrong, and then we had to chase (literally) the waitress to get her to sort it out and then at the end when the bill finally arrived they had put service charge on it! Grandpa was not amused. It definitely did not live up to the standards we are used to in Park Lane, but it was memorable in its own special way :P
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