… So good they named it twice! Last week I was concerned that storm Nero would interfere my travel plans, but I was lucky that the centre of the snow storm hit further north of New York. So, as planned I flew out on Sunday morning, and although it was cold and snow was on the ground it was beautiful and sunny in New York. I checked-in into my hotel, the Eventi on Sixth Avenue. Although it has a small footprint it soars 23 stories into the sky and that's only half of it, I'm not sure what they use the other 20 odd stories for. Anyway, after a quick and efficient check-in I headed off to BH video. If you've never been there you just have to see it, it is a huge store at least 3 floors full of video, photography, and computer equipment and electronics. I just did a quick smash and grab, I filled my list and headed out of there before I got too tempted!
Sharon, Roisin & Eimear have been here from the previous Thursday in New Jersey playing at a basketball tournament. On this Sunday they were heading into New York for some sightseeing, an NBA basketball match and I met them for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in Time Square. They headed back to New Jersey and I headed back to my hotel, I can tell you by now I was very tired.
Monday morning was wet, overcast and misty, but I had booked a trip to see Brooklyn. This trip was billed as the best of Brooklyn Sightseeing Food and Culture Tour. Normally they can cater for up to 25 guests and use a coach but I was lucky that was only two of us. Diane from the Philippines, me and our guide Isaac. So we had a Isaac to ourselves and did the visit by SUV. A sunny day would've been nice but we still enjoyed ourselves immensely. Isaac a native New Yorker was knowledgeable, good-humoured and plenty of fun. It normally would take four hours but Isaac was very good to us and took us to a few extra places and we were back five hours later. It was mostly a cafe crawl from one restaurant another, where we sampled different types of food as we visited the different parts of Brooklyn. This was not gourmet food but simple ethnic food from local simple cafes and restaurants but it was all good quality, fresh and full of flavour. It finished with a fantastic Cuban sandwich, which as you can see doesn't look anything special but it was yummy!
Home again, a quick change, and I headed for a quick visit to Macy's. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about Macy's as I was a bit underwhelmed! I then decided to head out for dinner and look for a restaurant called the Wild Ginger. I read a few good reviews about it on the web but I could find it nowhere, and I was very disappointed. I found another little French bistro which was very nice it had plenty of atmosphere, by that I mean it was dark, busy, noisy with music and chatter, and the tables were very cosy. In fact they were so close that even a fart couldn't slip by. Anyway the service was fast and the food was good, so time to head back and rest after a busy day, and look forward to Sharon and girls joining me for the rest of the week!