A sneaky little New York trip - August 2017 - Day 3 - Highline, West Village, Football

[i love jack]

A sneaky little New York trip – August 2017

Index

Day 3 – Friday 11th August 2017

Today I was awake at 4.40 again! I did doze for another hour though.

We had considered shopping today, but I looked at the weather and it looked nice today but rainy tomorrow so I thought put the shopping off until tomorrow and do some more walking today!

I went up to the Breakfast room at 6.40 for tea and coffee, the lady with the breakfast trolley arrived while I was there so I just got the drinks for now and popped up nearer 7 for breakfast. There were doughnuts and bagels today, no pastries though.

I made a plan to walk to the Highline to start with. We left the hotel at 8.40, we walked up Broadway to 30th Street and west towards the Highline, we found the steps up to the Highline entrance. Again it was a lovely morning, warm and sunny and it was lovely to walk partly in the sun and at times shade. It was also really nice to walk without stopping at crosswalks every 2 minutes!

It was really pretty, there were lots of staff tending to the plants along the way, and the boys had regular sits! Some of the apartments alongside were lovely.

Love this!

I had planned to get off at 16th and go to the Chelsea Market for a drink/snack but I couldn’t find any stairs around here so got off at 14th and walked back to the market. Chelsea Market was full of nice little shops and eateries. Dan had a vanilla milkshake and Josh a lemonade.

We then headed back onto the Highline and soon came to the end, and a nose?

From here we walked over to the Hudson and walked alongside for about 6 blocks. Again this was lovely, it was a walkway by the river, with grassy areas, trees, joggers, families. It was nice and breezy.

We then headed back east down 11th Street to Bleecker Street to have a look round West Village. The first shop we came to was Magnolia Bakery (I was still after that s’mores cake!). We all went in and I went to the counter with the sign ‘order’ above it. Andy had a key lime cheesecake, Dan had a red velvet cheesecake and Josh had a peanut butter icebox bar. I asked for a cupcake but was directed to the ‘cupcake’ counter (we were the only ones in the shop!) so I take the couple of steps to the cupcake counter and ask for said cupcake, to be told they had sold out! I also got a large lemonade and large iced tea it came to $29.

We sat in a little square in the sun to eat them, another pleasant sit.

Dan wasn’t keen on his cheesecake and threw half of it away.

We walked down Bleecker Street to Grove Street. There were lots of lovely shops, both designer shops and cafes and delis. The residential streets were really pretty. From here you couldn’t see any of the skyscrapers it was like being in an entirely different city.

We walked down Grove street and found the building used in Friends (even though it was filmed in LA!), then back onto Bleecker.

We had a look in Murrays cheese shop which was full of cheese obviously! We could have got an amazing sounding toasted sandwich here but we had just had the cheesecakes!

Cheeeeeese!

Then time for another Starbucks iced tea! (with lemonade and with sugar!) and then on to Washington Square Park where we had another sit in the sun!

We had been recommended a place called 5 Napkin Burger for a good burger. There was one not too far away on 14th Street so that’s where we headed next. We all went for the lunch burger which was $7 plus $1 or $1.50 for extra toppings. I had blue cheese on mine, Dan and Josh had mozzarella and bacon and Andy had cheddar and bacon. We had a side of fries and a side of sweet potato fries, and four sodas. It came to $66 and we left $11 tip. It was very nice.

Pickles to start...

We then headed back up Broadway to the hotel for a rest and wifi (the boys were having withdrawals!) we were back about 2pm.

The Flatiron was a short walk from the hotel

So today after walking around different areas of New York I realised how easy it is to get around. The grid system is so easy! The streets are wide and never seemed overly crowded (apart from lots of scaffolding and construction hoardings). Everyone was friendly, in the shops you still generally got ‘have a great day’ or similar. Almost everyone walks around with their phones out/on their phones, and you feel very safe. So far the subway had been easy (although I did cheat and use my phone!). I could tell the boys did get a bit bored at times – low attention span! They tended to see a sight and then be ready to move on instantly! On the whole though they were great considering there had been a lot of walking!

Anyway, back at the hotel, I’ve written snooze and showers (not sure who for! ) and we left the hotel at 4pm. Tonight was an event for the boys. A pre-season American Football game between New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers.

When I saw tickets were going to go on sale I emailed the New York Giants and the reply I got was really helpful, they sent me the link to book tickets. Andy had logged on as soon as they went on sale but we just couldn’t book them. Even though there were tickets available. I emailed the Giants and they told me to try a different browser. They were really helpful but we just couldn’t get it to work. In the end we purchased some resale tickets, still through Ticketmaster but at a slightly higher price.

The Giants play at the Met Life stadium in New Jersey. I’d Googled how to get there and the only transport option that came up (apart from driving) was bus which would take an hour. I had seen a post on the Dibb about a train journey and went on the NJ transit route planner. Getting the train was preferable to a bus.

So we walked to Penn Station (didn’t realise this was short for Pennsylvania! ) which took 10 mins. We had to take an NJ transit train to Secaucus and from there change to Meadowlands which was by the stadium. I used the ticket machine which was really easy to use and Meadowlands was an option as a destination. The tickets were $31 for us all. Once I’d got the tickets I was a bit lost! So I asked a man (he did work there ) He said get the 4.29 for Secaucus and to keep an eye on the screen for the platform. So we went to watch the screen, I was glad he said the next train was at 4.29 as on the screen it just said SEC!

We made our way to the platform and onto the train. Most of the journey to Secaucus was underground and seemed really fast! When we arrived we followed signs to Meadowlands, it was really easy. This time it was a really slow train! It just went to Meadowlands which was a station literally outside the stadium. This was maybe why this journey didn’t come up on Google, it’s only on game days.

When we try to get into the stadium it’s a bit of a faff! You can’t take bags bigger than a certain size into the stadium and we had my handbag and the rucksack, both of which were too big. So we have to take them to a bag exchange trailer and put our stuff in a clear plastic bag to take in with us.

We were through security at 5.20, the game was due to start at 7pm. We found our seats which were great seats. Josh started trying to explain the rules to me...(he's still trying )

We went to get some food, Andy had chicken tenders and fries, the boys had hot dogs and fries and I had some cheese fries. With 3 sodas it was $76.

Then we all stood for the National Anthem which was sung by a twelve year old girl who was starring in Miss Saigon on Broadway. She was amazing.

The game started, I still didn’t really get it! The clock stopped each time the ball went out of play and for many other reasons I didn’t understand, so an hour of play actually can last up to 4 hours! The boys enjoyed it though and we enjoyed the experience.

It started to rain quite heavily so Andy and I went and stood undercover for a bit, we returned to our seats once it had stopped only to do it again twice more! The boys stayed put and got wet!

We left about 5 minutes before the possible end! The score was currently 20-12 to the Steelers, which ended up being the final score.

There was a train waiting so we hurried (the wrong way out of the stadium so had to walk nearly all the way around) to the bag exchange and made it onto the 10pm train. Again it was easy to get back to Penn station, everything was really well signposted. We were back at the hotel by 11pm (a late night for us! ) a cup of tea then sleep.