Day 5 - New York

Today we had our first full day in New York.

Smiti has been very kind in allowing us to stay on her sofa bed. She lives in Downtown Manhattan so it is in a great location and today we just explored some of the local area.

View from Smiti's apartment, quite different from what we are used to!

There is a fantastic grocery store on the ground floor of Smiti’s building which has virtually everything imaginable in. I went to get some milk, and felt a little stupid for brining over my own cereal as there was loads to choose from, including Dorset cereals I noticed.

We got up and got ready, but when we left, we realised we’d underestiated the wind chill a little bit. When I checked when we got back,the temperature in Celsius was about 2 degrees, which was a little colder than I thought. It just meant that the wend the wind blew, it made your fingers very cold! To be honest, as long as the weather is dry and sunny, I’m perfectly happy for it to be cold!

We walked down to the World Trade Centre which literally took about 5 minutes.

Kathryn tells me the freedom tower has only just opened.

9/11 Memorial and new Freedom Tower

As the various towers and lobies are linked together, we were able to walk in and out of various buildings to keep warm! We walked around the World Trade Centre buildings and stopped for a coffee and bagel in a food court which overlooked the Hudson River. It certainly was a beautiful day looking from the warm inside!

View from food court in World Trade Centre complex

We went for a little walk down the quayside, which is think is along Battery Park. Although it was so cold in the wind-chill that we didn't last long before heading back towards Smiti's apartment.

After we got back to the apartment, we had some lunch and rested a little. We then headed back to a couple of nearby shops as Kathryn needed some skin cleanser and I needed some pyjamas as it was the one thing I forgot. When Smiti got home, we went to a lovely Italian which was just around the corner.

And finally today, we had only been able to eat a small amount of the cake, so I went over to the Hummingbird Bakery to get a box to put the cake in. We felt we might as well try and stick it in the suitcase just to see what happens. Well, as you can see, it didn't actually turn out too bad! At least al the layers were still together, although somehow it had broken into two pieces!

Before and after the cake had travelled 3000 miles on a plane!