Day 18 New York to Washington DC

Distance travelled: 226 miles by train, subway 5 miles, taxi 2 miles, 3 miles by foot 

Just a pre-warning, this post is extremely photo heavy, but I definately took some of the best photos of the holiday so I hope you enjoy looking at them!

We had another early start today to get the train to DC.

Thankfully Smiti was on hand to wake us up at 7:00am. I’ve been finding since we’ve been a way for so long, we don’t really have any routine to keep us going to sleep and waking up at the same time and eating at different times. I think this has caused me to get quite fatigued and getting up has been quite difficult. We packed the backpack again, although this time there was hardly anything at all in it.

We left about 8am, stopped by the deli to get some bagels for lunch. We rode the subway to Penn station. This time we knew exactly where to go so we were quite quick. We sat in the waiting area this time. The train was late by about 20 minutes. It was really hot (and a bit smelly) as the weather had turned much warmer (I’ll expand on that later!).

The train eventually boarded about 11:30. There was a big scrum of people going down the escalator to the platform. We walked a fair bit down the platform before getting on the train. Amazngly, despite the train being fully booked, we walked a bit down the carriage and found a double seat that was free, and also on the left side as Smiti had advised us to get the best views on the train.

For the first time in a few days the sun was actually out! We passed out of Manhattan underground, but got to see a bit of skyline from New Jersey. It wasn’t as good as the Boston trip.

Views from the train; New York (top left), New Jersey shore (top right), Philadelphia skyline (bottom left) and breakfast (bottom right)

Kathryn slept for most of the journey, we were both pretty tired. I caught up with some of my blog posts. The wi-fi wasn’t really working due to the amount of people on the train. The most interesting thing was probably going through Baltimore due to being big fans of The Wire.

Passing through Baltimore (left) and interior of Washington DC Union Station (right)

Wreath hanging from main arch of Union Station

We pulled up into DC about 1pm. The station was probably the most noteworthy of our travels on Amtrak. We walked outside and were able to get a taxi relatively quickly. Our first impressions were really affected by how good the weather was. The forecast was not good, but somehow the weather was still good as we drove down to the hotel.

Washington immediately seemed the nicest city we have visited, although a lot of it seemed very new still. I suppose the fact it was about mid-teens Celsius and sunny. The avenues are very wide, usually 6 lanes, and there was lots of trees (without any leaves though).

Street view of front of the W Hotel that we were staying at

The taxi pulled up and the doorman helped us into the lobby. The woman at the check-in desk was  very friendly and helpful. Unfortunately for us she said there was no larger rooms available to upgrade to. She did give us a voucher for some cocktails (I’ll ome back to this later too!). As the weather was much better than expected, we just elft our bags and headed out straight away.

Lobby of hotel (spot the Christmas tree!)

I was impressed with the hotel Kathryn had chose because the location was excellent. It was just one block away from the White House, so immediately we walked over there to look at that. They were preparing lots of scaffolding and gantries for the Christmas Light switch on which was due to happen on Thursday. As you would predict, the White House is quite small and unassuming.

View from the White House from the south across the south lawn

We looked at that and then headed over to the Washington monument. It was quite a walk, probably about 20 minutes. We were walking slowly as it was so warm, I even took my jumper off!

The monument looked very impressive up close. We were so lucky the weather was so nice as it definitely made things look better. We then turned and went over to the World War II Memorial followed by the Lincoln memorial.

Washington Monument (left) and William Tecumseh Sherman Monument (right)

Washington Monument (obviously)

View of White House from behind Constitution Avenue

Kathryn sitting on wall in front of Washington Monument (left) and the Monument up close (right)

Warm sunshine in December!

Kathryn in front of World War 2 Memorial

Views of World War 2 Memorial

View of Lincoln Memorial (top left), ducks swimming on the reflecting pond (top right) and view of Washington Memorial in reflecting pond (underneath)

I've purposely omitted the photos from inside the Lincoln Memorial as I'll post the photos on the post for tomorrow. We stopped for a quick drink at a souvenier shop.  I was thinking how great a refreshing a nice cup of tea would be, forgetting that the tea is terrible, and really I should have known that and brought my own tea bags. I’ll know for next time.

Steps leading up to Lincoln Memorial (left) and tourists along the National Mall (right)

We wondered back to the hotel and as it looked like a nice evening, we headed up to the rooftop bar to have our cocktails. I must admit, we were definitely blown away by the rooftop bar. We had tried to judge from our walk around where the bar was and what it might overlook. Only being one block from The White House, and taller than the treasury building in between, you can figure out that the view was spectactular. Definitely one of the highlights of the honeymoon for me.

Welcome present in our room

The cocktail I had, a mixtures of rum, brandy and ginger was quiet firy and refreshing too! It’s a shame the photos didn’t quite come out that well. We didn’t actually see the sun setting on the horizon, but the sky was filled with spectacular colours that provided a unique backdrop to the famous skyline. It's a shame I didn't get a photo of the bar, but there was a bench along the outer edge allowing you to sit on some tall bar stools and look out onto the city.

View of the White House from rooftop bar at The W Hotel

Same view with cocktails!

Canopy over rooftop bar and restaurant 

View of monument from rooftop

We got chatting to a lady siting beside us who was visiting from Arizona. Unfortunately just as the sun was setting a huge rain shower came in and pretty much ended our rooftop experience. They had to to bring down the canopy to keep the water out.

We decided to go to dinner at a mexican restaurant around the corner. We had an amazing time and possibly the best service on the whole honeymoon. Our lovely waiter gave us so much attention and we got two lots of free champagne, the first from the restaurant, and the second from an anonymous employee from the hotel who had come in for a drink after work and spotted us.

The food was exceptional and we had extra of everything!

Me enjoying my free champagne and paella dish

After dinner we were so stuffed that we just went back to our room and watched a film on Netflix (it was Home Alone 2).

Day 16 and 17 - New York

Update 18/10/2015 - Hi everyone, this is very long overdue, thanks in-part to my laziness and Kathryn's laptop which contained the photo's being broken. It's now been almost 12 months since we went away so I've been getting very nostalgic and looking back at this blog. So I've finally got a free Sunday today and I'm finally going to upload all the remaining things I have.

Saturday

This is an entry that I've written in the last few days. Naturally there is not much I can remember. On Saturday we went shopping. I got a map from a website called superfuture which has some good city guides aimed at a young audience (I used to use these a lot about 10 years ago when first dabbing into streetwear). We got the subway to 14th St on the A-C train and visit the West Village first. This was a really nice area and full of classic 3-4 storey terrace that you see in most American TV and films. The streets where a bit leafy and the streets not in the usual grid layout as it is a slightly older part of NYC.

View from the street in West Village

We visited a few shops on the map, spent some money and had some cocktails and dinner in a small tavern type bar in Soho.

Inside of place we had dinner (I can't remember the name!)

Sunday

This was the day we visited the Natural history museum, Central Park and 5th Avenue.

Unfortunately the park was a bit boring as there was a lack of anything interesting going on. The trees had lost their leaves, it was cold and gloomy and there wasn't many people about. Kathryn gave me a run down of the various buildings and who owned them. It was pretty cool to finally see The Plaza hotel featured in Home Alone 2.

Outside Central Park

Front of Natural History Museum (left) and exhibit (right)

Kathryn with festive dinosaur! (left) And walking down 5th Avenue (right)

Later on in the day, Smiti came back from Washington and we went out for dinner and watched an American football game. She expained to us what was going on and we had a really good time.

Day 15 – New York (Black Friday)

Distance travelled: 7 miles on subway, 2 miles on foot

We had a change of plans on Black Friday. We were going to brave the sales, but actually the weather was the best day in a couple so we decided to take a walk from the apartment to Brooklyn bridge. And do the shopping tomorrow.

View approaching Brooklyn Bridge

You can see the bridge from Smiti’s building so we headed down to the riverside, and then along to try and get to the bridge. We got a little lost, or you might say just exploring, before we found the way up to the bridge.

The bridge is a very impressive structure to look at. A mixtures of steel plate and rivets type contractions and wires with wooden slats that make up the pedestrian part. They was quite a lot of tourists around, but once we walked over the half way, it wasn’t too bad and we spent a while taking some photos and looking back at the view.

Views from Brooklyn Bridge of Lower Manhattan

It was still a bit windy, so after a bit we decided we’d had enough and headed back to the shore.

In the evening I had booked tickets for a college basketball match at Madison Square Garden. There was an invitation tournament over the thanksgiving weekend. We went for a quick slice of pizza at a very well reviewed place just opposite. The pizza was great, but the service not so much. Probably due to the hype, it was very busy inside, but we did get a table easily once we were served.

Pizza Suprema on 8th Avenue, opposite MSG

We walked back over to the Garden, which is actually on top of Penn station. We dove into a bar outside for a quick drink as we still had some time to spare. We were the only ones there, and the bartender was very friendly. He actually let us go up some special stairs to get into the arena so we didn’t have to walk outside.

Madison Square Garden

Apparently MSG is the oldest arena in use in the National Hockey League, and it does look a little old, but actually is really well kept. As the college teams have a smaller following, the upper bowl of the arean was not in used, and even the lower half was only about half full, maybe 5,000 to 7,500 in attendance. I was pleased to see there was a band in attendance that provided some good authentic music. The seats were a little uncomfortable as there wasn’t much legroom.

Inside Madison Square Garden

The game was actually ok, but the New York team should have won as they were better, but actually they played terribly and lost.