We started the day catching up on some blog writing. You might think that a waste of our precious New York time but we knew that we had a long and packed day planned, with a rendezvous with the Empire State Building about 5:30pm, and that devoting an hour or two (it always takes longer than we expect) to the blog was a good way to pace the day. Our day's excursions started with the subway to Grand Central Station to view its architecture and to have lunch. As ever the portion sizes in America amazed us, just look at the picture of Dave with his huge lamb filled pita! And Grand Central Station is pretty amazing too. Jill's picture of the main concourse captures both the Beaux Arts décor and the general business of the station.

Then a short walk to the Chrysler Building on Lexington Ave/42nd Street to admire the Art Deco architecture of the lobby (the building is not open to the public but you can just go into the edge of the foyer) and to take too many photos of the exterior. The sun was shining and it was fun to see if we could take good and/or clever photos of the stainless steel gargoyles and other facade details. Next was a subway trip to 86th Street to have a look at the Guggenheim Museum building (do you see a theme to today?). Jill was keen that even though the main spiral, ramped gallery was closed for the installation of a new exhibition that Dave should see this fascinating building. In the end we sweet-talked a security guy into letting us stand a little into the centre of the building, without paying an entry fee, so that we could look at, and photograph, the spiral atrium. And of course we have too many photos of the exterior of this building too: with and without yellow taxis; with and without the full name of the museum; etc - we promise to curtail the number we post on the blog!

The Guggenheim is just beside Central Park so it was the obvious choice on this lovely sunny day to stroll and enjoy the sunshine on our way back to Midtown Manhattan. We had a lovely time but found we walked quite a way further than we'd imagined we would: Central Park is bigger than you might think. We probably should have been able to work out that it wasn't a short walk through Central Park as the Guggenheim is at 88th Street, the South end of the Park is at 59th, and we were heading for 34th Street.... that's got to be a fair distance! We did stop and enjoy Central Park along the way. There is an Alice in Wonderland bronze statue that is actually a bit spooky but seemingly loved by young children who were having a great time climbing on it and posing to have their photographs taken. The Conservatory Water was busy with model yachts (only on Saturdays so we were lucky to catch this). With the sunlight glinting on the water this was also temptingly photogenic but it was also relaxing to sit and drink a cup of tea watching the boats zigzag their way across the water, some getting quite a turn of speed as the breeze got up. We chatted with grandparents at the pond with their young grandson who were awaiting their turn with a model boat (the majority of the boats were the park-owned ones that are hired by the half hour). To pass the time their grandson was challenging them to race around the pond - him on his scooter, grandparents jogging alongside - more challenging for his grandmother than we think she anticipated!

And perhaps one of the most quirky, yet moving, encounters of our entire trip occurred in Central Park. We were just strolling hand-in-hand when a man sitting with his girlfriend on a nearby bench asked if we could help him persuade his girlfriend of his deep feelings for her. Cory and Trina, we learned, had known each other at school twenty years before, but had only recently re-met. Cory had been married in the intervening years, Trina had not. We're not 100% sure that this wasn't just a case of 'she's just not that into him' but Cory clearly was a romantic and absolutely smitten with Trina. It was rather sweet that Cory chose us to speak to because we were holding hands, we rather liked that! We offered what thoughts we could: Cory understanding the preciousness of a second chance at a relationship and the efforts that that takes to not be complacent about what you have. We wished them well and continued our strolling which took us to the John Lennon 'tribute'. We can only use that word in inverted commas as we didn't feel that the tiled "Imagine" circle made much of a tribute nor that it was in anyway a peaceful, contemplative place. We were happy to continue our strolling, eating Ben and Jerry Cherry Garcia Choc-Ices along the way - they are so scrummy, we'll have to find out if you can buy them in the UK.

Eventually we reached 34th Street and our planned late afternoon-into-early evening visit to the Empire State Building. We had purchased Express Tickets to the 86th floor Observatory online so were disappointed to find that we had to queue to get into the building. However once past the security check we discovered the amazing value of this privileged position. There were huge queues for the lifts but our Express Tickets whisked us to the front of all queues and we must have bypassed several hundred people. We wouldn't usually purchase express tickets, for example we don't ever buy priority boarding for cheap airline flights, but this was one of the best $10 per ticket we had ever spent. Once on the Observatory Deck we embarked on taking, yet more photos - the light conditions changing all the time as the sun began to set, so the goal was to catch just the perfect shot. We knew that tripods were banned up here but had taken Jill's tiny tripod with us (it's no more than 4inches tall, with a footprint of around 3inches) as we also knew that we'd need extra stability to take good nighttime shots. We'd been using this without any issue for some time, and certainly not in anyone's way when a security guy told us we couldn't - petty jobs-worth behaviour even on the top of the Empire State Building! We did though have a great time, spending around an hour and a half on the observation deck, longer than most of the other visitors who seemed keener to escape the strong, cold wind blowing at this height. Much of our time was spent just admiring the views. The sunset itself wasn't particularly spectacular but the changing light on the New York skyscrapers was great and we enjoyed watching the night city come to life.

Whilst looking South towards the Flatiron Building we had spotted what looked like a building with a roof terrace - certainly there were lights and umbrellas. We decided that we should explore it as a dinner venue, if not too expensive. It turned out to be 230 Fifth, a 20th floor bar at number 230 on Fifth Avenue, that also served a small dinner menu. We found that we had befriended the smiley, happy hostess and that she would find us a table for two under the heaters. Yes we know that heating the universe is bad news and we would usually eschew such places but well, this had been a day of unusual behaviours, and there was a chilly breezy here on the 20th floor so we accepted her offer. Whilst we waited the few moments for a table to be cleared we watched the exact polar opposite behaviour in the second hostess who couldn't have been more bored and unfriendly in her approach to customers: we were glad that we'd encountered the smiley one. Fish and chips, and cocktails ordered, a Strawberry Mimosa for Dave and a Peach Bellini for Jill, we settled down to looking back at the Empire State Building and people watching the young customers (the majority were about 25-30 years-old). The women were dressed up for a night of clubbing but cold on this roof terrace many of them donned the red fleece dressing gowns provided by the bar oblivious to the incongruity of the look they created. A pleasant half hour passed debating the wisdom of some of the fashion choices, many, and the guys in particular were guilty here, were just not a good look, that's even before the addition of the red dressing gowns which did at least have a function. But who were we to talk? You can see from the photo of the two of us that we hadn't planned a night-clubbing evening and that our dress style is sensible city strolling daywear!

The subway journey home to the apartment took longer than it might have done as several of the downtown stations were closed for engineering work so we had to take a train uptown to go downtown, go past our stop and then back uptown to where we wanted to be. But we got back safely - now knowing the way from the subway station well. A wonderful New-York filled day to end both our stay in New York and to be the final full day of our 12 weeks away.