We had a nice sleep in, woke, breakfasted, showered and got organised in a leisurely manner today. It was around 9.30 when we set out on our first stop, to Rockefeller Plaza, Top of the Rock... or TOTR!!

Once again we started out by walking to GCT and a 7 train over to Times Square. It perplexes me that GCT only has 4,5,6 and 7 trains but Times Square has pretty much everything.. you'd think GCT would have them all... although it has North Metro and other longer distance trains I think. Anyway I'd worked out, once again with my NFT book that the closest subway to TOTR was 47th/50th Streets on the B,D,F or M but once we got to Times Square we decided since it was only 8 short blocks we'd walk....here we go again, why???

We've taken to describing our walks as so many short blocks and so many long blocks cos if you're walking uptown or downtown the blocks are really short but if you're walking crosstown, or east/west, the blocks are really long!!!



Found it without too much trouble and there was absolutely no lines so breezed through the ticket buying and security. Everywhere we go there's security checks, you know just like at the airport, coats, bags etc all in the trays and through the scanner while we go through metal detection, another side effect of 9/11.



Wonderful views from up TOTR but boy the wind was cold up there, we didn't stay there long, more places to go and things to see. So, once we found the N,Q,R subway at 49th ST, off we set to 59th St/Lexington because next on the days itinerary was Roosevelt Island Tramway. This is another thing I found on TripAdvisor, it's basically a cable car that runs over the river to Roosevelt Island but great views from there too! Oh I should mention I'm not always perfect, I know, hard to believe but for some stupid reason we got to 59th / 5th and I said, yep this is us.... hmmm, no... it's still one long block to walk to our real stop and then another 2 long blocks to where the tramway goes from.. oh well it's what we do!!! We broke the walk up a bit by stopping for lunch along the way.



This is a very well kept secret the Roosevelt Island Tram... not many people on it at all and wow so smooth and a great ride over the river. We got out and wandered around a bit, there's an old smallpox hospital on the south end of the island, unfortunately it's falling down but imagining it would have been fairly impressive in the day!!



From here we hopped on the F train over to 21st St /Queeensbridge which is in Long Island City, and walked up to Queensboro Plaza to get the 7 train out to Citi Field... no baseball on yet but Rodd wanted to see the new stadium, he went to a match years ago when the Shea Stadium was there. Right next door is Arthur Ashe Stadium, Flushing Meadows where the US open is held so we went over and had a look at that too. Forgot to mention along the way we jumped off the train at 74th in Jackson Heights and walked up to 82nd to get a look at the neighbourhood... very ethnic with lots of shops from all over. Back on the 7 at 82nd.



Another thing on my list out here was to go to the Queens Museum of Art to see the Panorama, yep TripAdvisor gave me that tip too!! We walked around the tennis stadium and found the Unisphere, it's a very impressive structure and we can only imagine how gorgeous it would look in summer when the fountains are working. Everywhere we go we've found all the water features have been drained so that the pipes can't freeze and crack.... pity!!



 Found the museum right next to unisphere and guess what??? Closed Mon and Tues... arghhh i can't believe it!! I must admit I hadn't really researched this much more than where it is and what it is. What it is is a model of Manhattan with every single building on there built to scale... It would give a great view of where everything is and how it fits together.... Oh well we might still be able to get back out there... the 7 goes directly from GCT all the way there in only half an hour. There was this other weird looking structure there so of course we had to walk even further to find out what it was.... turns out this is the site of the 1964 Worlds' Fair, the Unisphere and this weird pavilion are the only remaining structures. This park is absolutely gorgeous, as all the parks here seem to be.... and also huge! It's weird in a city with 8 million people to find such wonderful pockets of peace and solitude. There's also a large number of people with dogs in the city.. everywhere you go there's someone out walking a dog, it would be such a huge commitment having a dog here ( well really in any city I guess ), not like at home where we have a backyard for them.



By this time it was around 4pm and both of us were having serious trouble walking... sore legs, feet etc so went on auto pilot to walk back to the subway, at least, as I just said, it's a straight trip back "home".



Quick stop at the hotel to drop off washing that we had left at the cleaners this morning and out again for a drink or two before an early night.

And then I discovered White Russians... and then Black Russians cos this bar had no milk!!!

We went to The Black Sheep, which is literally around the corner from our hotel and as soon as we sat down this lovely couple started talking to us. They're locals.. and were quite surprised to find tourists in the neighbourhood bar.. asked us how we found the place!! There was also another man in there, raised in the Bronx, lives in New Jersey and works in Manhattan.. he came over and chatted to us as well, even shouted us a drink and so did the couple!! We were introduced to the bar owner and it was so lovely to be welcomed so warmly. Unfortunately as we were only popping out for a quick one we didn't have the camera on us!!

Last stop was another bar a block downtown, don't know the name, but we started talking to these 3 New Yorkers, 2 girls and 1 guy all in their mid 20's. Very interesting talking to them about their schooling, college debts and travel.

Have to end this now... lots of photos to load which my computer hates... freezes up while their loading!!

Only 2 full days left in NYC.. sigh!!!