We returned to New York City twice, once before the state fair and again after. Walking round the downtown suburbs just increased Simon's love of the place. We walked around Greenwich Village both wanting to buy a house!! We passed a music shop that sold funky guitars, apparently Lady Gaga has one!

The next morning we walked over Brooklyn bridge. The views of the New York skyline were, as always, amazing! Brooklyn was a ghetto so we walked briefly through before catching the tube uptown to the Bronx to see the new Yankee Stadium. We walked round there for a while and found the stadium to be too clean cut and it lacked charisma and atmosphere. The Bronx felt equally as unsafe as Brooklyn and there were a few odd characters wandering about! Another tube ride brought us back to Central park where we went to see John Lennon's old flat. Outside stand two guards and numerous tourists taking pictures of where he was shot. We strolled back through Central Park and saw a work baseball team playing on the pitches. Despite them being awful and playing with a stupidly large ball, it was fun to watch their enthusiasm! I almost enjoyed it more than the professional game we paid to watch in Chicago!! We returned to Times Square and found the Naked Cowboy playing and posing for photo's. Si was disappointed that Naked Cowgirl wasn't about! The next day we left for the state fair and returned to the big apple two days later.

Our final few days in New York were calm and relaxing. We booked into the lush hotel that our fabulous family and friends had purchased for us. (Thank you all so much again! We absolutely loved it!). The king size bed was sooo comfy! It was nice to laze about a little as we had seen most of the New York sites in our previous visits so we could wander around at a leisurely pace. We also got a free breakfast of cereals, waffles, muffins, egg and breads. Yum yum yum!

A whole day was spent in Central Park. Stocking up on yummy picnic grub we copped a squat under a tree and munched. We wandered to the meadow and caught some rays. Si couldn't resist going to the John Lennon Imagine memorial once again. During our stay the New York film festival was showing hosting free movie nights on a massive screen in Central Park. We watched the old version of King Kong and Manhattan by Woody Allen. The place was packed and the majority of the audience laughed, whistled and clapped during all the dramatic scenes!

Being so close to Little Italy we couldn't resist going for a nice meal. We both got our glad rags on and went to La Mela. The restaurant has too many options so we decided to share a set menu of various dishes. It was one of the nicest meals we've eaten! It was so filling and so delicious!

As neither of us had seen New York from high above during the day we went back up the Rockerfella. We chose the Rockerfella instead of the Empire State as we had a better view of Central Park. Its definitely one our of favourite places in New York. We did a little shopping, but tried to be strict with ourselves. Its just so hard to be in New York and not shop. Si was a little indecisive about what t-shirt to buy but I didn't mind as he was dragging me in and out of Abercrombie and Fitch and Holister - both of which had half naked men stood at the entrance!