Our second and final day in NYC began with a delicious breakfast at IHOP, sharing a plate of course since we're not quite used to American portions yet. Pancakes and bacon with all kinds of flavours of syrup, mmmm!
From here, we got the subway downtown to the Museum of Modern Art. I think mum thought a lot of the art was rubbish but I had a great time! She did find a favourite painting though, dubbed so because 'its pretty'. We also saw starry night by Van Gogh, and some pretty cool Jackson Pollocks. I was both excited and confused about the section on video games including play throughs and the opportunity to play live games like portal and dwarf fortress, how it was art I'm not sure!
From here, we grabbed a pretzel from a cart for lunch and sat by a fountain in the beautiful sunshine. Dessert was from a cupcake from our favourite place, the buttercup bakery on 2nd and 52nd. We intended to take a photo of the cakes but may have forgotten until they were already partly eaten.
Following this, we headed down to the World Trade Center site to see the memorial. Not realising you needed tickets, we were a little concerned about getting in but managed to all the same. The memorial was very saddening as expected, but also a great display of architecture with the huge sunken pools and waterfalls, with a pit in the centre designed so the bottom cannot be seen. Inscribed all around the edge of the pools are the names of those who died on September 11th, in a seemingly endless list. A ray of hope in the midst of this however is a tree found at the site of the attacks, almost dead but nursed back to life and also since surviving a storm, strong in the face of a whole lot of adversity.
After heading home for a nap and a shower, we travelled downtown again into Hells Kitchen for dinner. Well, only after an accidental detour uptown into the Bronx after we got onto the wrong train platform... A pretty hip area full of restaurants, in Hells Kitchen we ate at a cute little Mexican place named the Limon Jungle. We had awesome Mexican sodas that came in loads of flavours: mum had mandarin and me mango.
We finished off our visit in New York at Swing 46, a famous swing and jazz club on, funnily enough, 46th street. I was so excited to go here and it definitely lived up to expectations, especially once I spied swing legend Dawn Hampton in the corner! I unfortunately couldn't convince mum to join in the dancing, but we had a fun time watching the band and I managed to get a bunch of good dances. Great night overall!
We arrived home very sleepy and ready to finally get on the road in the morning...
Jealous of your IHOP breakfast !!
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