Homeward Bound

Day 22 - August 18th

After 21 nights, 12 hotels and 2000 miles on the road we'd finally come to the end of our trip. Our flight wasn't until the afternoon so we filled the morning with some tourist shopping including trips to Bloomingdale's and Macy's (which is spread over 10 floors and contains a McDonalds and not one but two Starbucks) before returning to the hotel to get our bags and catch the shuttle bus to the airport - then home. So long America!

The Last Day

Day 21 - August 17th

We grabbed breakfast from a popular deli called Zabar's that we found recommended in the guidebook and then took our bagel, muffin and coffees into Central Park where we sat on a park bench and watched the world go by for a while. We walked to the other side of the park (which was much closer than I'd expected) and to the Guggenheim, our last art museum of the trip. The building itself is impressive and the main photography based exhibition as well as the permanent galleries were well presented.

From there we got the Subway down to Greenwich Village

and went to the bistro we'd intended to visit on the second night of the trip, which feels like a lifetime ago now. We then visited the High Line park, a disused section of raised railroad track that runs above several blocks on the west side of Manhattan. It's a great use of a disused space and makes for a relaxing walk.

From there we walked around some more of Greenwich Village and did a bit of shopping at some of the independent shops in the area, including one called 'The Little Lebowski' that specialises in merchandise related to the movie 'The Big Lebowski' - the owner even wears pyjamas and a dressing gown as a homage to The Dude. Down the same street we found three 24-hour chess shops, complete with tables outside where you could pay a couple of dollars to use their chess boards for an hour. Quite why anyone needs one chess shop in the middle of the night, let alone three, is somewhat of a mystery but strange little niche stores like this are part of the charm of New York.

For our last night we went to a restaurant called The Terrace in the Sky, on the top floor of an apartment building in the uptown area of Manhattan. We got there around sunset and the views of the city were amazing, especially from the outdoor terrace that looks straight across to downtown. Foolishly I hadn't taken my camera so you'll have to take my word for it.

The Bright Lights of Times Square

Day 20 - August 16th

Breakfast today came in the shape of a restaurant called Big Daddy (slogan "Who's your daddy?") so as you can imagine the portion sizes were typically American - I managed just about half my pancake stack. After that we got the subway down to Times Square, another one of New York's must-see sites from where we strolled past various other landmark buildings, ending up at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). This had some great exhibits and kept us entertained for a couple of hours although we both came away underwhelmed by the special Matisse exhbition which just focussed on a couple of years off his work - the exhibit description described this period as 'often overlooked' which perhaps should have read 'best overlooked'.

Rather than grab lunch at this point we went to see a movie, and stuffed our faces with popcorn and nachos instead. The film we chose was The Expendables, a ridiculous 80s style action movie directed by Sylvester Stallone and the perfect popcorn movie. It was showing in RPX, which seems to be a custom alternative to IMAX developed by Regal Cinemas - I've no idea what the technical details were but both the picture and a sound were amazing. The audience cheered whenever any action occured (i.e. most of the way through) and laughed out loud at even the weakest one-liners and on the way out one guy announced to us 'That film was AWESOME'. I'm not sure I'd go that far but it was deinitely entertaining.

It was pouring with rain outside so we ran to the subway, but no sooner had we swiped our metrocards and gone through the gate than I realised I no longer had my glasses. We retraced our steps back to the movie theatre (still in the pouring rain, Amy wasn't impressed) and eventually found them under the chair in front of where we'd been sat. Phew! Luckily for me the relief at finding the glasses made Amy forget that she was soaking wet and we'd wasted two subway tickets. Phew again!

After a brief rest back at the hotel we finished the day with dinner at a nice but unremarkable restaurant near the hotel.

Road Trip Done

Day 19 - August 15th

The day started groggily, we'd been kept awake by the guests in the room next to ours talking and taking photos until 2am. The rooms had an adjoining door which had a noticeable gap underneath, enough that we could see the flashes from their camera and hear enough of their conversation to know what kind of photos they were taking.

We had breakfast at the B&B and went for another walk around Philadelphia to see some more sites, both feeling tired and grumpy (although I think I was grumpiest). We then collected the car and drove slightly out of town to the Eastern State Penitentiary, one of the oldest prisons in the country. It was an eerie place and there was an interesting audio tour narrated by Steve Buscemi, cool!

Today was the end of our road trip so we embarked on the short drive from Philadelpia back to New York to drop the car off. According to the sat-nav the trip should only have taken about 90 minutes but the reality was well over 3 hours - just queueing to get through the final tunnel into Manhattan took over an hour, and by the time we dropped the car off I was quite happy to see the back of it.

We checked into our hotel up on 103rd street (quite a way from downtown but handily right next to a subway station), freshened up and then headed out to a jazz club called Smoke just a block away on 104th street where we had a great evening listening to live jazz - the food and cocktails were pretty good too.

Philly

Day 18 - August 14th

We checked out of our hotel and went for breakfast at a cupcake/coffee shop in the hip-and-trendy Georgetown area of Washington, then drove over to Arlington Cemetery where we saw JFK's grave and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial. It's a huge cemetery with rows of white gravestones, very reminiscent of the second world war graveyards in northern France.

Our next stop was Philadelphia, which ended up taking a lot longer to reach than expected (partly due to an accident on the freeway and partly due to some idiotic instructions from the sat-nav) so by the time we'd arrived and checked into the B&B it was early evening.

We strolled into the historic downtown area where we were able to see the famous Liberty Bell and have a tour of the Independence Hall where the declaration of independence and the constitution were written and signed. After that we had dinner at a restaurant called Buddhakhan, which claimed to serve 'asian fusion' but wich seemed to me like it just sold Japanese food - that was fine though, we both like Japanese food. The most memorable feature of the restaurant was the 10ft high gold buddha statue (which somehow looked much classier than it sounds).

Smithsonian

Day 17 - August 13th

Our one full day in Washington was packed with museum visits and sightseeing along the national mall.

We started with the Capitol building, which you can't get very close to now due to security, then moved on to the National Gallery of Art. There are two wings, one containing the old classics and the other housing the more modern art. The modern art was definitely the more interesting - I'm sure the renaissance is important but there are only so many pictures of cherubs and crucifixions I can look at before losing interest.

The next museum stop was the Holocaust Museum, this was much bigger than we expected and ended up taking 3 hours to get round. Even Amy managed to learn something and she's a trained up member of the Holocaust Education Trust.

After the holocaust museum we visited the Washington Monument (the big obelisk), the Lincoln Memorial (the one with the giant statue of him sitting in a chair) and the various war memorials, then back to the Natural History Museum.

We only had an hour there but as we'd already been to the New York Natural History Museum we skipped all the similar exhibits and spent most of the time looking at the huge diamonds and other precious stones that include some of the largest in the world.

We finished the day with dinner at a cajun restaurant near our hotel.

The Capitol

Day 16 - August 12th

We started the day with a room service breakfast, it seemed rude not to make use of the suite and it's not every day you get to sit around in a plush bathrobe in your hotel suite, reading the newspaper (and pretending to be Donald Trump). After that we took a walk along the boardwalk which turned out to be much less exciting in daylight, particularly as it had started to rain. For a minute I thought I might be in Blackpool.

We then hit the road again, skirting round Philadelphia for a second time and heading on down to Washington DC. As we were driving in we drove past a row of boarded up houses just a couple of blocks from our hotel and started to wonder what the neighbourhood was like, but Washington seems to be one of those odd American cities that switches from destitute to grandiose in the blink of an eye and luckily our hotel fell in the grandoise section. Our room wasn't quite as plush as the last suite but still had a separate lounge area with sofa so much plusher than most of the hotels we've stayed at.

One great thing about Washington is that most of the museums are free and in summer are open until 7.30pm. Since we only have two nights in the city we took advantage of this and got the American History Museum done on this first evening. There were loads of unique artifacts including the original 'star spangled banner' (which measures a huge 36 x 30 ft) some of Abraham Lincoln's personal effects and much more besides.

Upon leaving the museum we found that the rain had followed us to Washington so we just dashed to the nearest bar - although on entering we discovered that smoking in bars is still legal in Washington so then we dashed to the nearest affordable looking restaurant instead.