New York Day 2
June 30, 2019

It seems everyone had a decent night sleep and the jetlag woes are gone for all of us. Yesterday we all walked a lot again and so I doubt anyone wouldn’t have slept well again last night.

We had our first decent coffee since arriving in the US yesterday morning at breakfast. My nephew recommended a place (Gotan) which we also had breakfast at before heading out. M & O decided to stay near the hotel and go see some of the buildings like Empire State; Grand Central Station etc and the rest of us headed to walk The High Line. It is a walkway on the West side of NY that was a railway line. Instead of destroying it they have made it into a park and walkway. It is 2.33km long and we walked the whole thing.

We then headed down to Washington Square Park to meet D. You walk through some of the districts of lower Manhattan including Greenwich Village. Today (Sunday) is a big LGBT Pride March to mark the 50th anniversary of riots that started at Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village and we walked right past that on the way to the park. People were queuing up to have their photo taken next to the plaque and there was at least one celebrity (though we had no idea who he was) that was greeting people and having his photo taken with various people. We did walk past a Milk Bar which is apparently famous from some cooking show and so we stopped in for S, K, H & C to buy Milk shakes and a slice of Milk Bar pie.

H, C and I decided to head back to the hotel in an Uber as we were tired and didn’t really feel like lunch but D, M, O, S & K went off to a salad place. S & K eventually also opted out and walked back up to the hotel stopping at a few places on the way (one of them being the Lego store!).

We went for dinner at a Brazilian restaurant near the hotel called Via Brasil. According to their website they are NY’s oldest and most authentic Brazilian restaurant. Beside C & I (who had paella – which was very good), everyone else had different choices. S went for the traditional Brazilian stew, M went for Picanha steak, O & K had risotto and H had some kind of chicken dish with palm hearts. The food was plentiful and tasty and the service was pretty good as well. The ladies then headed off to H&M to do some shopping, S&M went off to a sports store and I headed back to the hotel.

At least one reader asked what the weather is like. Hot and humid is the answer to that. It has been well into the 30 degrees C since we arrived and even yesterday after it rained in the afternoon (a very brief thundershower), it didn’t really cool off much and was mid to high 20s in the evening.

Until tomorrow ….

P, S (for going for the traditional Brazil meat & bean stew), H, M, C, O & K

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