On the road to the big apple!

Day 3:

Another rainy day lay ahead of us. We packed up our things, half of which were soaking wet. We had a traditional American breakfast of rasberry flavoured peanut butter with jam smothered between a toasted seeded bagel.

In the 20 metres of so from the door of the apartment to the car we managed to get drenched. Brilliant first big drive day, rain. Our highest level wiper speed could barely keep the rain off the windscreen, everybody on the highway was driving at half the speed limit. We were making our way along the 95 Turnpike. It would take us all the way to New York City (and eventually it will take us through Phili, D.C. and Carolina) This journey would see us travelling through more English places than I've actually been to back home in England!

We decided our half way stop would be in New London, which is situated on the river Thames of all places! We settled on a pier and ate some incredible sandwiches that auntie Zia had made for us.

After leaving (New) London we headed out down the 95 but spotted a Mall in Hartford, we stopped here to get our first real taste of American Mall life, it was in the middle of nowhere really but it had all the big name brands and was really rather busy considering it was midday on a wednesday. Paolo got himself a new pair of jeans from American Eagle, only $40, his other jeans were still soaking wet. I activated my US number which is 347-573-3964.
The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful but it passed quickly, we saw numerous ridiculous sized vehicles and listened to some tunes on the way down.
We had travelled through 4 states, Massachussetes, Rhode island, Connecticut and New York. We drove into New York via the Bronx making our way through Queens and over the Queens borough bridge.
See here for pics and video's of our entrance!

We easily found parking on 5th avenue, which was 4 blocks from out hotel. Our hotel is called Hotel 309 and is right in the centre of Chelsea, right by the meatpacking district, a brilliant location!
The hotel is simple but comfortable.

We decided to go out for dinner around 7:30pm, we headed over to a Man vs Food location, a deli diner called Katz Delicatessan. Once again there is not much I can put into words to truly describe how good it was, we tipped the server before ordering and he brought us a plate of tasters of all their different meats. We decided to go for the Corned Beef and Brisket of Beef, all made on location and cooked for upto 24 hours! It was juicy and just unbelievable! The Coleslaw was sweet and better than any coleslaw I’ve ever had. Look at the sheer size of them!


After dinner we made our way 2 blocks east and met my friend Esther, who looked after me when I got stuck in New York previously in the Volcano this year. She’s is one of my closest friends and it was so good to see her again, we went for drinks in our regular haunt around St. Johns, Hirai Mong. It was a quiet night and Paolo and Esther were just getting to know each other, a couple of drinks later and we departed and headed home getting ready for a big day tomorrow!

Quote of the Day: (In the car, while listening to radio)
Paolo: ‘All these country music stars sound like Taylor Swift.’
Me: ‘Erm, well this IS Taylor Swift’
Cue mass hysteria!