Day 2 - Sunday 12th

Clear and hot - 30 degrees. We slept well and woke up at about 7am
so get dressed and went for a walk through Central Park which was
conveniently located at the end of our street. We crossed to the
East side and walked around the lake, saw the wonderful Alice in
Wonderland sculpture, rambled through the Ramble and wandered back
through Shakespeares Garden around to Strawberry Fields wher we saw
the John Lennon memorial.  There were heaps of people running and
riding bikesaround the park but the surprising thing was that there
were also people riding horses -we wonder how rich you would have to
be to stable a horse in New York!  Once we were back to the start we
sat down and watched a bit of a softball match going on which was
interesting.

We were pretty hungry after that so stopped at a place called Pain
(as in French for bread) wher we had the most amazing organic bread
basket (obviously we are not on Atkins!) with organic jams and
Belgian praline spread.  They also did great coffe in little French
style bowls. Then we kept heading off to Time Square where we saw
the Naked (except for cowbow boots, hat and tighty whiteys) Cowboy
playing his guitar.  As it happened it was Peurto Rico's National
Day so there was a huge parade along 5th Avenue.  We saw a few
floats and people dressed up but figured that with everyone there it
would be a good time to go to the Empire State Building.  We got
there and woo hoo - relatively no queue!  It still took about 40 min
to get up there but we were in, up and out in less than an hour and
a half. Fantastic views and very worth while.

Then we jumped on a bus and headed downtown to Battery Park where we
caught the Staton Island Ferry which goes past Ellis Island & the
Statue of Liberty (and it's free!) and given that you can't climb
up the statue anymore we didn't want to pay just to see it.  After
the round trip on the ferry we wandered up to Ground Zero and payed
our respects.  Then we headed across the road to Century 21 to spend
some cash on cheap clothes. After that we were feeling pretty
peckish so headed off across the Brooklyn Bridge to try and find
Grimaldi's (claiming to be the best/oldest "Pizza Pie" in New York).
After wandering around Brooklyn for a while we finally found the place
and there was a queue so I sat in the bar nezt door and ordered
Margaritas.  After being told that we couldn't take the pizza away
Cory came back in a huff so I went in and did the Good Cop act and
got the take out version to eat in the beer garden next door with
the Margaritas. We were pretty tired after alking around all day so
we took the subway back and collapsed into bed.