We began the day as we had the previous day by grabbing a juice and bagel in the nafty breakfast buffet area. Then we swiftly headed down the now familiar path to our local station and waited with the myriad of other people on the packed platform. Clearly downtown Manhattan was a popular destination on a weekday morning. As the train travelled towards Times Square, the platforms were busy and people were still getting on the train. Below Times Square things reversed and more people were getting off the train onto the now empty platforms. Our destination was Denny’s , which we were eagerly looking to for breakfast having checked out their menu the night before. Our breakfast was really tasty and we soon polished it all off, all agreeing that it really put the hotel breakfast to shame.

Settling up, we were once again on route to the NBA store to get the top for Luke that he tried on yesterday. While we were eating our evening meal last night, Luke used Lizzie’s phone to work out that the NBA EU store was more expensive. This was partly thanks to the fact that the store was being refitted and is due to close in a fortnight. As you can imagine Luke’s really pleased he made it to Manhattan before the store closed, as it doesn’t reopen until late November.
From the NBA store Matty took us across the road to H&M on a quest for a skinny white T shirt. Once this objective was fulfilled we headed for Central Park to see the zoo ( featured in the Madagascar films ). Luke was disappointed to not see Marty the zebra but were only looking over the fence on our whirlwind tour.

We thought that rather than take the roadside path to our next destination we’d walk through the park which we did. It was very pleasant and I can fully understand why city dwellers love their parks so much. Luke wanted to go back to Murray’s Bagel shop for lunch but that was miles away downtown, so instead we popped into subway which pleased Matty as he’s a big fan of the foot long Italian BLT.

Walking to 72nd street we took a metro bound for Intrepid. This took way longer than expected due to there being no metro stations near to Intrepid. We walked and walked and eventually were close enough to see the Husdon River and USS Intrepid. I didn’t know she was about in WWII and while onboard we were shown a section on the US in the Falklands war. We had a look around and once we’d seen all around the ship and the aircraft on her decks we left at a pace, Matty’s rumbling stomach driving us forward to an eatery. We looked in a couple of pizza places but they looked too cheesy to satisfy Luke’s particular tastes. Along Times Square I spotted Appleby’s diner. Hoping and guessing it would be like Denny’s we went in. The boys were looking for refillable drinks which seems to be the normal thing here. Even in Subway customers expect to refill their drinks, unlike in the UK where you’d be sent packing if you tried to obtain a free refill.

Whilst waiting for our order to arrive we saw a 6 car cavalcade of black unmarked police cars and vans. As they passed each junction one car blocked the road (usually a one way street here) whilst the others went passed. This started a whole lot of conversations about who could be in the vehicles. Luke was sure it was The President!! I said he probably travelled in his presidential limo with his seal of office on it. But you never know, he could have been attending a show with the First Lady??

We finished our meal and walked back through Times Square to get the metro back to our hotel. Packing to do and an earlyish night to have in readiness for our return journey to the UK. I think everyone has had a lovely time, it really has been an amazing adventure that Matty, Luke, Lizzie and I have loved.