Greenwich Village

Today is our last full day in NYC. We started early with a cruise on the Hudson. Our tour guide pointed out where Robert DeNiro and Nicole Kidman have apartments. He showed us where the Titanic would have docked, if it had made it to New York all those years ago. He pointed out the search crew that was still looking for debris from last Saturday's helicopter/Piper mid air collision. They've recovered all of the bodies, so they must be looking for the black box. We cruised right over the Lincoln Tunnel, and the Holland Tunnel. We cruised by Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

After the cruise, we rode the subway to Greenwich Village and had some lunch.
There are some really beautiful parks in New York.

We bought some good things to eat at the Magnolia Bakery before Laura had to leave to go to her rehearsal. Garold and I found a park to sit while we enjoyed our sweet treats.

We strolled around trying to find some landmarks that were described in his AAA Guide Book. We managed to find the neighborhood where ee cummings lived for the last 40 years of his life. Many of the buildings in the Village are now owned by New York University.

We finally got tired and abandoned the walking tour. We found a subway station where we could use our very last Metro pass, but not before a crazy person approached us to apologize and tell us that he just got a haircut.

L'Ecole

Saturday night we rode a tour bus for an overview of the city. That's the Flat Iron Building above, and below is what Wall Street looks like from a tour bus.

The ticket allowed us to ride for 2 days, so we hopped off to take a ride on the Statin Island Ferry. This is a FREE ride that takes about 30 minutes each way. The timing of the ferry is such that you will spend around 30 minutes on the other side before you can catch the return ride.

Laura met us at the station when we finally returned, and we dined that evening at l'Ecole, a culinary institute here in NYC. We had a 5 course dinner. It started with one stuffed cherry tomato that was wonderful, then progressed on to an appetizer.

I selected a yummy shrimp and pasta dish. Laura and Garold both got a tomato and olive dish. Then we moved on to the fish course. I chose black bass, they both got the scallops. Both were delish! After that we had the main course. All three of us got the steak, the other choices were lamb, veal and duck. It was only so-so. I think we should have gone for the more unusual choices. Then they served a digestive salad, which was one tiny sprig of white lettuce along with a tiny little round piece of cheese and a dot of balsamic. So we ate that and waited impatiently for the dessert menu. Garold and I got the chocolate tart with caramel ice cream, and Laura chose the marscapone with strawberries. They were both very good. We did not get back to our room until at least 10:00 (maybe later, I was too tired to see the clock). We fell asleep almost instantly and slept ... yes, for 12 straight hours! We figure we walked another 8 miles yesterday. And that doesn't count the time we spent riding the tour bus. Our tour guide was a wannabe stand up comedian who was born and raised in NY. We heard about the air crash over the Hudson River (a phone call from Greg) and are very grateful that not only were we not involved, we did not even witness it. Although we did notice some NY Police boats speeding by at Battery Park, and wondered at the time what was going on.
PS: In the middle of the 3rd course Greg called to tell us that our first grandson (Lucas) will be born in December! We were too refined to dance on the table, but WOW! What an awesome surprise!