03 October: Bermuda to New York

Today I woke up before the alarm, at 8:15am. It was hot already! Of course the day we leave is the most spectacular day.

We packed our stuff and headed to the airport at 10am. OMG There isn't a single other airport I've been to where I've walked straight up to the counter because there hasn't been another person there! What a pleasure - haha.

Did I mention I've been able to make an awesome contribution to my Currency Collection while here :) They updated their currency 2 years ago and I managed to get a couple of the older notes as well. Winning.

We got a quick bite to share at the airport and that was the end of Bermuda for us. Loved that there are Bermuda Shorts on their terminal building - haha!

So, the US Government shut-down had been weighing on our minds for the last couple of days and we'd been checking online all morning. We were a little worried that the Empire State Building may be closed since we held our tickets over to use tonight. But it seems to be open. Apparently Alcatraz has been closed tho - shew, I would've been livid!

Our flight was quite quick and the bonus of gaining an hour in NY to finish off the last things we wanted to do was much needed since the Airtrain was not working and we had to catch a bus to Federal Circle.

Very tedious, but we made it to our AirBnb host's apartment on John Street before 3pm. Again, thank goodness for the late closing hours of everything here!

We dropped off our bags and immediately headed out with a tight whirlwind schedule in mind for our last afternoon.

First we popped into Starbucks on our way to the subway. Loving the frappuccinos. This time I tried a pumpkin spice one, of course - haha!

Turns out we're staying really close to the World Trade Center so we saw the new building but there is a ton of construction on our side. More like just walked past, didn't really get an up-close look.

First, we took the E-Line to our nearest Shake Shack for our last Shake Burger. And so The Trucker could compare it with In n Out, again. Hard to say. I guess it's good they aren't in the same states tho :) Yummy. So glad we discovered them.

The downside was that I realised we'd left the Empire State Building tickets in the other backpack ... at home. I'd even almost left the camera when we first headed out, but I luckily remember that as we closed the door.

So annoying! So The Trucker headed back to fetch them while I took a walk back to the Lindt store we'd visited before to get myself a variety bag!

Later, he met me at the Lindt store (can you believe there are 2 pretty much across 5th Ave from each other, it caused a little confusion) after a surprise stop off at the Double Tree Hotel to sneak us 2 of their chocolate chip biscuits. He'd had them on a previous trip to NY and had raved about them. And after tasting them, I can quite agree, they are amazing!

We took a wander and went for a look in the MoMA store. Such pretty things :)

And then we continued, walking our way towards the Empire State. We passed a Desigual store which I dragged us into. I remembered it's amazing items from my trip to London. OMG, I could've bought so much! Well, not really, because I just can't spend over R1000 on a little dress.

But, that said, I did fall in love with one of their bags, two actually, but I picked one to buy *squeal* And I adore it! Okay so it was also R1000 but a bag probably has more longevity if you ask me. Consider this a last-of-the-holiday-money splurge - haha.

Then we got to the Empire State Building, again. Wow. I am so glad we shelved the idea and saved our tickets for tonight. It wasn't clear, but the cloud cover was much higher, so our views were perfect.

There was just about no queuing and not just because we'd already bought our tickets.

Shew, it is a spectacular sight to see the lights of New York at night from the 86th floor. So lovely. And what a cherry on top to end our holiday with!



After we were done, we crossed to 8th street for one last Famous Famiglia pepperoni pizza slice, or two. Seriously, this might be my favourite pizza place ever! And why doesn't South Africa sell pizza by the slice? Such a fabulous idea.

We caught the subway home and collapsed into bed ... my feet were killing me after just one afternoon here again!

Set the alarms for 6am tomorrow morning. Home time.