(sorry Mr. dinghy I’ve been delinquent)

As I continue to learn to live in NYC, the difference of the city from anywhere else I have been I have continued to grow to love this city. It is more diverse, interesting and intriguing than any other metropolitan place I have visited and I continue to understand why it is indeed a great city, one of the greatest.

Today Julie arrived and after taking a nap and getting ready for the day we headed out for a bite to eat. With no plans or idea of where we might go to eat, we headed west in the direction of Central Park and thus decided that we would grab lunch at the Boathouse. It was 22 degrees today in the city and spring is most certainly on the way. As I was crossing park avenue yesterday the perennials on the boulevard have started to grow and sprout through the land, getting ready for the spring and summer to come. Although it was windy we managed to be able to eat outside on the waterfront in the great ambiance of the park. As it was a stunning day we continued to head out for a walk with no clear destination, simply enjoying the unseasonal weather.

As we walked north through the Upper West Side, a neighborhood that I have not really spend any time in, we stopped to grab a coffee at a small local shop and continued to head north enjoying the neighborhood. The neighborhood had more children around than I expected and it was enjoyable and unique as all NYC neighborhoods seem to be. As we crossed 72nd street I thought that we might stroll up to the restaurant that is on Seinfeld. I found the address of the restaurant when looking in the window of a framing shop that had a photo of the restaurant and the address on 113th and Broadway. Being on 72nd we were still 40 blocks away but I quietly kept the idea in my head and figured we would continue to walk. Julie has already displayed to me that she is difficult to tire, and if we got tired or bored of walking we could just grab a cab home or to the restaurant and then head home. The neighborhood was enjoyable, the weather good and the company amazing.

The neighborhood where Tom’s Restaurant is located was recognizable from the filming of Seinfeld. As I had not expected to end up here I didn’t have a camera so I bought a disposable one and we had some fun and snapped a few photos. From there we walked to the west side highway as we were now in a part of the city I had not been in and I wanted to take look at the trail that ran from the southern tip of Manhattan up the west side to the northern tip. At this point we were a bit tired and a long way from home so we started the walk back to Lexington avenue to grab the subway home.

We also stumbled upon The Cathedral School, which is a stunning complex which I will try to find out more about.

On the way home we strolled through Harlem to get to Lexington Avenue. It was now dusk and the stroll through Harlem exposed us to some good rubbernecking opportunities. On the stroll through Harlem and Spanish Harlem we got to see:

• Lots and lots of street ball - no grass parks exists, they are all concrete
• 1 man being arrested
• A group of young people getting frisked on a street corner
• Lots of young folks out having fun for a Friday night

We jumped on the subway home and I thought we had walked about 7km, which on a normal night in a normal city you simply would not do, but in NYC you can do it without ever being bored, always provided with entertaining and interesting sites and engaged. Well it wasn’t 7km like I thought it was probably much closer to 13 km’s, after my quick estimation with gmaps.

Map of the walking route

What a neat place to be (this all took about 5-6 hours to do).

(I took 20+ photo’s once I get then scanned I will post a few of them for folks to see)