The night before I’d eaten the greatest pizza I’ve ever had at Joe’s Pizza. Wishing to continue this new healthy diet, I decided to try out a McDonald’s breakfast, New York style.
From left to right, an egg and cheese biscuit (which is pretty much a scone), a sausage, egg and cheese McGriddle (which is like an American pancake-style bun that’s maple syrup flavoured) and a sausage and cheese McMuffin (you know what that is.
And yes, I ate them all. For discovery’s sake…
I’d say the biscuit was a little dry and my least favourite, but still very nice.
I found the McGriddle at the time a bit too sweet, but I found throughout the rest of the trip that that was what I craved most. It was delicious – I’ve never been one for mixing sweet and savoury but New York was changing my mind.
My findings have concluded that American McDonald’s breakfast Donald Trumps all over a British McDonald’s breakfast. Shocking.
With our bellies full, Aimee and I had another early exit from the hotel, hitting the Manhattan streets before the clock had struck 8am. Today, we were heading out of Midtown and visiting Lower Manhattan to pay respects.
Obviously, this is a very quiet area of New York City. There are many security personnel patrolling Ground Zero, berating tourists for leaning on the memorial. I felt very uncomfortable taking a photo tbh, and it’s a little bit mad to see other tourists having smiley selfies with the memorial behind them. Being a guard on this site must drive you insane from disbelief.
This is the most poignant thought for me. It’s remembering the fire fighters and emergency teams who without hesitation, marched into those burning towers to try and save others, and lost their lives in the process.
With our City Passes we had elected to visit the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. We skipped the queues and got straight in.
We spent nearly two hours in the museum. You don’t need me to tell you it was very intense, heartbreaking and utterly sobering.
But absolutely worth a visit.
Whilst we were in Lower Manhattan, we decided to take a walk to Brooklyn Bridge.
They did a great job of rebuilding it after Godzilla destroyed it in 1998.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I love the 1998 Godzilla film. Just saying.
So, Brooklyn Bridge, 1.3 miles long, opened in 1883 as the then longest suspension bridge in the world crosses the East River and connects Manhattan and Brooklyn, a borough of New York named after David Beckham’s first child.
Here’s an interesting fact you may or may not care about: Brooklyn Bridge is older than London’s Tower Bridge.
As New York’s most iconic bridge, it of course gets busy with tourists, so an early morning visit is advised for this narrowish walkway. It’s a great place to take some nice photos of the city and the East River, if you can avoid the photobombing tourists. It’s hard being a tourist when other tourists are around.
There are street vendors on the bridge selling t-shirts, hats, magnets, the usual tourist-targeted tat, but tbf it was probably the cheapest tat we found in all of New York.
It took us about 25 minutes to get across and just as we reached the other side, some spots of rain started to fall upon us. There’s a park on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge, imaginatively called Brooklyn Bridge Park. This is a great place to get an iconic view of the New York skyline, and this was where we were heading as rain turned to sleet.
I bet it looks prettier under blue skies, but I suppose grey, dreary and misty better describe an authentic New York City in January.
Aimee was simply loving the rain… or not. Thoroughly fed up of being piss wet through and complaining of an empty belly, we looked for somewhere to eat. After last night’s first hit of New York pizza, I wanted more pizza whereas Aimee wanted a burger. We compromised by visiting a place called Shake Shack which specialised in burgers.
It was decent tbf, and the staff were very friendly. We used the time to dry up and watch the sleet briefly turn to snow over the East River.
After food we spent ages wandering around in the rain trying to find the High Street Brooklyn Bridge metro station – it just isn’t accurately positioned on Google Maps. Being typically British I didn’t want to ask a local for directions in case they mugged me or worse, mocked me.
Eventually we found the station, and it’s warm underground air was a blessed relief from the wintery wetness of Brooklyn. Once back at Times Square we headed to the hotel and, you’ve guessed it, fell asleep. By the time we woke up, the constant drizzle had morphed into proper rain, and we headed out onto the street for a taste of true New York.
One big bonus of the rain is the lack of conning cartoon characters on Times Square, so you’re free to take selfies without the fear of being approached by a Minnie Mouse who wants you to hand over your dollars.
We bought a few beers from a local shop and took them to the room for another early night, with yet another early rise planned for the following morning…
#VidOnTour 