NEW YORK - DAY 4

Day 4 in NYC was a more relaxing (but still a very busy) day. We woke up around 9am and headed over to 42nd on 5th to watch the Gay Pride Parade. It wasn't very hard to find  as there were men covered in glitter, wearing fairy wings and pink speedos everywhere!. Also there were 7ft drag queens walking around in nothing more than a couple of feathers that were (thankfully) strategically placed! Everyone was dancing to Lady Gaga and rainbow flags were everywhere! After a while of standing by the barrier watching the parade I decided to go to the side and sit on the wall of the New York Public Library where the view was much better and I could see the NYPD, Fire Service along with many other services and organisations marching down 5th avenue. If I would describe the parade in one word it would be FUN, bundles of fun! 

We watched the parade for about 2 hours and after grabbing a juice from Jambo Juice we caught the Subway and headed Uptown to Central Park. When we arrived at the park we sat down for a bit on the bleachers watching the locals play baseball which was pretty darn cool. By this time we needed some lunch (it was around 3/4 o'clock!) so we headed past the volley ball courts and on the way we stopped to watch the hundreds of people chillaxing in Sheep Meadows, eventually we made it to a little restaurant in the middle of the park which made lovely salads and a very nice Mozzarella, pesto and tomato open sandwich - yuuuum! We people watched for a while and then we perused around the park whilst making our way over to Strawberry Fields, the Dakota building (where John Lennon was shot) and the 'Imagine' John Lennon memorial. The apartments in the Dakota Building cost $10million dollars each! $10million!!! Yoko Ono owns 3 of them! It surprised me how quiet Central Park was compared with the City, it was like you were in the middle of the country, well if you ignored the sky scrapers that peaked over the trees! Whilst walking around, there were runners and cyclists everywhere, they even had their own lane on the road which was quite cool! 

We raced over to pier 83 to go on a ferry, once we had finished in Central Park. The ferry left at 7pm and went around Manhattan, under the Brooklyn Bridge and passed Liberty Island on the Hudson river. The ferry lasted 2 hours, therefore as we came back to the harbour we passed the City in the night where millions of office and apartment lights lit up the sky. I had been waiting and waiting to take a picture of the statue of Liberty and just as we got close enough to take a picture my battery died! It was OK though because we were going to Ellis Island the next day so I knew I'd be able to take a picture then. The ferry was nice as we were able to see the city as well as have a bit of a break from walking everywhere!

Once we got off the Ferry we walked too Hell's Kitchen to grab some supper (it was 10pm at this point!). We ended up eating outside (it was still very hot!) at a little Italian restaurant which was nice! We then walked all the way back to our hotel, well, after stopping at Hershey's to buy some presents for people back home, and eventually got to bed at around midnight. What a relaxing day - eh?  It was a lovely day of not rushing around too much and enjoying the sunshine!