Queues

Having watched the weather forecast we knew today would be lovely weather and were not disappointed.  We made our way again to the Rockefeller Center and resigned ourselves to queues.  We found them at every step of the way - including the initial entry restricted to within a few minutes after the allotted time and no more or less!  An elevator whisked us upstairs where we joined another queue for security, one for the obligatory photo - which we walked through - and then another great bank of people in 3 tiers, entertained by endless showings of the Center at Christmas!  Each tier was then ushered through to another queue for the lift and at this point we discovered a leak in the rucksack had occurred (a bottle of water had become punctured resulting in a wet bottom for Les!).  We were able to dispose of said article and fish out all the soggy items to dry out whilst we took the elevator up to the 79th floor (we think! but were frantically mopping out the bag at this stage!).  This entire process took 50 minutes in total!!!  

At this level we could go outside with all round viewing and of course in the glorious sunshine the views were perfect.  There were another 2 floors we could access, each getting progressively smaller but the final one had a clear, uninterrupted view whereas the other 2 had protective glass.  We were very reluctant to leave as it was just idyllic and we had noticed horrendous queues for the exit - and our fears were well founded as it took us 40 minutes to finally exit!!!

In order to achieve our objectives for the day, we had to partake of lunch on the move - hotdog with all the works and a large salted pretzel.  We're still finishing up our vegetable crudités (still one more day's worth even now), plus fruit.  We had to purchase water after our unfortunate accident but things were drying out nicely now.

Coats were discarded as we ambled along in the sunshine - walking from 34th down to 14th where we accessed the High Line - a disused railway line which has now been tastefully converted to a boardwalk with seats installed where stations once existed.  A most enjoyable experience, albeit with half of New York walking with us!

At about 14th St we exited and made our way to the subway to take an express to Central Park North at 110th St to walk the length of the park seeing the Conservatory Garden, the Rambles, Great Lawn, rollerskating, The Lake, the Turtle Pond - observing some sort of Greek dancing going on and Irish type music at the Columbus Statue (it being Columbus Day or Thanksgiving tomorrow).  We emerged from the Park at 59th St - pretty tired by now and wanting dinner!

Arriving back at our hotel room we were not impressed to find that the room had not been serviced eg the bed had not been made and no cleaning undertaken. Stella had to wash her hair so we rang housekeeping to moan and asked them to return in an hour - we were not the only room as the entire corridor was still having cleaning undertaken.  Refreshed we went in search of food but the 2 restaurants we had thought were possibles were now rejected as too expensive so we returned to the Irish pub but were to regret this decision.  Having placed our orders for lamb chops and rigatone carbonara, we waited over 40 minutes for the meals to appear despite the waitress being reminded and bringing us something to eat to keep us going.  This turned out to be delicious but odd - raisin bread!  Other diners appeared to have ordinary rolls!!  The meal was very nice but needless to say we did not leave a tip!  Back to the room to pack - becoming more difficult with each stop!