Brekkie is somewhat unexpected. Looking on Airbnb, it’s hit and miss whether or not breakfast is offered at all, even though you wonder what the other “b” is for if not breakfast. This however is a great breakfast. A big table in the dining room, serving all guests at once, it’s laid for up to 8 people today. Everyone arrives for 0900, and Jay makes us feel at home with fresh coffee, fresh fruit, cereal, hot rolls… Yummy. It’s quite a social occasion with everyone swapping stories about Broadway shows seen last night, and itineraries for today, etc.
After brekkie we try and make a plan for the rest of our stay, we’ve only booked two days here – our usual max, until we check out a location – but it’s also all we think they had available. Checking on responses from other requests we’ve already sent out – to Couchsurfing and Airbnb, – there’s nothing come back in. Before chasing or searching for more options we decide to ask with Jay and Maria just in case … we know they have other property nearby, so maybe… As it turns out they have an attic room here, which is not ready for letting yet, but if we’re prepared to take it kinda ready, then they could do us a deal on it. We could have it for the remainder of our stay in NY too. Sounds like a plan. It’s easier to nip in and out of town from here than we anticipated and you get a great view of Manhattan on every trip. Sorted!
That settled we head off into town, not sure of our itinerary, which brings the inevitable disasters with it. We buy a multiple tube ticket (good thinking) but it’s the wrong one and we can’t both use it (bad). We think it’s hard for visitors working out the London tube system, but at least there’s more explanations around, more staff to ask and more signage to help you! Here it’s potluck and having asked and received the wrong info, we try to exchange the wrong ticket for the right ticket. They’re having none of it! As it’s been used – we only used it to get through the friggin barrier to reach the office to actually ask!!! Annoyed? Yes we are, just a tad!
Moving on we head for Chelsea Market where we have some fish soup. It’s a nice set up albeit a bit of a posh area, not quite what we imagined. Then walking off lunch we come across some thrift shops near the university, which we have a quick gander through too.
Then it’s a subway back up north and but after having very little luck choosing a decent non-touristy place for dinner we carry on over to North Bergen where we again soak in the view of the city. We should have got off the bus part way up the hill as the colours of the Manhattan skyline from the light in the sky after sundown are amazing! But we don’t, we’re pretty tired and hungry and reckon there’ll be other nights, other opportunities, especially now we’re staying put.
Dinner is finally at a Cuban restaurant on the local high street. Weirdly we hadn’t called into the bnb before hand, if we had we’d have realised that Maria and Jay were cooking enough food for everyone – their way of apologising for the now ongoing issues with the bathroom we’re guessing. Shame they gave us no warning. Two new guests have arrived this afternoon and they are able to join in with the food eating, so we don’t have too. Phew, we might explode if we did. We join them all for a drink and a chat instead, too full to do much more. The new guests are Alexandra and Celine and they are French. Celine is a painter too. Chatting over food goes on quite late, amazingly we last quite well considering that we were flagging in town before even heading back for food – surely due to jetlag we decide.