Sunshine!  Warmth!  Hoorah!

I dug my hat out of my case and we headed back down to The Trade Centre Station to make our way over the Hudson River (well, actually – under it) to spend the day in Jersey.

The $4 billion train station also links to PATH – the train to Jersey and Hoboken…

Look how clean it is!

Even the trains are brand new and pristine!

Jersey has a totally different vibe about it, which is weird because you can see Manhattan and if you were desperate enough, you could swim to it, but it’s like a different world.

Quiet squares with little cafes with available tables!

Hardly anybody walking on the footpath… I’m sorry, sidewalk.

Quaint little buildings on main street.

Cherry Blossoms and a photo with nearly no people in it!

This is beautiful City Hall building.

We wandered around for a bit marvelling at the empty streets…

… and then walked back down to the river to gaze at Manhattan.

This is the Downtown Financial District…

… and this is Midtown – I think I’m pointing to the roundabout location of our apartment.

We sat and gazed and chatted for a while discussing how big the island of Manhattan actually was and if we could compare it to Geraldton and the number of people who live there to here…

Manhattan Island is: 59 km² in area, 21.6 km long and 3.7 km wide.
Population = 1.63 million

Geraldton is: 46.3 km² in area,  22.9kms long between South Gates and Drummonds Cove.
Population = 50,000 odd

It’s hard to comprehend.

After much mathematics, we boarded the PATH train again back to the hoards to people.  The train was even cleaner and more empty than on the way over, if that’s possible.

Then we got off in Manhattan.  We also had to step around a man who was passed out on the steps to the station… this is actually a regular occurrence but I’m not sure what we can do. It’s unfortunate, and it makes you feel awful, but for your own personal safety, you can only walk past – hence the huge problem.  I did see three women with “Helping the Homeless” on their shirts and they were all chatting to a woman on the street trying to offer her assistance – so I’m glad that somebody is doing something.

ML decided that she’d like a pair of Birkenstocks so she could look like me and also cause they’re really comfy, so after a bit of limited research on some dodgy wifi from Gregory’s Coffee, we made our way up to Greenwich and made a purchase, then we meandered down Bleeker Street to get to the other subway  line.

There are so many dogs on the streets (with their owners) – Check out these HUGE great dane/dobermans… or is it dobermen?  As they crossed the road they stopped and sniffed the butt of a chihuahua… the back end of him lifted right off the ground!

I love the village feel down here – so many cafes and restaurants and bars.

And people playing basketball just like in the movies – the courts were packed.

One last stop – back to B&H as ML brought with her a camera and her charger but not the chord the plugs the charger in, so having already been to B&H and knowing the system, we headed back there.

We were directed to Andrew behind counter number 10 and he was lovely.  He kept asking us questions so he could listen to our accents – strange how Americans actually like the sound of it.  Andrew has worked there for 10 years and has 2 grandkids.  We told him about Noah and Wes and how lovely they were and he told us that if we were to hang out with is 5 year old grandkids – we’d probably have to call the police!  He was hilarious.

Then it was home again to admire our sunset.

Dinner was a steak restaurant in our street – Ted’s Montana Grill where they served beef and bison steaks.

and they inexplicably gave us a bowl of cucumber slices when we sat down.

Apparently, according to Patrick, they taste the same except that Bison is different and he couldn’t really tell us any more than that.  We chose the beef.  We were too hungry to risk the bison being terrible.

The food was glorious and the onion rings were the size of Montana!