The love between the two of us was dying, and it got so bad I knew I had to leave …

Don’t panic – there isn’t trouble in paradise. I didn’t come all the way to New York for a quickie divorce.

We had a quick dinner when we got in last night, crashed at about 9.00pm and slept the sleep of the dead. The alarm woke us at 7.00am for day 1 in New York.

Today we started the day with a 3.5 hour walking and foodie tour of East Village, departing Grand Central Station at 10.40am … all that we had to do was work out how to get there.

Have you ever used Google Maps and been shown a route to get from “A” to “B” and wondered to yourself whether Google Maps is this handy all over the world?

It is!

Thanks to Google, we were able to easily navigate the 2 blocks from home to the Kingston-Throop Metro station, purchased our unlimited trip 7 day Metro cards, and we were off.

I’ve just started re-reading a Jack Reacher novel where he is in NYC on the subway “on the 6 train, the Lexington Avenue local, heading uptown …” He then goes on to describe in detail how the trains rattle along the track and screech to a halt at the station.

All true. Trust me.

So we found our way to Grand Central Station about an hour before the tour was due to start and had a bit of a look around to get our bearings.

It’s interesting the hints that people give you before you embark on a journey. One of the key messages that we got was that public toilets in NYC are hard to find, and most places (like McDonald’s) keep theirs locked.

The next piece of advice was that if you do find an unlocked public toilet in NYC, you won’t want to use it anyway.

The final piece of advice was that “the toilets in Grand Central Station are pretty good.”

You may remember a song that was on the radio a number of years ago called “The Newcastle Song.” The chorus was “Don’t you ever let a chance go by …” Good advice to keep in mind when you are in NYC and you find a good, clean public toilet!

So we got our bearings, looked around Grand Central Station, worked out where the tour departed from, and used the facilities.

Grand Central Station is beautiful (and busy), and explains the saying “as busy as Grand Central Station!”

We did the foodie walking tour around East Village. We tried dumplings, a pice of pie (pizza) that was enormous, cupcakes with frosting, a NY hot dog, and gelato. Good fun and good value .. and we got some good tips on other places around NYC to eat.

The tour finished up at about  2.00pm and TOTIL and I set off on our own.

We found out that increasing street numbers always head uptown, and decreasing street numbers always head downtown. Good to know.

We also found out that the entrance you use when you enter the subway dictates the direction that the train goes. If you want to go uptown and you enter the station from the wrong side of the street, those trains only go downtown. Also good to know.

Armed with this important information and a map (and Google, of course), we started walking.

The East Village was crawling with NYPD today. Someone had told us that this was not uncommon on the Labour Day long weekend (this weekend).

We asked someone in a shop what all of the police activity was for and he said he thought that there was some kind of parade today.

Ha! Parade my eye! Streets were closed because of an animal rights demonstration that included maybe 1000 people shouting “Let animals live”, and “Animals have rights too” … did I mention that we had pork dumplings and a NY hotdog today?

Following that bit of excitement, we went to K-Mart, looked in the Chrysler Building and bought coffee, then found out it wasn’t the Chrysler building after all.

TOTIL looked at shoes in Saks 5th Avenue – the cheap pair were $975 and the more expensive Jimmy Choo’s were $2695 … fortunately she showed some restraint because that was pretty scary!

We then found the Rockefeller Building, confirmed it WAS the Rockefeller Building and took the lift 67 floors to “The Top of the Rock”

Amazing!

The say that you either love NY or you hate it. So far I’m loving it …

So, back to the title of this post … well, after breakfast this morning and before we set off for the day – actually before I had put my shoes on, which is an important point in this story – my right foot made unexpected, sudden and very painful contact with the foot of our bed. I declared that I thought I may have broken my little toe, and TOTIL thought it is probably just bruised.

She was once a nurse, after all.

So the walking tour, followed by us walking around Manhattan (>18,000 steps!) was spent largely by me hobbling along after TOTIL calling out …

TOTIL don’t you walk so fast, ooohhh, TOTIL don’t you walk so fast, Slow down some, ‘cause you’re making me run ….

Dinner tonight was McDonald’s. We were going to do something nicer but we were too tired and grimy to be bothered.

The first thing I did when we got home was to take off my shoes. Fortunately my little toe is still attached, however it is a different size and colour to what I remember.

I think that TOTIL may be wrong about it “only being bruised” … tomorrow should be an interesting day with another walking tour. Sigh.

Advertising sign of the day (seen in the subway train): “Arrested? Call 1-800-INNOCENT”. If only it was that easy 🙁

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA