Stepping out

Last night was an experience.
We were at the famous Madison Square Garden to see Black Sabbath. Our seats were up in the gods, but we had a good view of the stage.
However, despite it being a smoke free venue, the amount of marijuana being smoked was too much for me (we had a group of 6 on the row in front of us constantly passing the joints around).
We ended up wandering off to the bar and found a curtained area facing the stage where we could just hang out to watch the rest of the show.

Sabbath were OK; we are glad we've seen them but it wasn't the most exciting show we've ever seen. I think Geezer Butler had been glued to his spot on the stage; he never moved! As Mr A pointed out though, they are the same age as our Dads, so who can blame them for standing still.

We were both knackered after the show, so even though it was relatively early (10.30pm), we headed back to the hotel for sleep.

This morning there was only choice for breakfast and that was back to the Carnegie! The guy we met yesterday from Istanbul was there again too; we said hi and had a quick catch up.
We were initially seated alone on a table for 6, but were soon joined by a couple of lads from Albany. They told us that in a drunken moment at 3am, they'd decided to get the train into the city for breakfast at the Carnegie! (Albany is around a 2.5hr train ride away)
They had beer (this was 9am) and shared a sandwich. This sounds lame but the sandwich was huuuuuuuuge.
We were also joined by a couple who worked on a cruise ship; she told us she just had to come to the Carnegie as its so famous.
They ordered a mountain of food, despite warnings of portion size, so we had to wait and see how much they would get through.
He managed all of his sandwich (chicken and bacon, pictured in the collage) but she was defeated and had to take half as a carry out.

Stomachs full, we set off on our walk, back through Hells Kitchen to the High Line in the Art Gallery district. This was something we saw on Michael Portillo's 'Great American Train Journeys' (well worth watching if you've not seen it). It's a disused railway line that's now been turned into a public garden.

From there we walked through the Meatpacking district to find the building from the series 'Friends' which is in West Village. This was on our way to the World Trade Centre & 9/11 museum.

The museum was bigger than I expected and quite moving too, to see all the tributes and fragments of building and peoples belongings.
What I didn't like was people taking selfies there. As you know, we are fans of the selfie, but taking them at a place that's a memorial to an atrocity where almost 3000 lives were lost? That's nothing to smile about in my opinion and I found it in quite poor taste just my opinion.

We debated getting the subway back to the hotel, but both of us said prior to this trip that we'd like to see more of the various districts.
So we walked back to the hotel via TriBeCa; stopping off for food at the restaurant where they were filming 'The Affair' the last time we were here. We weren't sure last time if it was an actual restaurant or just made into one for the show; it was actually a really great little Italian.
The Ghostbusters fire station was opposite, but covered in scaffolding. Further investigation told us that they've relocated to another fire station and the building is to be renovated into something else. Mr A was pleased we managed to see it last time while it was still up and running.

We walked further up through Soho and Greenwich village, stopping at a couple of vintage stores...what a rip off! Needless to say we didn't buy anything.

Another stop was Bryant Park where we checked out the ice rink. Unlike the one at Rockefeller, this is free but I couldn't get Mr A to have a go. He'll do a Bungy and a skydive but won't ice skate!

Tonight we are going to have another walk up to Central Park; checking out the rest of it tomorrow before we come home. Our flight isn't until 11.10pm so we have all day to check out the last few places on our list.

Today's pedometer reading (before we do Central Park) is 26,672 steps!

I couldn't decide on a single photo, so I did another collage.

Top row: Madison Square Gardens, Black Sabbath, chicken & bacon sandwich

Middle row: High Line, Friends apartment block, 9/11 memorial

Bottom row: 9/11 memorial x2, Bryant Park Ice rink (with the Empire State Building in the background)