Up at 8am for breakfast and then we caught the subway up to Central Park. We got off on one side and then walked through the park, around the bottom edge of the reservoir. There were so many people running through the track. Inside the park is a road, divided into three lanes, which are for cyclists and runners. The track around the reservoir is one-way (luckily it was going the way we wanted to go). Lots of people out jogging, we were even overtaken by a pregnant woman. Next time we visit I’m keen to see more of the park than the miniscule bit we saw, which, to be honest, wasn’t all that attractive.
Once through the park we joined the queue outside the Guggenheim, which opened at ten. I’d brought my AGO card which entitled me and a guest to free entry. Glen didn’t bring his this trip (despite it, and a number of other things, being on the list of things to pack I’d written) but we only had to pay for one of the three admissions so that wasn’t bad.
Half the gallery is off-display (the spiral staircase unfortunately) while they set up the next installation. Because there wasn’t much to see, the admission price was reduced and we got in for $14.
Up to the top floor to check out some early Picassos and a few other painters, then Kandinsky, an American who uses collage and a few others. We got through it pretty quickly, all in about an hour.
Afterwards, Glen and I left Albert (who went around the Whitney and saw an Edward Hopper exhibition, which he really enjoyed) and jumped on a bus to downtown to the West Village for brunch with Aaron. On the seat in front of us sat this older lady in a very smart dress suit, with big earrings and a scarf. She looked so elegant, kind of what I think an old New York dowager would be like.
We met Aaron, a videographer from Australia (who’s an old friend of my friend, Nikki, from work), and a couple of his friends for brunch at Good Restaurant. One of the guys, Rick, is also from Australia, and the other, Carlos, is from I’m not sure exactly where but speaks about four languages. It was after 12 before we were seated so I’d called that lunch. Food was yum, good chats about a variety of topics.
After lunch, Glen, Nick, Aaron and I walked through a bit of West Village, down Christopher St (but not the Stonewall bit) towards the banks of the Hudson River. We then stopped for a drink and chatted some more, while also watching the hot shirtless men jog by.
Aaron and Rick then walked us to the subway station and we went back to the hotel to have a nap and wait for Albert to return.
Just after seven we left the hotel to go to Eleven Madison Park for dinner, another fancy-pants degustation. Enjoyed Alinea more, mostly for the service, but the food was still great and in an old art deco building, which Glen liked. Food was very showy, lots of courses, one of the desserts involved a magic trick which took us a little while to figure out.
When we were seated, the waiter asked us to confirm out dietary restrictions. I was the simpler out of Glen and I. I’m just no red meat, no pork. Glen has a list of individual things he doesn’t like such as capsicums (bell peppers), foie gras and olives. The waiter said (jokingly) we’d be getting three courses considering the changes. Luckily we did tell him because there was a whole dessert made with capsicums and foie gras. We got chilli peppers instead.
One of the desserts was an egg cream which has neither egg nor cream in it, as is apparently a New York speciality. It was malt with vanilla and mixed with seltzer. Fizzy and yummy.
The last course included a glass of apple brandy and the waiter left the bottle for us to drink as much as we liked. Another of the waiters overhead us discussing whether anyone had actually finished it and he said that three guys had tried, leaving about an inch in the bottom. Two of them had to carry the other one out into a cab. We sipped a bit of it and put the glass down, unfinished. It was so strong and definitely not easy to drink.
The sommelier let us down a bit. He started off really well, saying why the wine was paired with the meal, and we thought that finally one would deliver what we wanted. But after that it degenerated into the usual when it was made, where it was from, and useless fact about the region. I asked twice why that wine was chosen for the course we were about to take but he didn’t adapt.
Despite the minor things, it was a wonderful four-hour dinner and we left absolutely stuffed to the brim. We tumbled into a cab and went home to sleep it off.
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?