SLOWING DOWN

What do Hilary Clinton, New York Mayors Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani,Tea Leone, politician John Kerry and us have in common?

We have all eaten at Villa Berulia, an Italian-Croatian restaurant one block from our hotel.

 My appetiser was a tasty avocado, crab and shrimp mousse.  I tried Robert's vegetable soup and it  was superb.

 I then had an Italian  white fish, whilst Robert enjoyed spaghetti and meatballs.  We shared a slice of flour less chocolate cake and were impressed when it arrived on two separate plates, each garnished with a strawberry.  Fudgy, velvety delight.

We chose a bottle of wine and at one point, Robert innocently refilled our glasses.  The owner was passing and pounced on him,  "Let me do that for you.  Sorry for our service."  Soon after, we were told they wished to proved an after dinner drink.  When we finished two glasses of Frangelico on ice appeared.

 How beautiful the Empire State Building looked from outside the restaurant.   But back to this morning.  This piece of street art is right outside out hotel.  So this morning, especially for Ross and Wayne from HLG, Robert posed by this artist.

 Now we are so proficient with the crosstown bus system, we crossed the street to catch the M34 crosstown a few blocks to Macy's.  The tall building in the centre of the photo is our hotel, Affina Dumont.

Delanie would love this floor of Macy's at the moment.  For someone who loves Christmas, this would be overload!  At the stage, most of the decorations were in traditional colours, but there were unfinished trees behind screening still to be revealed.

 One thing I have noticed is this plaques on buildings, revealing surprising moments of history.  This was near Macy's so I think still on West 34th Street.

 In our rambling this morning, down a narrower street, we found completely accidentally this shop, THE CITY QUILTER.  You have to be buzzed in.  Luckily there was a chair inside the front door so Robert could sit whilst I wandered the rows of fabrics.  I didn't make a purchase, despite looking longingly at all the bolts of fabulous fabric.  Nothing really sprang out at me, so I contented myself to just gaze.

We were headed to the Chelsea Flea Market, which sounded exotic in the free New York booklet handed to me outside the Metro station last night.  In truth, there may have been bargains there, but Robert said he didn't want to touch anything in case it jumped at him.  We decided that at a flea market you might catch fleas.  Not our thing.

Virtually next door to the car park where the flea market was set up was the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral.  As the door was open, I wandered in.  In was a dark and calm place, formerly a church a another denomination which explained the stained glass windows.  This is apparently not uncommon.  On the Tenement Museum tour, our guide explained as the Irish Catholics moved in they took over the church buildings of the Protestants who were moving uptown.

 The dark interior was lit only by this large light fitting.

This large stained glass feature was high up at the rear of the church.  There was a recording of religious music playing, with those soaring female voices, so serene!

 The alter area at the front had the gold icon paintings we associate with Orthodox churches.

A little further up the street, set in a tiny intersection area, was this pop-up food venue, lots of tiny stalls with an amazing range of food options around the outside, facing in.  In the centre were some table and chairs.  It was crowded, being lunch time.

We crossed the road and sat in Madison Square Park a while.  Some people use the park to cut diagonally across; others sit on the benches a while.  The grassed areas were fenced off with signs the lawn was being rested.  Where we have occasionally seen the odd squirrel bobbing about, this park had a dozen or more scampering around.  They were quite tame as some people were even hand feeding them.

We wandered back to the hotel and I gratefully sank into bed for a long afternoon's rest.  We walked over 10,500 steps today.  But we are slowing down.  Nearly time to come home.