This blog is brought to you by Ellie.
I never have had a gift for words like Barry has, and I am still pretty much lost for words, but I have never been so happy in my entire little life.
I don’t think I could ever have imagined finding the perfect partner in life and yet there he was yesterday, on one knee in front of me, asking me to marry him on the exact spot I had secretly hoped he would! Naturally, I became a water fountain immediately but managed to choke out an emotional “yes yes of course!”.
Barry and I have spent 6 beautiful years in love and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with him! Thank you for joining us on our adventures so far. There will be many, many more to come, it turns out!
On to day 5, which is going to be a day of walking between different landmarks we feel are worth seeing and then a baseball game this afternoon. Just imagine that every ten minutes I am staring at my engagement ring and then at Barry in wonder.
The first mission though was breakfast, which we had decided last night on the way to Chick Fil-A would be an açai bowl place called Oakberry. This is right up Barry’s street and we both had near enough the same thing to eat. It was açai layered with peanut butter and granola, with fruit on top. I wasn’t prepared for how delicious it would be and we were both sad that we wouldn’t have time to have it again before we leave!
From Oakberry, we marched through the streets to the New York Public Library. This is the first of two landmarks we will be seeing this holiday that feature in Ghostbusters, one of Barry’s favourite films. There were protesters for Palestine on the steps and a lot of police presence - a small reminder that life and loss goes on outside our little bubble - so we spent just a short moment taking photos of the famous lion statue that comes to life in the film. Here, it started to sprinkle with rain for the first time this trip. It wasn’t much less warm though! We put our umbrella up and continued our tour.
Not too far away we came across Grand Central Station, an iconic landmark featured in countless tv shows and movies and absolutely beautiful on the inside. We spent a fair amount of time here getting the perfect shots and realising there is actually a myriad of shops and food vendors there too. Barry wanted to get a t-shirt that he’d seen online before, so we found it in the Transport Museum Shop. It’s black with a map of the New York City Subway all over it! He was very pleased with his purchase. I bought myself a pen and the nice lady at the counter helped me out by exchanging a lot of my quarters for notes! My purse was getting heavy!
Just a couple of blocks down from the station we found the Chrysler building, which is one of our favourites because of its art deco style. The lobby was sadly closed today for no reason we could see, so we just peered inside and got some cool shots of it in the mist.
Next up was the United Nations, close to the East River. We both geeked out over this as it is featured in Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower”. Usually it has the flags of every country in the world flying outside, but to Barry’s utter dismay, they weren’t there today!! Barry. Loves. Flags. His words were “I say this knowing that we got engaged yesterday, but HOLIDAY RUINED!” He was easily consoled and we walked alongside the building taking photos and imagining it with all the flags.
Morning missions complete, it was time to head back to the hotel room, picking up salads for lunch from Sweetgreen on the way. A little pricy but they would turn out to be so delicious! We would eat these after our next mission: telling my parents we’re engaged! When I tried to contact them yesterday, mum was already asleep and dad was at a charity event and I didn’t want to be too obvious in the need to speak to them ASAP! When mum answered the call today she and dad quickly noticed the ring and we had more tears! Now that we’d told them we could tell everyone else. It was good to catch up with everyone before having a rest prior to the next fun escapade!
We took a longer subway ride this afternoon to Queens. It was baseball time! Today the New York Mets were set to play the Cincinnati Reds. After a look around the team shop we eventually found our seats. We were high above the field behind the batter and had a great view of the big screen and the planes coming in to land at regular intervals. A police officer sang the national anthem and got a flyover from an NYPD helicopter, which was pretty cool!
Just as the game was due to start, the big screen showed a weather map and advised the crowd to take cover as the heavens opened. We took refuge in the concourse for almost an hour in the end but the game eventually got under way, much to our relief.
I must admit I have no idea how baseball works so I am not best placed to be writing about it, but rules are rules and it’s my turn! Barry helped me with the rules as we went and I was much happier knowing it was basically rounders but with more crazy antics between innings. There wasn’t a whole lot of action in terms of gameplay, it was 0-0 for a long time but the Mets eventually won 4-0, which included a home run! For dinner Barry chose a grilled hot dog with peppers and onions which he enjoyed. I had a pretzel as I wasn’t too hungry and we shared a packet of Crackerjack too, which is caramel coated popcorn and peanuts. The whole vibe was really relaxed and friendly, everyone was there with friends and family, singing and clapping along with the music and Mexican waving.
I had much more fun than I expected and would really recommend catching a game if you visit anywhere in the States!
It wasn’t too difficult getting on the subway as we left just a little bit before the game ended. We saw our first subway rats, which was very thrilling!
Another day is done and there is just one more to go until we fly home on Monday!! I will leave you in my sweet fiancé’s capable hands to conclude our wonderful week in NYC. 🩷
Comments