17 Jan

For our final full day, we began with a last brunch at Deborah's. This time we both had the shirred eggs (delicious) as well as lattes and mimosas (bucks fizz). Very, very cold outside still, really not a day for wandering around too much. We went to the cinema to see 'Gran Torino', which was really good, if mainstream. Darkly comic while managing to address some serious issues. I'm a big fan of much of Clint's later work. And the man can growl.

Afterwards, we walked up 5th to the Empire State Building, because I was determined James wouldn't leave New York before seeing the view from the top. It was excellent timing - we saw it in (last) light and then waited inside for 20 minutes or so until it was dark, and then we outside round the observatory again. It was good doing it at the end of the trip as well, as we were able to see lots of the places we'd been to, and even more or less where our apartment was. We could also see the plane being pulled out of the Hudson (after that amazing water landing).

In the evening, we used our wedding gift from Alice, which was a gift card for Olives restaurant. I had the burgundy escargot flatbread (like a snail pizza!) and the lamb porterhouse with crispy spiced parsnip, and James had the carpetbagger oysters (oysters sitting on mashed potato, with beef carpaccio on top) and the Flatiron steak (not, disappointingly, shaped like a triangle). To finish, we shared the Cookies and Cream platter, which was an assortment of delicious homemade cookies and cakes and ice cream. We couldn't finish it all, which meant we got to take some home with us for the next day...