Iceland - Spring 2013

Like licking a urinal cake

Thursday, 21 February

Iceland! Why have i not thought of this place before!? Not long ago a holiday that did not involve the sun, sea and sand would have seemed as pointless as the g in Lasagna.  Had it not been for my overwhelming curiosity over the "worst tasting national dish in the world" than i probably would not have come.  Iceland, so far, is frickin awesome! 

We arrived on Tuesday night and checked in to my favourite ever hostel so far; Kex hostel which has everything any traveller would want.  You know that they have thought it through properly when they give out free ear plugs (we were booked into a 16 bed dorm for £12 night).  I love this place.  Whether i am chilling with a book in the quirky seating areas or drinking a viking beer at the lively bar; it is an ideal stay. 

Though we originally planned to hire a car; the thought of driving on the wrong (or right!) side of the road for the first time in bad weather conditions and on gravel, in a place called ICE-land scared the brown out of me.  So instead we booked ourselves onto a different tour every day of our stay.  Wednesday; quad biking on volcanoes followed by cave exploring!!  Both things that i have never done before.  The quad biking was full on off-road. Through muddy streams, over rocks and up volcanoes and throughout the entire two hours i was harbouring an entire turd in my pants.  It was scary, but my god it was fun.  We got some stunning views of the landscapes and Reykjavik and finished feeling that we had way more than our moneys worth.  The caving was fascinating as we drove out through the lava landscape and put on our hat lights.  These caves were the tunnels in which lava freely flowed through once upon a time and you could see the flow lines and stroke the smooth melted rock.  If you are uncomfortable in tight spaces, whether it is through fear or simply that you can't fit in them, it is a complete no go area.  There were times where I had to shuffle along like a sea lion pup.

"its like eating the gangrenous, blackened toes of a long-dead polar explorer which have been defrosted and left behind a radiator for a few days"

Between quad biking and caving i ate a couple of "famous Icelandic hotdogs" but i didn't want to count them as my first Icelandic meal.  For that we went out to eat in the evening.  Scouring the menus for Hakarl, the national dish of Iceland, we ended up at a "Geysir Bistro".  The Hakarl, my reason of being here, came  as small cubes in a closed jar which might as well have said "open if you dare" on it.  I have heard a lot about it and how it tasted like rotting fish and stinks of ammonia etc etc but none of these descriptions did it justice. As i opened the jar my first whiff of it felt like something grabbed on to my nose from the inside and yanked on my brain. It doesn't smell anything like fish! The only thing i could compare it to is industrial extra strong bleach!? If there was a chemical that could take out a heard of elephants with a single drop, it would smell like this. The waitress said that it "smells strong but tastes good". And then quickly retracted her words and said "well not good but...". I have learnt from experience that things taste very much like they smell. And Hakarl was not about to change that. It tasted exactly like is smelt. It tingled my nose like wasabi paste as i chewed it, it burnt like tequila as i swallowed it and i could feel it fumigating my insides  like an asprin as i attempted to digest it.   Its actual taste?  Well it tasted like what it is... poisonous shark meat that has been buried for a couple of months and then hung for a few more.  A taste of chemicals and pee.  Like licking an old urinal cake from a train station toilet.  Officially the worst tasting national dish i have ever had. 

Hakarl was part of an "Iceland sampler" starter  which came with different pickled herrings, home made rai bread and some tissue paper like dried fish that you eat with butter.  The tour guide told us about the dried fish earlier as being his favourite food and eating it like candy and i have seen it in shops being sold as crisp style snacks.  It tastes nothing like candy.  But less fishy than i expected.  The pickled herrings were lovely and went perfectly with the rai bread.  For main course i had a mink whale burger.  This was more like a whale steak sandwhich and the steak was prepared extremely rare.  I would question whether it even touched the pan.  It looked and tasted a lot like raw beef, however, much chewier and not as tasty.  The chewiness is probably down to it being too rare as this can be true for cow steaks too.  Next time i will ask for a medium and go to a proper steak house for it.  We visited a few bars and finished with a shot of Brennivin back at our hostel bar.  It is a tough call between Brennivin and Hakarl at which burnt the most as it went down.

This morning we were up and ready for "The Golden Circle" tour which was a trip to all the main hot spots (no pun intended) in and around Reykjavik in a day.  It sounds like it would be rushed but it didn't feel like it at all.  We started at Pingvillar which is claimed to be the place where the first parliament was created.  Or something like that.  Our guide, Ragna, was a lovely old lady but had the same wit and voice as my Stats lecturer at uni.  I failed stats.  It also had a great view of the no-mans land between the European and North American tectonic plates (above).  From here we went on to Gulfoss which was a partially frozen waterfall.  It's a great view but due to poor weather conditions we weren't allowed to get right up close to it.  Ragna told us another enthralling story about soup.  We got to eat this soup later and the story didn't do it justice; it was a good soup!  A few more stories later we were at The Great Geysir of Iceland of which all Geysers around the world are named after.  The whole of Iceland's landscape is present here with the backdrop of snow capped black mountains, jaggered lava rocks covered in moss and steam just seeping from the ground (the banner at the top).  On the way back to Reykjavik we visited the geothermal power plant that uses the natural heat from the volcanoes to power and heat the entire city.  It all makes sense now, my shower definitely had a mild pong of eggy sulphur and i was adamant that it wasn't me. 

Through Ice and Fire

Sunday, 24 February

Bitafiskur is why Icelandic men are all massive and have enormous hands.  I myself like to dabble in a bit of body building and a natural source of protein with low fat is a highly sort after product.  And it is in Iceland that i find this product.  Our big handed cave tour guides first told us about Bitafiskur as being their favourite childhood food.  I can only describe it as fish jerky and it is 80% protein! That is pretty much double that of a protein shake.  I have been carrying this bag, and it's smell, around with me for a while now.  I am sure i can buy this in bulk and sell it at my local gym. 

Fridays tour was glacier hiking in the pouring rain.  We were kitted out head to toe in thermals and waterproofs but still ended up soaked to the bone.  Wet, cold and outdoor trekking is a recipe for major drizz.  But i was on a glacier!! Scenery i have only ever seen on TV.  I was too awe struck to feel miserable.  Well that and my mind was too busy concentrating hard on not slipping and sliding into the many deep blue crevices to never return.  We were walking on solid ice!?  No grass, rock or snow.  Just acres of smooth, clear ice.  We had a brief introduction to our crampons and were told to walk like John Wayne; feet shoulders width apart, forward pointing and stamping down.  But most importantly, trust your crampons.  I don't care what you say, it's not easy trusting anything to keep you up when walking down hill on ice!  The whole experience was amazing.  Our guide, with his large gloveless hands, was fantastic at explaining it all.  I understand a lot about global warming but nothing really hits home until you are on a glacier.  It was a bit of a walk from the car park to the glacier and i wondered why you would build the car park so far away.  Turns out that they built the car park just 5 years ago, right next to the glacier.  Sad times.

After a long hot eggy shower we treated ourselves to a real slap up meal at a restaurant called "The Fish Market".  We both ordered the "tour around Iceland" taster menu.  It cost us about £45 each but i am sure, for such a well thought out meal, so intricately put together, you would expect to pay a lot more in England.  We started with fresh bread and 3 different types of butter.  Followed by a tiny appetiser, the size of a tea spoon, of raw salmon.  I say well thought out, because the first course was roast plaice and artichoke with birch tree tea foam.  At what point as a chef do you realise that the tea made from a birch tree will go well with fish and artichoke?!  Second course was called Artic Charr Roll which was a roll of prawns and scallops with an apple puree, sheep sorrel mayonnaise and lobster sauce on the side.  Mains was fried lamb with veal sweet bread and dessert was a variety of Icelandic ice creams and yogurts (Skyrr).  My main reason for eating here was the hope to taste puffin and give mink whale another go.  In the end i was extremely satisfied though neither of those were on the menu.  I 100% recommend this restaurant.

Our hostel runs Northern Lights tours in the evenings but so far every one of them have been cancelled due to cloud cover.  Our last night in Iceland was, unfortunately, forecast to be no different.  Yesterday was our ice climbing tour, however due to some confusion along the line, they forgot to pick us up from our hostel.  We were not overly bummed, as we didn't realise when booking that the ice climb was on the same tour as our glacier walk and so we would have been seeing a lot of the same stuff.  Kex sorted it all out for us and apologies and full refunds were happily accepted.  Now what to do on our last full day in Iceland?  All potential tours had left by now and so we were growingly worried about wasting our final day.  We contemplated hiring a car and driving up to the north eastern part of Iceland on the hunt for the northern lights as this was the only cloudless part of Iceland.  However, after putting this suggestion across to the man behind the Kex desk it was summed up as an 8 hour drive one way with a "northern light activity rating" of 2/10 and hence really not worth it.  He recommended, instead, for us to hire a car and have a mini road trip up north to a small fishing village called Olafsvik. 

After speaking to a few hostel friends that we had made the night before, it turned out that they were planning something similar and one of the girls was happy to drive the whole thing.  Perfect! This is almost better than ice climbing!  It was amazing.  It was all about the journey rather than the destination.  There was just so much to see, every ten minutes we were stopping the car and getting out to take in the scenery.  After a while we had to refrain ourselves from stopping as we definitely would not have arrived at our destination if we carried on as we were.  We stopped at an old farm and petted Icelandic ponies, then stopped at a frozen lake and then again at a waterfall.  None of these were planned, just noticed from the car window.  I have said it before and i will say it again, the Icelandic scenery is simply breathtaking.  After a toe curling ride up and over a mountain range, we arrived in ere Olafsvik; a quiet, seemingly empty village in the middle of nowhere.  A couple of a shops and a few houses perched on the edge of acres of baron landscape of lava rock and moss.  With two thirds of Iceland's entire population living in Reykjavik (i did listen to Ragna!) i can imagine most of Iceland being like this.  We would drive for ages without seeing a thing and then a single house would pop up and then nothing again. 

Back to Reykjavic and out for our last Icelandic meal and my final chance to eat puffin.  We found a steak house that had a "Puffin menu" and a "Whale menu" of which we ordered one of each.  Puffin came smoked as a starter and pan fried for mains.  It tastes a lot like liver.  In fact, other than texture, it is almost identical to a rare pan fried calf's liver.  The whale, second time round, was still chewy and lacking flavour.  We ate half and sent it back asking for it to be cooked to a medium but it only made it tougher.  I think it is safe to say that whale meat just isn't that great.     

Today was the perfect end to our trip.  Possibly the best thing you could ever do on the day before you are back trying to entertain 30 hormonal year 9's with Maths.  Our final tour picked us up from our hostel, took us to the Blue Lagoon and then dropped us off at the airport.  There is no better way to end a holiday!  This place is awesome.  I couldn't care that it cost 50 euros.  Hell i didn't have a care in the world after a 3 hour soak in the steaming milky blue water.  Sauna's, steam rooms, free face masks.  Other than the brief ice blast between taking your robe off and getting in to the lagoon, it was 3 hours of complete unadulterated bliss.  We arrive home at around 1am and then need to be up and ready for work by 7am.  It's totally worth it.  We have done a lot in a week and it feels as though we have only scratched the surface of Iceland.  I can imagine it being like a whole different country in the summer! It is a shame that we didn't see the northern lights but it only adds to the reasons to visit this extraordinary place again.  Iceland is cool.  :o) 

Japanese Squid, Sesame and Soy Salad

Ok so i am yet to even go to Japan and actually this is a recipe i picked up in New York.  I had this in one of New Yorks many amazing food courts and instantly wanted the recipe.  Though the best i could get was a snapshot of the ingedients list I have made it enough times to know that it is spot on.  I'm not really a salad guy but there is something so fresh and mourish about this one.  It's all in the dressing!

Ingredients:

Dressing
1tsp Sesame seeds
3tsp Sesame oil
2tsp Soy sauce
2tsp Rice vinegar (Black if you can find it!)
1-2tsp Sugar
Half a garlic clove (raw)
1 Cm piece of fresh Ginger

Salad
Bag of mixed leafy salad (strong herby/peppery salads works best such as water cress and rocket)
Red pepper
Yellow pepper
Cucumber
Spring onion
Sugar snap peas (optional)
Baby corn (optional)
Asparagus (optional)
Cooked and peeled prawns
Fresh squid
Glass noodles (Udon noodles will also do)

Method:

Boil the noodles.  A bowl of noodles needs about a bowl and a half of the rest of the ingredients.  Flush it with cold water, stir in some sesame oil and set aside.  Prepare the squid and marinade it in a mix of sesame oil, soy sauce and rice vinegar.  Grill or griddle the squid (I prefer this way to get a bit of colour on the squid.  Slightly charred squid tastes amazing!).  Cook it for too long and it will go rubbery so be careful.  Slice the squid and set aside to cool.  Boil the sugar snaps, baby corn and/or aspragus and flush with cold water.  Slice the peppers, cucumber and the spring onions. 

For the dressing you need to grind the sugar, garlic, ginger, sesame seeds and the sesame oil into a paste.  I use a pestle and mortar but i'm sure some kind of blender will do the job.  Mix up this paste with the vinegar and soy sauce. 

Put the noodles, salads, veggies, prawns... everything into a big bowl, pour over the dressing and mix it all up.  It is far easier to toss the salad with a clean hand.  Throw on some more sesame seeds for show if you wish.  Dish up, eat, enjoy and feel healthy.  Japanese inspired via New York Squid, Sesame and Soy Salad. 
 

New York - Winter 2012

A bite of the Big Apple

Sunday, 28 October

A school trip with 3 students and 14 teachers is my kind of trip!  This was really a 3 day city break for teachers but booked through a school trip company.  The students were actually just children of some of the teachers.  I am firmly a tourist on this trip as we have a full minute by minute itinerary organised.  First impressions? There's a lot of graveyards in New York...  And they are massive!  I feel they definitely took some of the lime light away from the famous New York skyline during our coach journey from the airport.  Second impression? Damn that's a beautiful skyline. 

We are staying on 31st street (yup streets have numbers rather than names here) which seems to be perfectly located for all the attractions.  A little on the expensive side but seeing as we are here for such a short time it's worth being close to everything.  We were in and then straight back out to time square to eat at a Mexican place called Chevy's.  Chevy's was alright but it was Times Square that really blew me away.  It was everything i imagined.  Animated advertisements, some as tall as the buildings, light up the whole street.  The square filled with hurried people, entertainers dressed up for a buck and yellow taxis posing for photos.  Sitting on the red steps in times square is possibly the best people watching spot in the world.  After dinner we queued to go up the empire state building for a free view of New York as Jesus sees it.  Breath taking... not because it was ridiculously cold and windy up there but because New York looks stunning from the sky.

Today was our main site seeing day.  A couple of us woke up on England time and so went for a wonder for breakfast.  Delis are massive here and were all open despite the hour.  Fantastic pastries, sandwiches, paninis, muffins, a full breakfast buffet and fresh ground coffee.  And cheap! A couple of sweet pastries and a coffee for about $4.  I could well get use to this.  The films don't lie; new yorkers actually do do this!  Once the group were up we took a stroll through Times Square and sat on the red steps in day light.  Still impressive but has a lesser impact on your retinas.  From here we started our walking tour.  This is the first time I have worn my walking boots for a city tour but i am so damn glad that i did.  We walked faaaar.  My boots carried me from the steps to the ice rink, to Grand Central Station, to Trumps Tower, around Central Park, across Brooklyn bridge, back across Brooklyn bridge and then downtown to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty.  Ok so we caught the underground a couple of times but my feet are well and truely done in!  Luckily, New York has many, many fuelling stations.  Pretty much one on every corner.  One of my favourite things about this place is that you can buy a hot dog for $2, and just as you finish eating it you will arrive at another hot dog stall.  I ate 6 today... and could quite happily eat another right now.

You know you're a tourist when you nervously stand next to a police car for a photo and end up getting a photo with the officers.  They're NYPD! The Grand Central station is beautiful but the real gold was buried below it.  A real fancy New York food court.  It looked amazing.  If only i hadn't eaten all these hot dogs... Anyway, apparently this was nothing compared to other food courts in NY.  It was great to roam around Central Park after hearing so much about it.  It is literally a big  square piece of green nature plonked in the middle of an urban concrete grey.  It was so peaceful people actually just slept on the grass (in hindsight i think these were just homeless people).  You get a great view from Brooklyn bridge and it was well worth the walk on tired feet.  It was around about here when we all started to receive text messages from worried loved ones at home.  Apparently England news thinks there is a hurricane coming.  It didn't feel all that windy so we weren't worrying too much.  And then we started noticing things... Like shops being boarded up, hot dog stalls closing up and really worried statues with their arms in the air (it definitely had its arms crossed and smiling last time we walked passed it) being strapped down!?

We ate at Hard Rock cafe two hours earlier than planned because they rang and told us that they are closing early due to hurricane Sandy.  They've named it!?!  That's got to mean something right?  Though it is a bit of a camp girly name.  Maybe it won't be so bad after all.  On a different and much brighter note, i had a pulled pork sandwich and it was goooooood.  Soft, fatty, juicy, salty and sweet.  If i die in this hurricane at least my last meal was a gooden. 

The City that Sometimes Sleeps

Tuesday, 30 October

We were supposed to be flying home today...  So it turns out that this hurricane was quite the big deal.  Its seriousness only properly sank in when i was watching the local news and it compared the incoming Sandy to the last years Irene (left).  We all took a deep breath as we sat and watched as they projected hurricane Irenes satellite view and gradually over-layed it with Sandy's.  It was shocking.  Not much happens in a city that is going through a super storm.

Sunday night in Jay-Z's bar didn't happen.  In fact every bar, restaurant and club were closed due to the impending hurricane.  Hotels, on the other hand, remained open.  And all hotels have bars!  Apart from our hotel that is.  So we put on our nights best and conducted what would be our first ever hotel bar crawl.  Drinking Long Island Ice Teas (for $16) in the Marriott hotel's rotating bar is a great way to see a storm through.  Yer it was a little pricey but i had put money aside for a helicopter ride weather permitting...  Pah!

The storm still hadn't hit us by Monday morning but pretty much everything was still closed in anticipation of Sandy's surprise visit.  Well everything closed but one place.  The all amazing, all American, Tick-tock diner.  I owe a few digits of my waistline to this place.  No place could tick more boxes for an American dining experience.  From the tight stripey booths to sit in, the fat pancakes, the maple syrup and even the over-weight greasy guys walking around topping up your filter coffee.  It has it all!  I had crispy bacon, eggs over easy and pancakes all with a sweet drizzle of maple syrup.  We spent the rest of the day roaming around and nosing in shops that wouldn't have even been of slight interest had any other shops been open.  As the evening grew nearer the heavens opened, the winds started to pick up and the streets gradually emptied.  We retreated to the safety of our hotel and sat it out. 

Cards, crosswords and CSI saw the evening through.  We are on 31st which turns out to be one of the few streets that have managed to keep their power.  At around 9PM we heard of a pizza place around the corner that had decided to stay open.  Braving the winds and keeping an eye out for flying cows we ordered a large New York pizza and ate it in our hotel rooms.  By this morning Sandy had left and we had the chance to witness the destruction left in her wake.  Fallen trees, building debris and smashed water towers littered the streets.  Sirens filled the air and you very clearly felt to be in the middle of a disaster zone.  Breakfast at Tick tock (yet again one of the only diners open) helped lighten the mood.

It was a whole day of nothing.  We went to China town and saw the odd few shops trying to make a living by opening to candle light.  We stocked up on water bottles (having also filled our bath tub with water in case the water is cut off) and then went back to the cards and crosswords.  There was one particular highlight of the day when we found a restaurant open serving a "Sandy's special menu" which i think translated to "we have had no delivery's but we will cook from what we've got menu".  It was here where i ticked off the New York cheesecake.  This had a much lighter and fluffier texture to the cheese cakes i know.  I don't know if that was unique to New York or to the restaurant but i definitely prefer it. 

By night the winds had completely died down and a few more places had started to open.  Feeling a little peckish; a few of us left the comfort of the hotel and went on the hunt for a Philly Cheese steak sandwich.  Papaya Dog had it advertised as selling the best in town but in light of Sandy they had no steak.  We bought a corn dog and carried on our hunt.  A corn dog tastes like a hotdog inside a freshly fried donut.  The mixture of sweet and salt, like bacon and syrup, seems popular here.  Obesity also seems quite popular here too.  Just saying.  We ended up in Times Square eating at Tad's Steaks which was a fast food steak house. You line up with your tray, pick your drink, sides and steak and wait whilst they cook it.  I had a t-bone with garlic bread, mash potato and gravy.  Proper comfort food with no bells or whistles.

"Start Spreading the News..."
Friday, 2 November

So we were supposed to go home last Tuesday.  We finally got confirmation yesterday that in fact we will be going home next Tuesday! As in an entire week later than scheduled.  School starts on Monday!? And two of the students have a maths exam on the Tuesday!  But lets see if we can make lemonade here...  If you have to be stuck somewhere for a week, New York (now that it is buzzing again) is probably the best place to be.  Considering we missed over half our itinerary we can now do it all at a much more leisurely pace.  In fact we can see much more of New York!  But to really put the fizz in it, we need to focus on the fact that our insurance is covering all of it.  The rest of our time in the hotel and 3 square meals a day.  Finally a pay off for all those times holiday insurances have screwed me over. 

On Wednesday Macy's finally opened again and we spent the entire day shopping.  Macy's is awesome.  I had eggs Benedict's for breakfast (from tick-tock of course), a seafood platter for lunch (from Red Lobster) and breaded shrimp for dinner (at Bubba Gumps).  We've gone through some tough times; a bit of retail therapy and comfort eating was needed!  I had a root beer float which i see as being very American.  It tastes like medicine.  And not Calpol.  We have done a lot of restaurants now and i am still not used to the American way.  I keep thinking my meal is say $20 and then realising i have to tip and pay tax on top of that!  The best Brits in America moment was when we ordered 4 portions of "hand cooked chips" to go with our buffalo wings and got 4 big bags of crisps...   

 

Yesterday we did the top of the rock for some great sky views of the city.  From here you could really see the contrast between the greenery of central park and its surroundings.  It's a beautiful view.  After, me and Jane decided that we wanted to go downtown to see the damage of Sandy.  The subways were running down to around 35th street (for free!) but anything further south were still being drained.  We caught a free bus to Battery Park which was one of the most affected areas of Manhattan.  Though everything was back on the mend, it didn't take long to realise how big Sandy really was.  Just listening to conversations on the bus of downtown residents were enough.  We soon learnt how lucky we were to have kept our power, our hotel and to have essentially lost nothing due to the super storm.  A free bus back to time square took us to our free meal in a place called Stardust Diner.  Here the waiters and waitresses are all singers hoping for their big break on Broadway. As a group we were well entertained as the food was decent and the performances were fantastic.  It takes quite some talent to carry a tray of drinks in one hand, over your head, and belt out "New York, New York" with a mic in the other hand! 

"...I'm Leaving Today"

Tuesday, 6 November

Oh my god possibly the best spontaneous decision i have ever made!  Standing on the red steps wondering what all these queues were about i investigated to find that they were selling discounted Broadway tickets.  Hmm how awesome would it be to watch a Broadway!? I didn't even consider fitting it into our tight 3 day schedule before.  For $99 we watched Lion King and almost cried in awe.  We were speechless.  Everything about it was just sheer genius.  I got so lost and fixated in the show, at intermission it felt like i had just woken up from a deep dreamy sleep.  If you have got the money (which i don't...) and the time then don't think twice about it!  After the best theatre i have ever seen i just happened to eat the best burger i have ever eaten from a fast food joint called Five Guys.  Various awards for the "best burger in town" are pasted around the restaurant and i completely agree with them.  They asked me what i would like in my burger and so i asked for a recommendation.  They responded with "everything".  It was the weight of a small baby and absolutely everything a burger should be!  They also have the most amazing drinks machine that i am sure is magical and belongs in Willy Wonka's factory (video below).  As if having a touch screen wasn't advanced enough for a drinks machine; it had 50+ different drinks, from Cherry Coke to Pink Lemonade, that came out of one tap!  When i am loaded (and as a teacher, clearly one day i will be...) i will be having myself one of these in my kitchen. 

 

With all this extra time we also managed to have a proper night out and go to Jay-Z's bar on Saturday night.  Cocktails, beer and dancing Gangnam style would sum the night up perfectly.  Oh and Sushi!  Yup, no post beer kebab here.  We're high flyers that go to bar 4040 and hang with the richest now.  Sunday was the unofficial New York marathon as Sandy cancelled the official one.  We walked through the park and watched for a little while before heading to the Guggenheim to feel a little cultured and at one with art.  If you are interested in art then i am sure it is pretty cool.  I was more into the actual building than anything.  I managed to take a photo whilst pretending to be texting on my phone.  Naughty i know but look how cool it looks! 

After the Guggenheim we went to witness some real culture in Harlem.  This was a completely different side to New York.  With scenes straight from movies like American Gangster and Save the Last Dance (i know this is Chicago but hey!) we instantly felt like people were looking at us as if we were a couple of turds in a punch bowl.  Within minutes someone approached us and asked us if we were lost.  We weren't lost but we were searching for Sylvia's restaurant for some soul food.  We knew nothing about it other than its recommendation in a guide book.  Whilst seeing no tourists around Harlem, we found them all in Sylvia's.  It was rammed.  With soul music playing through the speakers, photos of famous black people eating in the restaurant (including Mr Obama himself!) on the walls and ribs and fried chicken on the menu; this built up to be my favourite dining experience of the trip.  I only discovered that the soul music from the speakers was live when i went to the toilet and saw them playing! The singer actually incorporated "they're down the stairs honey" into her song as i stood next to her looking for the toilets!!  A basket of freshly baked corn bread welcomed us to our table as we ordered a starter of fried catfish and then the ribs and fried chicken combo with sides of candied yam, black eyed peas and macaroni and cheese for mains.  It wasn't even the best food of the trip but if i had a time machine i would relive this moment time and time again. 

For our final day we mopped up any remaining little bits of New York that we wanted to see:  The Staten island ferry, the High Line, China town (properly this time) and the fire station from ghost busters.  I ate a Philly cheese steak sandwich for breakfast and another Five Guys burger for my final meal in New York.  What a roller coaster of a trip this has been.   Yer there were some almighty lows but ultimately we gained so much out of it!  And how many people can say that they have been in a super storm?  The only real negative is that my trousers no longer fit and i have a ponch the size of Pluto.  When life gives you lemons, make New York style pink lemonade.  :o)