Day 12

The morning after the long day before...

I woke up and decided to go for a run. Partly because I am trying to get into shape and partly because I am trying not to gain a stone from all the beer that I am drinking.

I went out to the Traction Line Park / Trail again and then did a small loop on the way back to the house for 55 minutes in total. I ran half a mile at 6:20 pace on the way out and then a mile at 6:50 pace on the way back. Both efforts hurt and my pulse was quite high throughout. It's going to take a good while until I can get back into the 'swing' of running again.

We didn't do much today except to chill out with Ronan and Kara. Paulo and Ronan went for another drive in the 911 while I worked on getting this blog updated.

Later in the afternoon we went back to Long John's for lunch. This time I had the Belly Buster and it did not disappoint - I was stuffed. We packed up the car, said our goodbyes and headed off to Staten Island to meet Mark.

Traffic wasn't too bad until we got to the Verrazano Bridge. There was a parade earlier in the day and we got stuck in the aftermath but with some map reading and creative driving we made it to Mark's place around 7:00 or so.

We got the quick tour of his gaff, dumped the bags and then set off into the city. We got the bus into Manhattan, getting off right next to Ground Zero. We walked through the Financial District down to the South Street Seaport, had a look at the Brooklyn Bridge and then found a pub to retire in for a few relaxers.



I can't remember the name of the place right now (the downside to waiting too long to write about a night's activities) but it was a cool little spot. They had their own brews and I opted for the Red Rooster Ale. It was going down very nicely and the conversation was great but since Mark had work the next day and we had a busy day of sightseeing, we sensibly left for the 11:00 ferry.



The views of Manhattan and the Statue Of Liberty were absolutely amazing. I took some photos but they unfortunately did not come out very well. So we had another beer and just soaked up the views of the city.

Once we got back to Mark's we rustled up some dogs and then went straight to bed as we were going to have an early start on Monday and desperately needed the kip.