The first real day of the trip. We were tired.

Breakfast was as disappointing as we anticipated—packaged bagel (no good for me), cream cheese, apple (do people like whole apples for breakfast?), low-fat yogurt, two hard-boiled eggs (yay!), and Tropicana orange juice. Not too bad, unless you’re expecting a cooked-to-order hot breakfast like we usually get at Hilton Garden Inn. Coffee was by Keurig. No kettle (as expected in the U.S.), so tea was not an option. Fortunately, I also had homemade peanut butter Rice Krispie treats in my bag.

After we got moving, we headed towards Chelsea Market to check it out and maybe get more breakfast food, or lunch. It was pretty interesting and not too crowded, but the food didn’t quite inspire—I think we were too tired. We also checked out the Starbucks Reserve Roastery, but gluten-free doesn’t appear to be a “thing” there. Hangry and tired from travel, we headed towards the (Tottenham) Spurs bar several blocks away without a clear eating plan. Luckily, our niece had told us about a Cuban restaurant (Coppelia) next to the Spurs bar, and we lucked into a table. The food was delicious and very welcome at this point.

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Flannery’s was interesting. It is definitely a Spurs bar.

The woman on duty was Irish, and no nonsense. She drew our ciders (Magner’s, as it’s an Irish bar), took our money, and left us to the Wales-Italy match on TV. There were only a handful of other patrons on this Sunday afternoon, but it was fine.

After a fruitless search for cord-locks for my new shoes, we meandered north. At Hudson Yards, we went looking for ice cream. We found some, but weren’t inspired enough to order. Instead, we headed to Blue Bottle Coffee for iced lattes made with whole milk. OMG—easily the best iced latte I have ever had. I might consistently choose this over ice cream. We then tried to visit the Peloton studio, but sadly it is still closed. (As I write this, more than two weeks later, they are still closed. Someday…)

Finally, we acquired less-insipid Keurig pods, cream, and raspberries at Whole Foods and headed back to the hotel. Maureen napped while I read Education Law. Summer school is relentless; sadly, you can’t really take ten days off.

We had plans to meet our niece and her cousin for dinner. A little research revealed that a 7-day unlimited MetroCard at $33 was a better deal than paying by the trip (even though touchless Apple Pay makes that very easy), so we purchased passes on our way into the subway. For reference, 12 rides is the break-even point on the 7-day pass.

Dinner was at Farida, an Uzbek/Kazakh restaurant (they say Central Asian). Maureen and I both chose manti—steamed dumplings—hers were filled with steak and mine with pumpkin. They were very tasty. The service was perhaps a little indifferent 😐, but the company was excellent.

A good first day. Lots of food, lots of walking, a little soccer and some chilling.