4th day in NYC

Today, we went walking on the 5^th Avenue, which is, according to Wikipedia, “a major thoroughfare in the center of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The section of Fifth Avenue that crosses Midtown Manhattan, especially that between 49th Street and 60th Street, is lined with prestigious shops and is consistently ranked among the most expensive shopping streets in the world.”

So anyways, there were the embassies of different countries, many churches and a lot of shops. We also saw one of the Trump buildings, which was impressive, and “Tiffany’s”. Next we decided to go to the Central Park but since it is huge then we wanted to rent a bicycle. Before we could do that we were convinced to take a tour on a kind of carriage which was driven by a tour guide. This was a good option cause the park is just so enormous that we would have spent the whole day there. In addition, the tour guide told us a lot about the different things and places inside the park as well as the buildings outside the park. E.g. which movies were filmed where, the history of the park and which celebrities live in which houses. For example, there was a house that was sold out before the construction was completed and a Russian billionaire bought a 10-bedroom apartment for her daughter who was just a university student....well why not?

One thing that I noticed is that the weather here is just insane. It changes so many times during the day that it’s hard to keep track. And one day it’s -2 degrees and the other day it’s +11 degrees, so it’s bizarre. Oh, and the NewYorkans jog a lot! That’s fine but they do it on asphalt and in weird outfits. E.g. it was freezing today and some people were wearing shorts or t-shirts; their skin was red from the cold but they kept on going....

Anyways, after the tour we were quite cold and wanted to go and find some tea or something. Luckily, the guy who offered us a tour recommended us one lovely French café. To be honest, the “word” of the day is “French” because there were French everywhere, everyone spoke French and well, we went to a French café. This was a real authentic French café, not one of those cafés that have a French name but still look like American fastfood restaurants with hamburgers and fries. The owner/waiter was French, there were dominantly French people eating there and there was so little room, just like in the cafés in Paris. The menu was French and well everything was just lovely!!! I was so glad that we found that place. PS: Since we said that the bicycle guy recommended us that place (he has brought a lot of tourists to that café) then we got a complimentary snack and after we had finished eating, we got a glass of champagne :)

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In the evening, we went walking again to get to the “Estonian House”. This was really far-far away but it was a good exercise and we could see the city again. Estonian house has 5 stories and it’s quite majestic. There’s a café and a bar on the first floor, with Estonian food and beverages. Funny thing is that the alcohol is not the same as in Estonia...so it’s like special beer and vodka, which is only for export. Anyway, we had an Estonian dinner. Then we met with a woman called Ell Tabur. She’s a vibrant woman who has done soooo much during her life. She moved here when she was 6 years old, speaks perfect Estonian and is all about promoting and protecting Estonian culture etc. She’s actually Tiina’s godmother, so a bit like family:P She told us many stories about her life and the Estonian house but also  about our relatives, who she knows very well. Afterwards, Tiina said that she was a kind of a superstar. One could say that she was the first Estonian superstar. Look it up on the Internet;)