The Diner, the Consulate, and the long, long drive.

Gotta love it!

The next day dawned brightly sunny and seriously humid - as far as we could tell. The sun was fairly difficult to spot amongst all the scarily tall buildings but we were pretty sure it was there. The air conditioning in the hotel room left us dangerously under prepared for what we would encounter outside - the adjustable temperature only allowed us to control exactly which degree of freezing we wanted to be and simply ignored the Off setting entirely. The children awoke at an ungodly hour of course, so we were up and about before some of New York's finest had even thought of their beds, and ventured out in search of food.
And so to the Diner. It had to be done. And not just because I wanted to indulge in one of the US's more revolting but oh, so delicious habits. I speak, of course, of pancakes with bacon and MAPLE SYRUP! Love it, love it, love it! Washed down with some seriously delicious coffee, (which puts London firmly into third place, leaving dear old Aus securely at the top), not espresso but lovely, none the less. After discovering that grape jelly is really not worth the calories, but Maple syrup SO is, we set off to keep ourselves both awake and occupied until lunchtime.
The Australian Consulate was our first stop, it being open at a sensible time and the shops not opening til 10. A small taste of home as we did our citizenly duty and voted in the general election. Well, it was either that or incur a fine, and that's not really the way to show your appreciation for being allowed to join the club, is it? Just for interest, we did a small comparison with the US consulate in Sydney - metal detecting archway? No. Bag x-ray? No. Armed guards? No. Bullet proof glass? No. Secret lift up to 50th floor? No. Bomb proof doors? No. Six-nil to the US.
We took an ordinary lift, in an ordinary sky scraper to an ordinary receptionist who pointed us in the direction of an ordinary room with a few booths and some lovely ladies who gave us the ballots and entertained Finn while we did our thing. Easy as.
There were a couple more must-dos to achieve before retrieving the car (and heaven alone knew where the dudes had finally got round to putting that), so we walked down 5th Avenue, bought a hot pretzel from a cart thingy, having decided the hot dogs were far too scary to eat before spending several hours in the car, took a quick peek at Grand Central Station, and ducked into FAO Schwartz to find a bribe, I mean toy, for Finn. As it turns out, the Toys'R'Us in Times Square is better, but the M&M's shop over the road is completely fabulous! A whole three floors dedicated to those little M&M characters' merchandise, with a couple of the actual chocolates for sale as well.
Back to the hotel to finish packing, check out, locate the car and brace ourselves for the long drive upstate. All managed without any fuss. Unlikely but true!

Very Grand. No dancing this time though.

Times Square and a Feathersword