After two days back at work, it was time to settle in for a long weekend so we wasted no time and started the celebrations on Thursday night. I met Becca and Hannah down at the Southstreet Seaport for a little happy hour cruise. We didn’t really know what to expect from the route so we settled in with a cocktail and crossed our fingers that we would go past the statue of Liberty (and no, I didn’t match my drink with my jacket on purpose but it goes pretty well!)

The music got louder as we took a trip up the East side past the Manhattan bridge and enjoyed views of the skyline…And then our excitement built as we turned around and sailed right past the end of the island to Lady Liberty herself! Cheers! (sponsored by Bud Lite)

We gave ourselves the luxury of a lie in on Friday morning and then decided it was a boat kind of day once again and made our way to the North River Lobster Company – it recently featured in Time Out Magazine (guess they’ve been following my blog…) so it’s probably going to start getting busier but I feel smug at having discovered it before! This picture cracks me up:

#crustaceans

Everyone knows that one boat in a day is not enough so our next stop was the Frying Pan where we lazed on the end of the pier and enjoyed some moules frites – good job we weren’t too shellfish to share… Wow, I’m on a roll here…

Ok, ok, I’ll stop with the shellfish puns for now…

Now, 4th July is all about celebrating America and what could be more American than a night at the baseball. We took the train up to the Bronx for a Yankees game where we arrived to see a gospel choir singing the national anthem… Yankee hats were needed to fit in…

And of course we bought the biggest bag of popcorn ever (the guy at the checkout looked concerned that we wouldn’t have enough and suggested the jumbo bucket instead…) A great American activity to start the 4th July weekend! We even made it onto the screen thanks to the crazy dancing guy in front of us!

We ate brunch at Clinton Street Baking Company on Saturday morning where we had the most amazing biscuits and then spent the rest of the day on 4th July preparations. We quickly got into the spirit of it thanks to our banner, red cups and Pimms on the roof (well, we are all English after all and it’s the rule that in the summer, one must drink Pimms).

Brennan invited us to his rooftop for some pre-fireworks drinks and we marvelled at the view once again! Slightly awkward that we (the Brits) were the only ones dressed up in stars and stripes on a day celebrating American independence but we embraced it!

America: Land of the free and home of the Brave:

From there, we walked to the river to watch the fireworks which were amazing but difficult to photograph and better enjoyed not through the screen of an iPhone so I’ll leave them to your imagination!

All too soon it was our last day together so we treated ourselves to brunch at the boathouse, strolling down Literary Walk and past Bethesda fountain – definitely one of my favourite places in the park:

And then there was time for one last champagne cocktail by the water to toast the end of a great week!

I’m down to my final two weeks in New York so I’m aiming to make the most of it before I come back – look out for my final few adventures!