Saturday 12th July - last day in NYC - boo hoo!

I don't wish to sound ungrateful because we've been so very lucky, but there's so much more we could do here! When we woke up this morning it was a matter of deciding what we could live without seeing to decide what we should do,  so we went to check out the Highline - an elevated park and walkway on the West side which is a historic railway freight line that's been transformed into a public space and 1 mile long park. I can imagine it would be quite bleak in winter but it was wonderful in summer - flowers everywhere, lovely shady trees, great views (into people's expensive real estate), and a busy crowd of people enjoying the beautiful day.

After walking the Highline we explored Chelsea Markets - a whole ground floor of eateries and shops underneath office spaces for YouTube and Google - very cool!  We found our first and only real NY coffee here - an espresso!! We had delicious savoury crepes for the grown ups and meat pies for the kids (declared not as good as the "Rock 'n Roll Market" pies)!!

A bit of shopping for Damian, Em and I - though separately - Emily and I headed to the upper east side to find the flagship stores for Kate Spade and Ralph Lauren. To say the sales staff at Ralph were snooty would be a massive understatement.  It was as if they had the bottom floor of a building to try to intimidate people into not coming into the store by checking them out and pulling a face as though a smell had just walked in.  It was quite fun to walk past with a bag - they truly could not hide their surprise at us buying something - but they had a big sale after all.  They were however happy to hang off the customers who had the obvious big money.  Kate Spade store was just pretty and beautiful and people were nice there!
Finally we headed to Sunday Mass at the Cathedral where they presented for the first time in USA the relics of Pope John Paul II - very special- and out for our last dinner in New York at a place on Central Park South called SaraBeth's.  After dinner Emily was keen to go to the flagship Apple Store on 5th Avenue - where around 900 staff work!! They have a special room at the back where they give access to celebrity's who are shopping and need some privacy!! Not quite like that at the Carindale store!!
A last wander around Times Square to see the night lights and off to bed to make sure we'd be up and ready for for our train to Boston in the morning.

Views of the Highline