The village - strolling around the city - 1/8

Today we decided to set back in the morning - this means we left the apartment at around 11:30. We woke up late (Ioana woke up at 4:00 and fell asleep again in the morning) and we did some food shopping and so it went on. Anyhow the day motto is - no museums, not a very clear plan, just strolling around. We started with union square. Accidentally, there was some kind of race or marathon around. Having no clue how people can run and cycle on such temperatures. A lot of pigeons flew when we passed by and almost hit us (we though they are making a remake of hitchcock's The Birds). Being Sunday there was also an open market with a lot of organic vegetables. But who needs it when you can ship in the whole foods across the street and enjoy also air conditioning. 

A huge Barnes & Nobles store is near the square so we went in to show the kids what a book shop looks like. We tried to encourage them to buy some English books for beginners with so success, so instead, Ioana bought a gluten free baking book (with cakes she said that she has no idea they can be made - gluten free or not). 

The Whole Foods store mentioned before was there to be visited and to check what Tamar can find in (not a lot in the place we went). But all the others found something. From donuts to sandwiches and of course strawberries and raspberries. What caught our attention was the queue control systems. In order to save place, the cashiers are located in a row and not parallel to each other. So u don't know to what cashier you are waiting. So what they did was to have rows with colors (we got the green row) and on the screen above our head the numbers of the next free cashiers appear on the next color in row. It was very effective and went really quick. 

Queue control system in Whole Foods

Union Square and Empire State Building view from dws store

Well, what to do next? To visit Forbidden Planet store across the street of course. Yoram and the boys strolled around while Ioana and Tamar visited some clothes store. And then, just before starting to march to the next square we decided to enter the dws department store - not so much for the shoes and bags but for the view. In one of our books mentioned the view from the highest floor is amazing so we went to see it. The children were amused by watching weird people and the Empire State Building was very clear in front of us

We went down the stairs and guess what? Ioana couldn't resist it, so she visited dws and found a nice Fossil bag to take home.

Next stop - Washington square. Outside hot and this is part of the reason the air condition stores attracted us so more. But now it was around 15:00 already so it cooled down a little. The kids still said - it is warmer here than in Israel. At least in Israel not all days are hot (this is what happens to children who spent their summers abroad). 

On our way we saw a pub/bar which had a big sign- gluten free sandwiches. So since Tamar's gluten free cupcake from Whole Foods was not so great we bought her a Cuban sandwich with so much ham she couldn't open the mouth to eat it. But it was good and she ate almost all of it. And strawberries. 

Washington square is full of artists and bands. But the attraction was the fountain. People enter it to dip their feet and so did Yoni and Tamar (she dipped more than her feet, since she ran so fast Ioana didn't have time to tell her - watch out it's probably slippery). 

The fountain at Washington square

We rested on the grass and ate what was left and watched the bands and the street artists around. 

From here we started to walk home, not before we visited Bleeker street, saw the gluten free Rissoteria restaurant but didn't get in since no one was hungry anymore. But for ice cream they were. 

Ice cream at Gorm Ice Cream

We walked home along the 6th avenue since the weather was nice with pleasant wind. We crossed Soho and through Tribeca, showing Yoram and Amir the 9/11 memorial and then home. We arrived around 20:30 very tired. Tamar said she want to stay at home tomorrow. But don't worry, it will not happen. We have on the plan Frick collection and Rockefeller center and crossing Brooklyn bridge and sailing around Manhattan with Circle Line and strolling in High Line..... Well we have two more days left for all this.

The kids don't want to see any show, so we didn't decide yet whether we should take them without their blessing or leave it for the next time when they are bigger.