Thanks to our friends Stephen & Kim, we spent the weekend in the TriBeCa neighbourhood of Manhattan as we "redeemed" their wedding gift! A short stay in a very, very nice hotel, The Greenwich. It's Robert De Niro's hotel (one of them?) and one of the top 10 NYC hotels on Tripadvisor. There were Robert De Niro films on every channel on the tv.... not quite.
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| © The Greenwich Hotel |
Even just taking one bag each and being away from our house from about 11am on Saturday to about 2pm Sunday felt like a mini-holiday, mainly as it was in parts of Manhattan we don't know that well.
It was nice to have a wander round a different area, especially as Tribeca still has a few cobbled streets, old, almost British style houses and lots of (mostly converted) loft buildings leftover from the textile years... as I read in the hotel.
The room on the 5th floor was super comfortable and airy with a great window ledge you could sit on and and watch the world below in action.
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The staff were super nice and dressed quite casually but this added to the homely feel for such a posh hotel (at least compared to what I'm used to). The free snacky snacks and various mini bar juices always help!
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| It's complimentary... can you resist? |
We used the hotel's location near the west side of lower Manhattan to go for a quick run round the piers. This area is really nice as it's been heavily redeveloped since 9/11 with things like a skate park, mini golf, various playgrounds, boat docks and the westside greenway bike path.
Back in the hotel heading to the lift we passed four girls all dolled up heading out for their Saturday night in town. We both had a little snigger when we overheard one say to the others "now, are we getting a cab or walking, it's two blocks". You know you have more money than sense when that's even a thought in your head.
Back in the hotel heading to the lift we passed four girls all dolled up heading out for their Saturday night in town. We both had a little snigger when we overheard one say to the others "now, are we getting a cab or walking, it's two blocks". You know you have more money than sense when that's even a thought in your head.
As part of the trip we also had $100 spa vouchers to redeem. Once we had scanned the spa menu and seen that massages and treatments were priced around $200-300 we decided on the 30min detox bath, costing $95 (plus tip!).
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| © The Greenwich Hotel |
The water was so hot it took a good run of the cold tap before we could even delicately get in. The room was Japanese style and super relaxing with the jingly jangly chirpy bird music in the background.
Once we'd cold showered and recovered sufficiently we headed downstairs to eat.
The attached Locanda Verde restaurant gets excellent reviews and as a result was fully booked but they served the same menu in the hotel courtyard which had some heaters up and was super quiet compared to the main restaurant.
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| © The Greenwich Hotel |
We were told the specials and the Rib Eye steak for two sounded superb.
This turned out to be possibly the tastiest steak I've ever eaten and had about six slices, two end chunks, two other longer pieces with the burnt crunchy edges and one piece on the bone.
Suffice to say, we had to get about a quarter of it "to go".
We tried to guess the price when the bill came based on the fact the chicken for two was $25 per person but we were just a little off. The total for the steak was $115, ha ha.
That's not including the starter, drinks and lemon tarte to finish and tip. But when we added in the free hotel stay, spa and all the hotel room sweets and juice we consumed, the meal was justified in our heads and we returned to our room happy... although not before taking a 30min walk. B-l-o-a-t-e-d.
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In other news, we went to the Brooklyn SS offices last week and I expect to get my social security number during the coming week. Now I have to book a doctors appointment to get them to verify my vaccination reports from the UK before I can file the adjustment of status paperwork and pay another $1000+ in what is hopefully the last load of paperwork on the journey to becoming classed as a resident instead of the conditional resident I am now.
This includes filing the paperwork that allows you to work until you get your actual green card in hand. So the honeymoon period will most definitely be over and I'll be fine tuning my resume, learning how to spell words with z's instead of s's and o's instead of ou's, etc and firing out those job contact emails I arrived with.... before getting a job in McDonalds. Although I hear dog walking pays $25 an hour.
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In other news, we went to the Brooklyn SS offices last week and I expect to get my social security number during the coming week. Now I have to book a doctors appointment to get them to verify my vaccination reports from the UK before I can file the adjustment of status paperwork and pay another $1000+ in what is hopefully the last load of paperwork on the journey to becoming classed as a resident instead of the conditional resident I am now.
This includes filing the paperwork that allows you to work until you get your actual green card in hand. So the honeymoon period will most definitely be over and I'll be fine tuning my resume, learning how to spell words with z's instead of s's and o's instead of ou's, etc and firing out those job contact emails I arrived with.... before getting a job in McDonalds. Although I hear dog walking pays $25 an hour.
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