We finished our last day in London in peaceful gratitude and with no additional bites- so far, so good! We were excited to head back to Heathrow because remember we’d learned about the first class entrance last week on our flight to France- so we cruised right on in there this time. No lines, no fuss. And in just a few moments, we were back in the super cool first class lounge ready to eat some lunch.
Once we found a place to camp out and got some food and drinks, we realized that we really didn’t have as much time as we thought. I’m not sure how this is possible because we were, of course, traveling with me. But whatever. Soon we headed for the gate- and BTW, we continue to love that other countries don’t tell you the gate until it’s pretty much time to board. This keeps people from doing the thing we love to do here in the US … get all crammed up like we’re going to board even though we’re in group 9 and no one is boarding for another 45 minutes.
We had great seats again thanks to our constant hoarding of airline miles. We were across the aisle from each other with the stellar business class lay flat seats. The flight was awesome because we left at 7 pm and got there at 4 pm or something like that. By the time we did the whole Manhattan in a taxi situation, we got to our hotel around 7. Unfortunately, we had to repeat the bed bug protocol because we wanted to be SURE we weren’t importing the little demons so once again…there we were ironing things and putting everything up off the ground.
We didn’t need dinner since we ate well on the plane so we just grabbed a bottle of wine from the hotel lobby’s amazing selection (said in sarcasm!) and that was good enough. As we sipped our wine and tried to get settled in and ready for bed- which is funny because at that point we’d really been up for about 24 hours but it didn’t feel like it- I had a great epiphany.
“This is New York! I believe you can get anything done at any time in New York!” Jason was like…ok??? I said, “I bet there is some app for a laundry service who will come get all of our clothes, get it all washed and dried, and bring it back.”
And wouldn’t you know, there were several?!
The next morning, however, was Saturday. It appears a lot of New Yorkers use laundromats and laundry service AND do their laundry on Saturday. So, the same day service options were limited. But, there was a laundry mat just around the corner from our hotel so we walked over there to inquire and they said if we had everything there by 10, it would be ready by 3. It was 9:20. We ran back to the hotel, crammed everything into every bag we had, and then had a very real New Yorker moment of running down the streets with all of our dirty and clean clothes in bags to the laundromat. Another round of very high heat washing and drying coming up! AND- we didn’t have to lose a day doing it ourselves. Take my money.
With that done, we were ready for our favorite NY activity, which is a walkabout. We have our list of favorite places so we set off walking in their general direction. Oh, one interesting thing happened right when we left the hotel. Immediately upon exiting the hotel, it’s like we walked into the world’s largest garden center. Every plant, tree, and flower. Every direction. None of it was there the night before. Pure magic. I’d never stayed in this particular area of Manhattan before- and what a delight to discover the flower district!
We started walking north and eventually found the anarchy that is Times Square, but not before running into the end of what was a Puerto Rico parade of some sort. I love this about NY. You never know what’s going to be happening. Jason was somehow being hugged by about 7 Minnie Mouse’s and I realized we needed to get out of Times Square so we went up to this bar I like that sits above the craziness but allows for great people watching. After that, we weren’t quite ready for dinner at our favorite pizza place so we cruised back over to the other side of Times Square to our all time favorite bar - The Blue Bar. And this is where our hopes and dreams were crushed.
The Blue Bar is in the Algonquin Hotel, which is the cutest old hotel ever. However, the pandemic took its toll on our favorite hang out. The manager said, “come on, I’ll show you,” and he unlocked the door between the hotel lobby and what was the area we knew and loved. It is now a, gasp, empty room where they store luggage. Sigh. What is this world anymore?
So, they “relocated” the blue bar into the hotel lobby. It also doesn’t have the cool blue lights anymore. We were delighted to hear our favorite bartender was still there but then crushed to hear he was on vacation. Even my French 75 was warm. We were beside ourselves at this point. Down in the dumps. Only our favorite pizza in the old church would help now. And so, we were off again back across town. Determined to make this right!
And, right it was! The pizza was still great. The place is still rad. But also, why was it so hot? Jason once again hanging napkins from his face!! Despite us ordering a small, the pizza was very big, so we had half of it to bring back, which is a great problem to have! We then had to walk the 14 blocks or so back to the room to drop the pizza so that we could walk back to the laundry mat to get our freshly laundered clothes, and then back to the room again. That was an insane amount of walking for the day but we loved it.
And, it turns out our hotel has its own rooftop hangout spot so we spent the rest of the evening chilling up there and watching the sunset. Minus the sadness of the Blue Bar’s demise, it was a solid day in the city.
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