You’ll just have to put up with my dry recounts until Muddy gets his travel-writing mojo back…

Sun shining, blue skies and bright, clear conditions? No wind, rain or snow? Do we dare dream of a trip to Top of the Rock Observation Deck for the full 360 degrees view of NYC? Yes, we do. And it is BREATHTAKING. I’d done it before, but this was new for Muddy and boy, was he thrilled. Being an early morning Thursday, the queues were mercifully short. We took some great photos and soaked up the incredible vista for a little over an hour. There’s nothing like looking at a city unfold before you so starkly and clearly from approximately 70 stories off the ground.

Coffee and carbs pit-stop at Dean and Deluca, then a trip to the New York Public Library corner 5^th Avenue and 42^nd St to crash a free public tour. The tour lasted an hour and was led by a bubbly Frenchwoman who was both incredibly informative and a real library enthusiast. The Library is amazing. I know the State Library of Victoria is lovely and the domed reading room exquisite, but this place could fit five SLVs and the SLV walls are not adorned with Greek marble, okay? Two eye-catching (free) exhibitions – one, a history of AIDS activism, the other, a pictorial history of children’s literature – and a Gutenberg Bible (cos, you know, they happened to have one lying around) later, had me and Muddy wishing Australia boasted more robber-baron cultural philanthropists…

Lunch was a street-side affair – the Halal Guys food cart on 53^rd Street. Oh my. Lamb and chicken gyro, shredded over rice and slathered in yoghurt never tasted so good. $6 well spent. Queues justified.

We ducked into the Paley Centre for Media, which is a TV library /archive where you can call up old shows / TV clips, news docos etc and watch them in situ on nice big computer screens. I managed to watch the Jackie Kennedy tour of the White House (CBS – 1962) referenced in Season Four of Mad Men. Cool. Muddy nerded it up with some news clips and an obscure comic book / pulp novel TV adaptation…

We capped off the evening with a 10 minute helicopter ride over the East River and Hudson, awestruck by the twinkling lights of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Jersey City. The flight was smooth and the pilot cruisy and calm. The complete tour included a South Harbour water-taxi ride and comp cup of sparkling wine, narrated by the charming, good-looking Brooklyn-born-and-bred “DC” (yes, that is his name) who was a wellspring of information about New York’s history and geography.

Highlight: the Statute of Liberty, glowing in the dark, while Ray Charles’ version of “America the Beautiful” wafted over the water taxi’s PA system. A lump formed in my throat. Why? Because, you just had to be there, that’s why.

It's Friday afternoon now, and I'm perched on the end of the bed in Apartment No 2 on the Upper West Side. It's nice and clean, and a completely different part of NY, but we miss our cosy West Village apartment already. 

Stay frosty. I know we will...