Bye-bye New York!

Thursday - our last day in the city. To our surprise it has become warm again and no coat was needed. We packed our luggage efficiently to not succeed the weight limit and left the house for a last culinary adventure at Maki-Maki, a new Japanese restaurant closeby theater district and Rockefeller Center. It's been just a hole in the wall, but they had a very efficient "assembly line" for the rolls (cut and handrolls) they exclusively offer. No wonder, Kevin, the owner, was an engineer and knows how it can be done effecively. Fresh fish and seafood with avocado or sauces wrapped in rice and rolled or put into a cone-like shape. It's been fun to watch and delicious to eat.

But,,, best thing this day was a 1.20x1,50 m (4x5 ft.) large laminated subway map, which I got for free. In one of the stations MTA workers were taking down old maps and I asked one of them whether they throw them away and he gladly gave it to me. What a finding! Made our day and, surprise!, didn't even have problems to bring it on the plane.

After lunch, we went back to our friends' place to pick up our luggage. Being a little anxious about security because of the terrorist attack a couple of days before, we left pretty early, around 1 pm, to arrive at Newark Airport at about 3 pm. Two hours for the trip is a good time considering the three trains we had to take. Departure was at 6:20 pm and once we were in the air we got a great last view of NYC from above (pic). The plane was full, but flight time was only 7 hours and we arrived half an hour earlier. Didn't sleep a single minute. Another two hours in total to get from MUC to our home - all worked out perfectly fine today.

Considering the 1,150 miles (1840 km) driven in one week in Upstate New York and the many, many miles walked and spent on subways in NYC – no wonder, that we are really tired and exhausted now. At least the weather in Germany is o.k., partly sunny and not too cold today, so that we went for a walk to the garden in the afternoon to get some fresh air and to not fall asleep too early.