Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night – it was quite late by the time we got home and went to bed, and then jet lagged ensured that we both woke up at like maybe 4am? Tried so hard to go back to sleep but was wide awake til about 7am until we finally gave in and got up and went to have some breakfast.

Coffee and pastry at the hotel again. We decided to go for the savoury option this morning and both had the Spinach Burek. And they were so damn tasty! So tasty! I’m still thinking about how good it was now! We also had a yogurt/museli thing that we bought at the supermarket yesterday.

It was another hot day today, and we were quite tired but we decided to trek out to Coney Island because we hadn’t been there since we were last in New York in 2009 and we wanted to see if it still existed.

We caught the subway out – quite a long trip around about an hour – but tbh it was quite nice just sitting on the train and chilling.

When we finally made it to Coney Island it looked a bit like it had been abandoned and that its glory days were finally over. There were still plenty of cool signs to see. And Nathan’s Hot Dogs – but they too had changed their signage – updated some may say – but it kind of lost its awesomeness.

As we approached the boardwalk however, and started seeing the beach – we noticed that it was actually really quite busy. Loads of families set up for a day at the beach. And as the clock ticked past 11am the theme park rides started operating- so Hurrah!, Coney Island lives on!

We walked along the boardwalk and noticed a lot more of the original signage on the restaurants had been updated and most of the weird things we saw at Coney Island last time were no longer to be seen.

I tried to recreate a photo we took in 2009. I can’t actually find the original pic atm but when I do I’ll add it in for comparison.

After we’d had our fun at Coney Island, we decided to head off to Dumbo, Brooklyn. Dumbo stands for “down under manhattan bridge” – we had heard that good views and ice cream abound there. We decided to get lunch there too.

We got on the subway but our plans were delayed when our train broke down (probably due to the insane heat) and we had to have the train drive manually open the doors for us to get out and then wait for another train. By this stage I was getting very hungry…should’ve eaten those fried clams at Coney Island.

Anywhoo…. We eventually made it to the Dumbo area. We headed to the Timeout Market thinking we would get some lunch there but nothing appealed…then suddenly when all seemed to be lost and we thought we were going to starve – it appeared on Google Maps – SHAKE SHACK 🪄 Our saviour in a time of darkness. Oh and do I mention how hot it was today? Blisteringly. So on route to Shake Shake, we stumbled upon Lukes Lobster Shack. Not since Maine in 2017 have we had lobster rolls. Ok, change of plans. Lobster Rolls it is. Omg they were so good.

We saw this cat too.

It’s pretty cool around Dumbo – very hip. Lots of great views of the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. Super cool actually.

Ice cream was in order due to extreme heat (and extreme deliciousness) so we went to nearby Van Leewins ice cream for a cooling treat.

We were contemplating walking across Brooklyn Bridge but luckily we were sensible and decided it was too hot for those kind of shenanigans. Instead we got iced coffees from Arabica.

Then it was time to leave Dumbo. A quick trip to Old Navy so I could buy some jeans and a visit to Whole Foods to get some yogurt for tomorrow’s breakfast and then back to the hotel.

We managed to make it out for dinner at a nearby taco place – Tacombi before heading back to the hotel and promptly passing out. Actually that’s not true – couldn’t pass out because I had to do this blog!