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Some three hundred years after the English did it, we now plan to conquer the city that never sleeps.
Our gang is only Mateusz, Julia and me, but we have no doubt that we will take New York.
Since the things we will be doing there are probably not allowed for children or are considered too boring by some, Maja and Sylwia had to stay at home.
We are currently drinking whiskey and cola (mom doesn't worry - Jula doesn't drink) while waiting for our dreamliner...

The flight lasted nine hours. However, it flew by like a whip, thanks to a new friendship with Maciek - a Rzeszow native who has lived in Queens for thirty years and a culinary YouTuber, with whom we chatted the entire trip.
America greeted us with an hour-long line of immigration services officials, self-service fingerprinting machines, and telescreens showing Obama's speeches.
Mr. Edek was waiting for us at the airport, who kept us awake by entertaining us with conversation and driving us to Millbrook, 130 km away, to the beautiful estate of Agnieszka and Witek. Agnieszka is my dear friend from school. We went to high school together, named after the Czech communist - Gottwtald.
We spent the evening, or rather the night, drinking wine and talking about the future of Poland, America and the world.
I started Sunday with jogging. The area is idyllic, the oak-beech-maple forests are strikingly similar to our Masuria. Rarely, I came across a house, and even more rarely a car, but always with a driver greeting me with his hand.
For breakfast, products from local farmers - eggs, lightly salted eggs and napkins taste almost like ours.
Then a trip to the residence of the only US president with three terms - Franklin D. Roosevelt in Springwood on the Hudson River. Then dinner at a fish restaurant in Kingston, a game of balls - Mateusz with Heniek vs me with Edward and Witek on goal, then a pool and a barbecue.
And that's how we spent our first day...

After scrambled eggs and bacon, Mr. Edward drove us to the Dover Plains train station and after a two-hour ride we were in the heart of NYC at Grand Central Station. The station is impressive and since we were almost hungry we decided to celebrate the beginning of our stay in the Big Apple with a visit to the famous OysterBar, which is located on the lowest level of the station. We ate fried crabs and calamari.
Then we took the subway to our hotel to get rid of our bags. The hotel was well located near SOHO, Eastvillage, Chinatown and Little Italy. So we definitely had plenty of food here.
Without our suitcases, we went to visit MoMa, the museum of modern art. The art turned out to be very modern indeed. Julka did her homework assigned by the art history teacher in connection with the trip, and Mateusz and I quickly came to the conclusion that if we only wanted to, we could paint works much more tasteful than those we had to see.
After a soul food, we strolled through Timesquare to St. Patrick's Cathedral. Then we shopped at Macy's for parts for our Kitchenaid, and finally went to Chinatown for dinner.
After such an exhausting day, at 10 p.m. we decided to collapse from exhaustion, which is exactly what we did.

Well rested, at eight o'clock we went out to look for food. Finding breakfast here is not difficult, because there are a million breakfast places around our hotel. We chose an organic breakfast - as it turned out later - the last, healthy meal of the day.
Our first destination for today was the World Trade Center. First, the architecturally fascinating shopping mall, which is not yet in the guidebooks. It looks like it is about to take off. Then, the 9/11 museum, which is both depressing and uplifting.
After a long tour, the male part of our group decided to eat. For lunch, we chose the best burgers in the city, according to Antoni Burdain. Although Antoni recommended them when Shake Shack was still a single shack in Madison Square Park, and not the burger chain it is today, Mateusz and I do not regret a single bite or a single fries covered in cheddar and sprinkled with bacon cracklings. Julia looked at our consumption with a certain distaste, but her ears quivered just like ours when half an hour later she was eating ravioli with four cheeses sprinkled with parmesan on the street. Well, we are the same, regardless of whether the source of our happiness is ox and pig or gluten and cheese.
After lunch we browsed the shops and explored the charming Chelsea market.
For lunch, we ate - that is, Mateusz and I - kosher sandwiches at the iconic Katz Deli. A place founded in 1888, where during the war they came up with the idea of "Send salami to your boy in the army". Judging by the pictures on the walls, everyone was here. My beautiful and beloved (now, after hectoliters of injected Botox, just beloved) Meg Ryan faked an orgasm here in "When Harry Met Sally".
And the best part was the end of the day. Julka and I (Mateusz was bench pressing in a NYC gym at the time) listened to the lovely Adele in Madison Square Garden, who, like us, but not with us, came to NYC for a week. Beautiful voice, beautiful contact with the audience, beautiful show.

For breakfast we had toasted bagels with cheese, egg, salmon and avocado. Who would have thought that the bagel was introduced here by a Jew from Krakow.
The pub was charming, but we waited about an hour for our meals, which the manager compensated me with a plate of bagel crackers with chicken salad.
After breakfast we walked around our neighborhood, then Central Park, and spent a few hours at the Museum of Natural History.
And then we reached the culmination of today, and maybe of the entire trip.
Steak.
The place is called "Peter Luger". It is located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It has been awarded the title of the best steakhouse in NYC thirty times in a row. The menu simply describes it as a steak for one, two, three or four people. Depending on how many people it is served to, it is made from meat from different heights of the spine. The best, lumbar, in the version for two people is called a "porterhouse". And that is what we ordered (me and Mateusz - Julia did not eat it). Two parts separated by a T-shaped bone. The smaller part is from the tenderloin, the larger part is from the roast beef. Long-seasoned. Strongly grilled. Medium rare. Served with a special pine sauce.
Delight.
After dinner we looked for Polish traces in Greenpoint, and in the evening we dropped in for a drink at a live jazz venue two blocks from our hotel.

Mateusz and Julia slept with earplugs tonight, so we all slept well that night. The first day of autumn turned out to be completely cloudless, so after a good breakfast we decided to take a boat trip and go to One World Center.
The views on a sunny day are beautiful, and ribs with beer take on a completely new taste when eaten half a kilometer above the ground.
After lunch we strolled around Times Square. At the Apple store on Fifth Avenue we watched the crowds fighting over the new iPhone 7. It's not my religion, but I'd probably do the same thing if Samsung had a store here.
Dinner in an Italian restaurant in the evening. Julia was over the moon about the ravioli and I was over the moon about the ossobuko.
And to end today, an extraordinary, breathtaking Broadway show - a combination of acrobatics and musical. What people won't come up with...

We started the day with breakfast in a crowded and very New York breakfast room. The pancakes were exceptionally large and melted in your mouth. Then shopping. For lunch we sailed to Brooklyn to the famous Grimaldi's pizzeria. They serve pizza from a huge coal-fired oven and apply the rule of four no's: no slices, no credit cards, no reservation, no delivery.
After lunch we walked back across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan and spent the afternoon at Macy's. For dinner we went for sushi. Uncle Google chose one of those places that contributes to the omnipresent obesity here - a huge restaurant behemoth where for a price displayed at the entrance you eat as much as you can.
After dinner, with full bellies, we go to bed, counting the hours until our departure.