From Cold Spring to a Brooklyn Engagement

After four days in a big city, Bradley and I were keen to get away from the crowds for a few hours and head up North a wee bit to a tiny town called Cold Spring.

It's about an hour and a half on the train, and on the way we went through lots of lovely looking towns with interesting names like Garrison, Manitou, Peekskill, Sleepy Hollow(!) and my favourite Tarrytown.

It would have been nice to hire a car and stop off at all these towns, but we didn't really want to hire a car for only half a day, so the train it was!

The town of Cold Spring is like something out of a movie. In fact, it looks exactly like the movie backlot's we saw at Universal Studio's. Like it had been put there as an example of a perfect American small town.

I suppose we were a bit out of season, Cold Spring gets most of its visitors in Summer, so when we arrived we were the only tourists there. The town was almost completely deserted and lots of shops didn't open for another hour or two.

We contented ourselves with exploring the lovely town, wandering along the back streets and admiring the houses. Lots of houses had Halloween decorations outside, and pumpkins lining the steps.

The main street itself was fantastic, full of old stores, with an actual apothecary.

The ridiculous view

We had already had breakfast at the hotel before leaving, but after running through Grand Central to make our train, our tummies had started grumbling, so we stopped at the Hudson Hil's cafe for a small town breakfast.

We had coffee and hot chocolate, followed with french toast and pancakes. Everything was delicious, and we entertained ourselves listening to the locals discussing with each other how all the power went out the previous night due to the storm, and it still hadn't been fixed at lunchtime. People were having such American conversations, about which college to apply to and business deals... it was awesome.

Hot Chocolate with cream

After brunch we headed down towards the water to sit for a while and let all that food digest. It was such a sunny day, and it was lovely to sit by the water and watch the boats go past and imagine what it would be like to live in such a small town, where everyone knows each other.

After immersing ourselves in small town America, we headed back to the train station to go back to the big city.

Halloween!

The only plan we had for the rest of the day was to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, and explore the neighbourhood's in Brooklyn.

It was amazing how nice the day had turned out, compared to the horrendous storm from the day before. For some reason, there were big walls on each side of the pedestrian walkway towards the Bridge, so it spoiled our view slightly. However, there was no mistaking the amazing view as we got closer to the middle of the Bridge.

The view back towards Manhattan

On the pedestrian walkway, one side is for pedestrian's and one side is for cyclists. It's funny to watch cyclists getting really angry at pedestrians walking in their lane.

View towards the Empire State Building and One World Trade Centre

The iconic Bridge photo

Upon reaching the end of the Bridge, a lot of people headed straight for the subway and back to Manhattan. We went the other way, and headed for Brooklyn Heights, an area of Brooklyn famous for its Brownstone houses.

The Brownstones were amazing, every street lined with pretty houses. We tried to pick our favourite houses on every street, but it just got too hard. All the houses were so nicely kept, and looked so inviting with lamps burning in the windows.

We found ourselves on the waterfront, and started heading over towards the DUMBO area. DUMBO stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, and has amazing views over Manhattan. We wanted to be here for sunset, to watch the sun setting over the city in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Mini Statue of Liberty

Along the way we had some amazing views of the Brooklyn Bridge. We've seen a lot of these same shots used in TV shows like White Collar, so it's cool to now be watching and know exactly where they're filming!

The River Cafe - a lovely, and expensive, restaurant directly under the Brooklyn Bridge. Apparently you get amazing views towards Manhattan from the dining room. I loved the fairy lights and lanterns hung in the trees outside.

Artfully blurred photograph..

The boardwalk under the Brooklyn Bridge

Bradley looking very pensive - I found out why about 10 minutes afterwards!

As we were sitting watching the sun setting over the city, I turned around to find Bradley on one knee and he proposed! I was completely in shock, and told him to get up off the ground! After lots of crying, I of course said yes. 

He got up off the ground, and even though we were surrounded by tourists, no one had seen anything, which was good since I couldn't imagine anything worse that having to speak to strangers while trying to enjoy the moment!

He later explained he'd been planning for a while to propose in New York, and had secretly bought a ring online, but that it had gotten lost in the post. So without a ring, he'd thought about putting it off, but then changed his mind again when we walked around the corner to the boardwalk and saw the sun setting over the city. It would have been hard to imagine a more amazing setting than that!

Afterwards we were both excited and in shock at the same time, so instead of celebrating with champagne, we grabbed a pizza and headed back to our hotel, knowing I'd have to Skype my family ASAP.

So it was an amazing last day in New York, and one we'll always remember. We Skyped my family first thing in the morning with our news, though they'd already guessed after my urgent request for a Skype date!

We bid a sad farewell to one of our favourite new cities in the world, and headed off to our next stop, Boston.

Celebrating with Chocolate moustaches rather than Champagne seems more fitting to us