Day 4, Boxing Day, in which Penelope Cruz sacrifices her dignity

We took breakfast at Viand on Madison Avenue, a classic Manhattan coffee shop founded way back in the depths of 1976. The seven staff make up for the impossibly tight and narrow floorplan through sheer sweat and frenzied planning, the whole show conducted by the sweating Spanish waiter who politely takes customers' orders and then barks them in furious code at the relevant cook. Every square inch was carefully invested in either cooking space, seating for customers or storage of ingredients. Our knees thus met romantically under the table, while our plates jostled for space on a small square of chipped formaica. Despite the apparent chaos, it all ran smoothly and Paul's corned beef hash was reported to be just like his mother used to cook.

We had popped into Viand as it was on route north to the Guggenheim, but in the end breakfast was the destination in itself as we reached the gallery to find the queues stretching around the block, the poor suckers getting drenched in the rain. We figured the Guggenheim's best feature is its exterior anyway, and made the most of being so far up the East Side by popping back into the Met.

The Met lets you pay whatever you wish to gain entry. On our first visit (two days earlier) we paid the full asking price of $20 a head, so we figured since we were only popping in (to see William the Blue Hippopotamus and an exhibition of photographs from Robert Frank's Les Americains) it would be reasonable this time round to only pay a dollar total. The cashier did not seem to see things this way, and her beaming smile vanished almost immediately, to be replaced with a look that could sour milk. I've found this to be a common trait among New Yorkers - they treat you like shit unless they think they can make some money out of you. Incidentally, William the Blue Hippopotamus was absolutely the best thing in the Met, while Les Americains was simulataneously illuminating, amusing and bleak.

It was still raining when we left, so we ran to the nearest tube station - via muffins at Dean & Deluca, a delicious deli where apparently Hannibal Lecter ate when he wasn't eating violinists - and took the train down to Union Square to shelter in the cinema there. The only film showing was 'Nine', an absolutely awful musical in which Daniel Day Lewis puts on a dodgy Italian accent and lusts after Oscar-winning actresses while said actresses perform lap dances for the audience. Penelope Cruz lost all of her dignity doing a splay-legged routine in a thong in which she sang lyrics along the lines of "Squeeze this, squeeze that / Darlin', squeeze my twat", while grasping the various body parts she was referring to for additional character depth and in support of her complex narrative arc.

The only reason we didn't walk out after fifteen minutes was the rain and the fact the Flatiron Lounge on West 19 Street doesn't open until 5pm. I suppose if the film ran past 5pm, we'd have been enjoying chenin blanc in the lush art deco bar by the time Kate Hudson was flashing her tits. As it was, we had to endure the tits and wait. The Lounge was an immaculate recreation of a decadent 20s cocktail bar, and a fine place to spend any evening (considerations of Kate Hudson's tits aside).

Racing through the rain afterwards, warmed through with wine, we found our way to the Spotted Pig on West 11th. The Spotted Pig has become something of a legend in London, following a series of articles reporting that the founder of St John's in Farringdon makes an annual pilgrimage to the Pig to share some of his more palatable offal creations. Although it does not seem the Pig has retained any of his recipes (crispy pig ear being as adventurous as it got), we had some great bitter in the upstairs pub while wiating for a table, followed by a nice enough burger in the restaurant. It still has some way to go to earn its legendary status, but was a really cozy place to spend a rainy evening.

We later saw the street where apparently Carrie Bradshaw lives in 'Sex And The City', and the shop where this fictional woman buys her cup-cakes, and then headed down in the seedier side of gay obsessions by visiting Marie's Crisis on Grove Street. On previous visits this show tunes piano bar has been packed enough that you can get away with singing along without actually knowing any of the words. On this occasion, however, it was just a few nerdy looking gays singing the more obscure songs from Little Shop of Horrors, so we discussed international politics, drank up and caught a cab home.

We arrived in our room soaked through and smelling of wet dog, and fell into bed to watch tv. Over the past four days we've become addicted to a ridiculous tv show called 'Clean House', in which three idiots led by Niecy Nash will meet with people with very real mental health issues, and try to fix these psychological disorders by selling the majority of their possessions to the general public and then repainting their living room in earth tones using the money raised. Fortunately, to celebrate the Christmas season Style TV was having a Clean House marathon, and so the remainder of our evening was sorted.