Sorry we have taken so long to update the blog. The long drive to and from Niagara Falls, and experiencing New York has been really time consuming but we now feel well immersed into our American adventure and have a little bit of downtime…

Thursday 25th - We had to have an early start today (6a.m.) as we had over 400 miles to drive to head to Niagara Falls.When we arrived we were surprised how run down the American area leading to the Falls actually is.We were flagged in to a car park next to a building which boasted the title "Gateway to Niagara".We went into the building which showed that they offered information, maps etc.If you ever go, do not get fooled by this place!This is a privately run company who have nothing at all to do with the Falls and their maintenance.All they are there to do is sell their exceptionally expensive tours around the Falls.We realised this after speaking to the information desk assistant and so headed out of the rear of the building to where the true Niagara Falls information building is located!We then headed to the Falls themselves and, as you can hopefully tell from the video and photographs, they were incredible.The noise from the Falls is so loud that the Indians used to think the God of Thunder lived behind them.Anyone heading to the Falls should take their passport as there are three Falls altogether and the most magnificent of these can only be seen from the Canadian side (Niagara Falls are on the American/Canadian border).Unfortunately we were unable to head over the bridge to view the Falls from the Canadian side as this would have invalidated our 6 month visa, but I would urge anyone who does not have the same restrictions as us to go over there.We were still blown away by what we did see.The famous "Maid of the Mist" boat trip had ended for the season the day before we arrived so we decided to go on the "Cave of Winds" tour instead which is basically a trip down in to the gorge to see the smallest of the Falls from below.You get absolutely soaked through from the spray from the Falls and we are still trying to decide whether this is what caused Ralph's man flu!!We had a totally amazing time there and then headed to our hotel to check in and go to the shops to pick up some bits and pieces (including a duvet as we can no longer cope with the thin sheets we are given to sleep under in the hotels we have been staying in!).We then headed back to the Falls at night as they are lit up with ever changing colours to create a magnificent spectacle.We hope the photos of this do it justice.I told Ralph I think some of the photos look like paintings but that's because he had to take them on a long exposure setting to try and increase the amount of light in the darkness, which causes the water to look blurred.We saw black squirrels in Niagara, the first I have seen since we visited our friends Libby and Mark when they were living in Vancouver, Canada.I suppose its because we were so close to the Canadian border.

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Friday 26th - Set off for on a 400 mile journey to New York City and realised there was a problem with the car - it was overheating and coolant was pouring out underneath.Spoke to the rental company who said it sounded like there was a crack in the coolant bottle.They had to arrange a tow truck to come and get us and take us to the nearest Ford dealer to deal with the problem.The guys at Ford were fantastic promising to try and get us on our way to New York City "to see that gorilla on top of the Empire State Building" before the end of the day and also agreeing to give the car a quick once over to ensure that everything else was okay before we went any further.We were particularly happy with this as our rental company was picking up the bill.They told us the problem was that the thermostat was stuck and therefore the car was constantly overheating.After a 4 hour wait in their service area (which was fine for me as they had a t.v. and magazines but not so great for Ralph as he had picked up a bug and was feeling decidedly ill. For once - not a hangover!) they installed a new thermostat and flushed out the entire system.So, at about 5 p.m. they set us back on our way to New York City and we reached our hotel about 11 p.m. totally exhausted!!Hoorah for the guys at Ford!

Saturday 27th - New York City!! - We were up early to get the bus from our hotel to Times Square in New York City.My excitement was beyond measure and, once we got there, we could understand why.New York City is fantastic and both Ralph and I fell in love with it over the time we spent there.I would say that if you are fit enough (New Yorkers walk a lot and the subways have loads of steps to contend with) you should definitely go to New York City at sometime.The main things we noticed are that New Yorkers are in the majority super thin, we were told this is because they walk everywhere.They are also very friendly, despite the bad press they get for this.Everyone we spoke to helped us out in any way they could with directions, maps etc.The only things you have to get used to here are the pace of life, which is really fast and so you have to walk virtually everywhere like you are almost jogging, the noise, as there are always taxi horns being sounded and emergency service sirens constantly going off, and the amount of people.There are over 8 million people living in the 5 boroughs of New York City (Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx and Staten Island) and tourists then add daily to the amount of people there.The City is also surprisingly clean; no litter anywhere that we saw.We got our bearings (surprisingly I managed to understand the street system - places like 45th West and Broadway - almost immediately, which made things a lot easier) and then went to look at some of the sites.We visited one of Ralph's favourite buildings, the art deco Chrysler Building, and then went on to look at the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, the famous ice rink etc.All these buildings were totally beautiful (make your own mind up from the photos) and we were so surprised at the amount of stunning and diverse architecture in the City, as we never thought there would be so much beauty.We then bought a tour ticket which cost about £24.00 each and lasted for 48 hours.It included a tour of the midtown and downtown areas (which include areas like Chinatown, Soho, Chelsea, Little Italy, Ground Zero etc.), uptown and Harlem (which obviously covered Harlem and also Central Park and the apartments of the numerous famous faces who live in the area), a night tour of downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn in order that we could get some stunning pictures of the Manhattan skyline across the Hudson River, a 2 hour daytime river cruise which took in areas like the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero, and a tour of Brooklyn.We decided to take the night tour, which started in the glitzy Times Square, the lights of which are so bright it makes it seem like the middle of the day even though it's the middle of the night!!We loved the night tour even though the tour guide's microphone was broken so we couldn't understand a word of what was being said!

Sunday 28th - Went straight to the Empire State Building to try and beat the queues but still had to wait an hour to get up there.Views were fabulous (again) but it was really windy up there, and no sign of that gorilla!Full of people from Bolton too which was very strange.We even chose to yomp from the 80th to the 86th floor, but took the lift up to the top on the 102nd floor - we are not that stupid!We then took advantage of the downtown tour on the open top bus to save our legs.Unfortunately it was really cold so after the 2 hour tour we retreated Starbucks to warm up before returning to our hotel to rest and choose better clothing for the rest of our visits to the City.

Monday 29th - We took the uptown and Harlem tour which took us around Central Park, including the apartments of the rich and famous.We saw the Dakota apartments where John Lennon was shot and where Yoko Ono still lives as well as the television studios where lots of the really popular American shows such as the David Letterman and Jay Leno shows are made.After the tour we made our own way through New York City to see the Flatiron district, Chinatown, SoHo (so called because it is SOuth of as The HOuston Street), NoHo (NOrth of HOuston Street), Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Ground Zero and Little Italy.It was very late when we got to Little Italy so we decided to have a meal in one of the lovely restaurants before heading back to our hotel.The sad thing about Little Italy is that a once large Italian area is now confined to one solitary street (albeit a long one).The reason for this is that Chinatown has expanded and expanded and taken over all but this one street.The meal was lovely but we were terrified; the owner sat behind us staring at everyone, there was a burly looking guy on the door and another man who seemed to be the owners minder who watched over proceedings and did odd jobs when he felt like it, such as clearing a table instead of the waiters or giving out change.There was definitely something strange about the place and I had the distinct feeling that the restaurant was a cover for some other operation.It did not surprise me at all to read in the guidebook we have that all the people left in Little Italy were either friends and companions of John Gotti or were paying him for protection, and this used to be the area he hung out.Obviously he is currently hanging out in prison.

Tuesday 30th - We took our boat trip which was included in the tour.Somehow we managed to blag a longer one as the tour entitled us to a 75 minute tour and we got a 2 hour one.We have been really lucky with things like that in New York!We sailed past places like Liberty Island, Brooklyn and Ground Zero whilst getting a fascinating commentary on the history of the area.Afterwards we headed to the theatre district for our Broadway show.We chose a show musical comedy called Curtains which starred David Hyde Pierce (who played Dr Niles Crane in Fraiser).We had good seats and really enjoyed the show, although Ralph thought that David Hyde Pierce was just playing the same character as he does in Fraiser so it was no large stretch for him, although it did show he is a really good comedian as his timing was perfect.

Wednesday 31st - A really hot day so we bought some goodies and headed to Central Park for a picnic.We also took in all the sights of Central Park, which is absolutely huge, and New Yorkers are very lucky to have a place like that to spend time in.You can take a horse drawn carriage round Central Park and I have always thought that was the thing you simply had to do but after smelling the horses we decided against it!We stumbled upon Lenny Kravitz filming his latest music video (which seemed to consist of him standing on top of a tank which had been covered in paint) as well as the filming of a new movie called Ghost Town.We made our way over to Yoko Ono's tribute to John Lennon, an area of Central Park named Strawberry Fields.As it was Halloween it was full of crazy stoners involved in some ritual, hoping to summon John Lennon from the dead.One of the guys there was the worst guitarist and singer we have heard (think the drugs had something to do with that) and we hope you can see that from the video we took of him.Sorry about my giggling on it!!We then made our way downtown to see the Halloween Parade.Unfortunately we did not get there as early as we had hoped and the best places had gone and the place was heaving.Ralph and I guessed that there must have been in excess of a million people there, milling around.The thing about Halloween in New York (perhaps in the rest of America too, I don't know) is that it is not just about dressing up as ghosts, ghouls, and vampires etc.People dress as what they would like to be.We saw some fabulous costumes.People dressed as hot dogs, Amy Winehouse, Captain America, cops, condom packets, Captain Jack Sparrow, Jack Osbourne, Richard Simmons and hundreds upon hundreds more.The parade was really good, although we were gutted we had not got a better spot.We could see everything but the floats were easier to see as they were higher up.The best part of the parade was a group dressed like the zombies from Michael Jackson's Thriller video and doing the moves to the song perfectly in time with one another all the way through the parade - totally unforgettable. Everyone was cheering that one.

Thursday 1st - We headed out to Ground Zero where I had seen that people affected by the attacks offered guided walking tours around the area - a sort of living history tour.We made our way there and took a look around the World Trade Tribute 9/11 Visitor Center.The place has lots of videos to see and lots of items from the attacks including missing posters, charred firemen's jackets, pieces of the buildings and planes.We then started our tour.Our guide was a lady who worked for the Red Cross and so was shipped in from Brooklyn on the day of the attacks to assist at the centres set up to assist people affected.She said the saddest thing was that there was virtually no one to help as the few who got out mainly just headed home in shock. The tour was completely amazing and I would say one of the things you have to do if you visit New York.You get told about the history of the towers together with first hand experience of 9/11 and how it has affected the people involved.One of the interesting things we were told is that the number of people who died would have been a lot higher on a normal day but it was a polling day and so many people had stopped on their way to vote, and it was also the first day of school for kindergarten children and so many parents were going to be arriving at the office later after taking their children to school for the very first time.At one point we stopped inside the new World Financial Centre (which has been built on landfill that was dug out of Ground Zero and dumped into the Hudson River to enlarge Manhattan) and our guide introduced a Polish lady who wanted to speak to us about her experience.This was the most moving thing we had heard.The lady was a civil engineer and had worked in the World Centre for many years.One the day she had got ready for work as usual and was strapping up her usual high heeled shoes when she spotted some flat shoes in her wardrobe and decided to wear them for a change.She thinks this is one of the main contributors to saving her life.Her husband dropped her at work at 7.30a.m.She explained that less than a month before she had been in a lift in the World Trade Centre when it had dropped suddenly.A quick thinking colleague had pressed the stop button but they had dropped 30 floors in a second.She was so scared she did not go to work for a week afterwards and had spoken to her family in Poland who had said they would ask the Church to do a service of thanks to God for the fact that she was not harmed in the lift incident.Her mother had explained that the only date the church was able to hold the service was September 11th.Her sister had then e-mailed her on September 10th to remind her that the whole family would be at Church in Poland the next day, September 11th, thanking God for her safety.At the time the plane hit the north tower (it hit the 91st floor and she worked on the 86th floor so it was right above her) she heard a sound like rushing wind and screaming metal and the whole building shook and she and her colleagues thought it was an earthquake.The flexible building then bent over, first to the left and then to the right, she said she had to stand as if she was on a surfboard to keep herself upright.She then heard one of her colleagues screaming to get out and so she ran to get out but the area was filled with thick black smoke that she was sure she could not get through and so she accepted she was going to die.She said this is an experience you cannot describe unless you have experienced it.Then she remembered her sisters e-mail from the night before explaining that the Church service to thank God for her safety was to be held that day.She found the strength and faith to try and get out and ran as fast as she could to the stairwell.She was thrilled that she made it but still had 86 flights of stairs to get down.She said the stairs were completely empty until she got down to about the 45th floor, as the drill with the World Trade Centre meant that you had to wait for an announcement before leaving the building, and there had been no such announcement.People were therefore just waiting at their desks for such an announcement and continuing to work in the meantime, as, like she explained, people watching on the television on the other side of the world knew what was happening whereas people in the building itself had no idea.She finally made it out and across to a Church which is located across the road.She then felt something inside her telling her to get further away so she ran and ran until she hit the beginning of the Brooklyn Bridge.When she turned to look back she saw the South Tower collapse, 100+ storeys in 12 seconds, like a pancake.She then started to walk home, trying all the telephones on the way, but they were all down.Finally she found a working telephone and got through to her husband, 4 hours after the towers collapsed and her husband cried as he thought she was dead.She said that that night her husband and son fell asleep on either side of her holding her hands, but she could not sleep at all for many days.This woman was incredible.She was in tears when she finished her story but she was strong and happy to share her experience with us.We were also told by our original guide that the number of people who died in the South Tower could have been less, as when the North Tower was hit people from the South Tower started to filter out of their offices and out of the building.However, due to the people starting to come out of the North Tower and the fact that the authorities never expected the second tower to be attacked, they asked them all to return to their work so that they could concentrate on the North Tower.Unfortunately the South Tower was of course then hit and then it collapsed first.

As a complete contrast, that night we went to see the semi-finals of the New York Stand Up of the Year competition.We were dubious as to whether the New York comedy would fit with our British sense of humour but we had the most amazing night.The 20 comedians (apart from one who died on his arse!) were all fantastic and really funny.At the end of the night, after the winner had been announced, a famous comedian (sorry I am rubbish and cannot remember his name) dropped in and did a further 30 minute show.I know I have seen him in things like Curb your Enthusiasm.Anyway he was great too and we got $15.00 knocked off our bill for some unexplainable reason and Ralph also got offered free tickets by the owner of the comedy club (worth a fortune) to the final of the competition which we were gutted to have to turn down as its being held on Monday 5th November and we knew we were leaving on Saturday 3rd.Even more so as we knew it was going to be held on Broadway and televised.Oh well.Still, one of the best days we have had on our travels so far and a day of complete contrasts.

Friday 2nd - Our last day in New York City I wanted to take the trip to Liberty Island to see the Statute of Liberty and Ellis Island to see the place where the immigrants into America were brought before it was decided whether they were fit enough to actually enter America.It's called the Island of tears but I am told the tears were mainly happy ones as a large percentage were allowed in.The queue for the boat to Liberty Island was large but we weren't put off as it was moving quite quickly, the main problem being that they have to do airport style security checks before you get on the boat.Liberty Island was lovely and all I wanted to do was go up inside the Statue to see the views.Unfortunately, since September 11th, you can no longer go up inside the statue itself and can only go up inside the pedestal which is about 135 nearly vertical steps up (I know because we chose the stairs option again).Be aware though that if you do want to go up into the pedestal then you have to get tickets at least 2-10 days in advance.We got around this problem by looking despondently at the sign which gave you this information and saying it was really going to spoil our trip there and the security guard then snuck Ralph a couple of tickets under the fence!Result!Many others were turned away disappointed and the Americans said the only reason we got them was because of our "cute" British accents!Unfortunately the last boat for Ellis Island had left and therefore we did not get chance to visit (something for next time I go I tell Ralph!).We therefore took the long subway ride to Coney Island.Coney Island was unfortunately closed for the season but basically its like a really run down English seaside resort and has a slightly dangerous feel at night.It does however have a beautiful sandy beach and a lovely promenade so we took a walk as the sun set to the next place on the coast, called Brighton Beach.This is a place where the Russians have settled and so all the restaurants are Russian and that is the main language you hear spoken.We decided not to stay in Coney Island too long after dark and headed back to Manhattan for our final meal in New York City in Chinatown.The strange thing about Chinatown is that you would not know you are in America.I understand that they have their own culture and language but we expected that most restaurants would have menus in English as well as Chinese but this was not the case and it took lots of walking before we could find any restaurant that had an English version of the menu.Even then the people serving could not speak a word of English!I felt it was like they did not want the Americans to eat or be there.Very strange.Went back to the hotel totally exhausted but totally happy from our time in NYC.I am sure it will not be the last time we go there.

Saturday 3rd- Left New York to head for our new base in Pennsylvania for a couple of days.We have decided to take a couple of days off until Monday to rest and catch up with e-mails - and type this blog!!!

Next we are off to have a laugh at (I mean, go and see) the Amish people, before visiting Gettysburg on the way to Washington DC.

It's also been great getting messages on the blog and the many emails and texts, so thanks very much to friends and family for those.