New York was amazing... It was everything that you would expect from a city soaked in history, however, there was so much more too. Firstly, back home in England there is a myth that New Yorkers are not friendly and that they have no time for you, this couldn't be further from the truth! As we entered the airport at Newark we were instantly took over by the generosity and willingness to help. As we took the train to the city people would reguarly come up and talk to us sharing there views and opinions and knowledge in the City of New York.

As we got into the city you could sense the buzz and the feeling of adventure was upon us, we were here we had arrived. Adam was moaning the whole way to the hostel as he hadn't bought a backpack and was really struggling with his bag, rather than help me and Andrew just laughed.

The Hostel was really cute but nice, there wasn't much to do there but it was clean and had great location which suited us down to the ground.

 On our first day we went to for lunch in Macys which is one of the worlds largest department store in the world, here Andrew demolished the "Worlds Largest Hot Dog" my God that was big... And then we went out onto the town to celebrate our arrival, this is when the fun really begun...

Initially we couldn't find anywhere to go that was busy, so we were wondering around aimlessly for a good hour, not something you want to do in area you are unsure of. We stumbled across the gay area, emphasis on the stumbled. My jaw nearly hit the floor as i witnessed something i have only had nightmares about... We ran for about 3 blocks after that!! In the end we came across a really good drinking area in the "Meat Packers" district. We were in the bar for no longer than 10 minutes bfore Andrew introduced himself to a made man, a mobster from Sillicy. This guy was awesome and loved us, he kept buying the drinks and everytime we offered to buy a round he said in the most sterio typical accent "Franco buys the drinks", brilliant, we havent stopped saying that phrase all week.

The next few days were spent seeing all the attractions and plenty of walking as we didn't want to spend to much on taxis as they were rather expensive and were on a budget, plus we could probably do with the exercise and the only thing you can eat over here is burgers or chips, all deep fried in fat. Its easy to see why everyone is overweight...

The Empire State building was something else, we went up in the evening and you could see for miles with the lights from the buildings filling the sky. Mum, i think you may have had a heart attack, we were really high up and the wind was up too... The only shame was that the World trade buildings were no longer there, i could only imagine how big they were?

Anyway thats enough from me for now, people are fighting behind me to get on to the computer, take care and i will be in touch soon with more news. Were currently in San Fransico as i wright this so i will update the journal next week some time.