Hi everyone, its really cool here, I'm writing this from our hostel at Jazz on the Park, its 7.30 local time, so almost 1ish at home. today we woke up really early and got on the subway downtown to the empire state building which was....high...windy...very very very cold, but really cool, amazing views. we went on a tour round downtown stopping off at ground zero and a church nearby nicknamed 'the tower that stood' because after 9/11 it remained unscathed even though it lies within what was the shadow of the twin towers. either way, we coincidentally visted just at the time of the daily service to remember victims of 9/11 and it was a little sureal and kinda touching. We completed the tour ending up in Time Square which is big. Then we went to Central Park Ice Skating which was a highlight of the day, it was really cool skating which such a nice backdrop of the manhatten skyline. We walked back through central park and we're back at the hostel now which is really nice. Its really cold and theres still snow here but everything is really cool. Tomorrow we plan to go to brooklyn among other things, write again then.