Got up early this morning and headed in to Washington DC. We started off with a group walking your around some of the main memorials. The first one we reached was the World War II memorial. This was a huge fountain, surrounded by 50 columns, each representing a different state. There was also a wall of stars, each star representing 10 soldiers who had lost their lives in the war. Next we walked to the monument tower. This stands at over 500 feet and can be seen ...

Had to change hostels this morning so loaded everything up and walked 5 streets up to the next hostel where I would be meeting the rest of the group in the evening. Couldn't check in until 15.00 so left my luggage with them and headed off downtown for my helicopter tour. Took ages to get down to South Ferry as a lot of the subway lines were closed for maintenance over the weekend. Luckily I'd set off early so I made it on time for the tour. I had to go through a ...

Today I started off doing the uptown loop of the hop on hop off bus. This took me up into Harlem, around Central Park, past the tomb of Ulysses S Grant and along museum mile. Was a lovely sunny day so very nice sitting on the open top bus and enjoying the sights. Got off the bus at Winter Gardens and got onto the subway to the financial district again to go back to the 9/11 memorial. This time I was able to get in and see the two huge waterfalls, built on the ex...

First full day in New York today. Headed straight downtown to pick up my ticket for the hop in hop off bus then got on to do the downtown tour. Saw all of the iconic sights such as the Empire State Building, the Rockefeller, Times Square, Statue of Liberty and the Flatiron building. Once I'd completed the full loop I headed to the financial district to see the 9/11 memorial, unfortunately since it was the 13th anniversary today the memorial was only open to fam...

Set off for New York at just before 10 this morning. Tiny little plane from Greenville to Philadelphia then a quick stopover before my 19 minute flight to New York. Pity this was such a short flight really as had very comfortable seats and I had three of them to myself! Arrived at La Guardia airport and got my Metrocard that allows me to get the bus to my hostel and use the subway system for the rest of my time in NY. The bus took about an hour to get me to 106t...