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The time has come for our very last ever blog entry......
I know this May be emotional for alot of you as this is your highlight of the week but don't be sad we are returning to the uk to see you all.
Anyway our last ever entry coming to you from NYC the big apple !!!!! So we took a nice short flight from orlando to New York and by three o'clock we had found our hostel and checked in. We were staying in queens just one stop away from manhatton. Within 5 minutes we could be in the heart of the city where it was all going on. We wanted to get out straight away and see some sights.
Seeing as we had 18 days in orlando I was getting withdrawal symptoms from our favourite Mexican chipotle. It was a regular place me and Lauren went to for lunch at least every other day so we were missing it big style. There wasn't one close enough To us in orlando so that was our first stop in New York ........food! After eating that in under a minute flat we set our sights on Times Square. Before I go any further I must emphasise how much 'we' hated the subways in New York. It's nothing like the tubes in london the signs might aswell be in Latin. They make absoulety no sense what so ever and there's never any workers around to help you out. It gave one of us a headache at least everyday.
Anyway .......Times Square what a mad place. The buildings really are cool with the displays they put up onto them. Its a really touristy place with nearly 330,000 people aday visiting and they say 39 million people annually visit this place. But with roadworks going on right threw the heart of it, it made the walkways unbearable to move. I think I must of got asked about the comedy shows 100 times which was a whind up. I don't know what I was expecting seeing as it's the brightly illuminated hub of the broadway theatre district. Some of the shows that were on were lion king, rocky, jersey boys ,Chicago etc. so after diving between people for afew hours we decided to head back for the day, it was a good insight to see what New York would bring us in the next upcoming days.
Our next day was hopefully going to be much more of a relaxing one and we headed off to Central Park. Somewhere we both were looking forward to as it had been in so many films. Central Park has been shown in 305 films since 1908 some if the films shot in it are sex in the city , the avengers, remember me , men in black 3, friends with benefits and so many more. We started wondering round in no kind of direction but didn't seem to be getting out of the area we were in so we thought we ought to by a map of the park. After getting our bearings we made our way through the park towards the mall. There was people selling arts and crafts performers and people just sitting on the benches taking in the scenery. We got to Bethesda terrace and fountain and got some great photos overlooking the lake where the rowing boats were. We then made our way to the bow bridge and then onto cherry hill where friends was filmed on the intro to the show. We also passed the carousel , Shakespeare gardens and the strawberry fields dedicated to John Lennon. We had a great time in Central Park and great weather too but we made a move as the England game was on and we didn't want to miss it. We weren't sure where to watch it but we read a good place in Brooklyn called banta bar so we made our way there. We gave ourselves plenty of time due to the lack of information on the subways highly annoying.
We had to make a couple of changes on route to brooklyn but on our last one we were right next to a bloke with a huge red bag on the floor. It caught my eye and I could see the side of the bag moving. At first I thought it must of been my eyes but then I remembered I havnt even had a drink yet......lol......so I looked again drawing Lauren's attention to it aswell. The bloke whose bag it was was busy counting cash he had been given , in the bag I guessed it was a form of animal what I don't know......but we were soon to find out as he undone it. It couldnt of been a worse animal for me if he tried it was the biggest snake we have ever seen. It was obviously a python and it was so so fat and big I couldn't move away from him quick enough haha. We both couldn't wait to get off the bloody train and get it the pub. We managed to grad a seat just in time there was plenty of English in there which was good and the atmosphere was pretty cool. Shame we lost but the coronas were pretty sweet anyway lol. It was Another long day so we went back and spent the rest of our evening chilling in our hostel at the bar playing UNO.
There was no time to waste in the big apple so today's schedule was to see much more starting with some shopping down 5 avenue street. We got to see trump towers which were massive followed my favourite shop the NBA store, Bloomingdales and niketown. We spent a couple of hours shopping before visiting the rocks fella centre. We didn't go up to the observation deck but looked around all of the inside of it and what we could for free HA. Once we had enough we hit the subway to central station. After coming out of the subway and into the terminal it was like entering a whole new world. It had a huge dome ceiling with massive chandeliers hanging every 3 metres apart. It was exactly how I expected it to be. This has also been in so many films and is a very touristy attraction. We sat down and watched the world go by for half hour before getting back onto the subway to go and walk across brooklyn bridge.
Before getting to brooklyn I got on the subway and the door shut on Lauren hahahahahahahahaha and I had no money or map. But instead of us trying to make a plan I was too busy laughing.......Lauren didn't find it quite as funny though. I got off at the next stop hoping she would carry on to meet me and she did so that was soon resolved. Brooklyn bridge was a lovely long walk and we got to see some great sights such and manhatton bridge and Williamsburg bridge too. It also provided a great lookout over brooklyn itself and downtown manhatton. Once we had enough we took off back to Times Square as i wanted to watch the basketball as it was the final so we went to a sports bar and had afew drinks and watched the game. Once the game had finished we got some pictures of Times Square in the night as it looks so much different. A long day in the big apple but a very good one.
Our next day was about becoming the wolf on Wall Street ....yes you guessed it we were venturing down to the financial district to check out the sights and walk down the famous iconic road of NYC. Arriving in Wall Street was brilliant straight away you would see cool women strutting around in their high heels on the phone and the men in their expensive suits marching through streets on a mission. Once we got to the end of wall street we were outside the federal hall national memorial. We then headed down broad street where we saw the New York stock exchange where billions of dollars a day are now traded.
We then headed down towards the Hudson River where the Staten Island ferry is. We passed the famous bowling green bull which is made out of 7,000 pounds of bronze and has been here since 1989. We also walked through battery park and saw st.pauls chapel. We then went on the Staten Island ferry which was good because it cost us absolutely nothing. We finally got see the Statue of Liberty and got a fantastic view of manhatton from distance to get some good photos. We didn't choose to look around the island we just come back straight away. We spent the rest of our day at Union square looking in shops and sitting in the park enjoying the good weather. Lucky for us back at out hostel was movie night so we grabbed free popcorn and chilled out on the massive sofas and relaxed our feet.
We still had to see a lot in New York so today We checked the weather and headed towards Empire State Building. We weren't sure whether to go up to the observation deck or not. It was quite expensive for both of us to go up there and we thought about it long and hard .......but in the end we went for it and it was so worth it. First of all we were shot up to floor 80th. Once we were up there we took an audio guide on the floor telling us all about the building and how it was built. It was very interesting for me as being a builder. Not so much for Lauren but it was still good to see how this masterpiece was put together. There was so many facts about this building but the one that stuck in my head had to be was that there was 6 million bricks used on this building. I bet there was plenty of work for the construction industry in the 40's. So after doing our audio tour it was time to take the next elevator up another six floors to the observation deck. As you can imagine the views were incredible overlooking Central Park, downtown Manhattan and the Hudson River. The best thing about it was that you could walk a whole circle around the building getting views of the whole manhattan island. The weather was really good but did turn abit hazy the further away you looked. But we could still see the new world trade centre which is phenomenal. We took plenty of pictures to try and show you exactly what it was like.
After seeing the great Empire State Building we grabbed some food before heading downtown to the world trade centre. We got there around four as the new 9/11 museum which has recently opened hand out free tickets at that time every Tuesday. Lucky for us we managed to score two free tickets and saved 50 dollars admission fee so we were very happy. We were both looking forward to going into the museum and seeing how they showed us one of Americas biggest tragedys of the world. The museum was beautifully set out giving people lots of room to move around the pieces and putting the events of the day in chronicle order. Its weird because we can both remember exactly what we were doing that day to the exact. I can even remember what clothes I was wearing and what I was doing, its funny how things like that stick in your mind. We spent nearly 4 hours in the museum looking around it , it was a lot to take in and a lot of people were sad in there. We watched a great screening which was ten minutes long of ground zero. It was a short film showing you how they've gone about putting it back together year by year to this day. We both feel very lucky to have seen the museum and we both have a greater understanding of what happened on that day with the terrorist attacks. After coming out of the museum we walked around the perimeter of where the old twin towers stood. We read messages people had left and looked at all the 3,000 victims names. After spending time here we looked for the one tree that was saved in the event of 9/11. It was a pear tree that had been damaged severely but not destroyed. The set up some supports for it and placed it back into the middle of ground zero to regrow and is now a centre piece of the world trade centre.
We spent some time looking around downtown before heading back up to midtown for some dinner and drinks. Lauren found some rooftop bar for us to go to where there is fairly cheap cocktails and a overlook of the Empire State Building. It was a hotel called la Quinta inn. It was lovely in the lobby and we went up to floor 15. We sank several cocktails listening to some chilled out music. To be honest it was great to just sit down for afew hours our feet were throbbing and the cocktails were going down way too easily. It was a great way to finish our last night in New York on a rooftop bar and we made out way back to our hostel for our last sleep.
We didn't get up to early today as we had to check out at eleven. We didn't do much we just popped to get some lunch and had one last look around the shops. Lauren wanted to take charge of the subways for one day as I got us lost yesterday for one stop in the whole six days which was pretty good considering the subways are like trying to read Japanese. Within 30 minutes we had to change three times and was further away from when we first started........so she soon gave up her title of google maps and gave it back to me. Oh and then i got us even further lost hahahahahahah. We finally made it back to our hostel to get our rucksacks sorted out for our last flight home to the uk.
Well that's about it our blog is finally finished guys hope you all enjoyed it and we made you lot laugh in places. It will be the last for our blog but keep an eye out in whsmiths for my book coming out at the end if the year hahahahahahahahaha.
See you all soon in the UK I hope we can bring back the glorious sunshine we've been having the last seven months xx
- comments
Katrina What a wonderful end to your adventure. Once again you have both managed to pack so much in to just a few days. The pictures are brilliant, especially the World Trade Centre shots. Another blog filled with interesting facts and figures, you are right, I will definitely miss reading up on my history lessons! You have made us all 'laugh out loud' on many an occasion, and it has been wonderful travelling each step of the way with you, thank you. I can just picture the subway scenario, as well as Lauren's face, which I bet was a picture haha! Safe journey home, can't wait to see you both. Love you loads xxxx
Paul and Debbie Absolutely brilliant read and amazing photos, you have captured NY magnificently , we feel like we have just visited there too after this blog! Yes you're right, we are going to miss your weekly updates they have certainly kept us hugely entertained throughout the last 7 months. We'll be first in the que for the book signing ha,ha, Counting the hours now until we see you, we are so excited, love you and again thank you both so much for what must be the best blog ever you have put together for us all. X x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Stuart & Julie Fabulous. What a perfect last destination. Again you have filled all your days with wonderful experiences to cherish forever. And been so thoughtful to share your journey with us every step of the way - a BIG THANK YOU, and yes quite sad as we will miss the updates but so, so excited you'll soon be home xxxxxxxxxxxx