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So after months and months of planning were finally on our way round the world!
After a 8 odd hour flight we arrive in the dump of an airport called JFK. I'm already doing better then my parents thought I would as they thought I wouldn't be able to find my way out of Heathrow, Bet there proud of me now!
We have our first 3 nights booked in a hostel called Tone on Lex, no idea where were going so we decide to just jump on a coach hoping it takes us to Grand Central Station. We finally arrive at our hostel a couple of hours later with no hiccups apart from getting a little bit lost when we couldn't find 94th street (we were on 96th, not exactly rocket science! Oh well)
When we went to check in they told us that they had some problems with our booking and that the dorm room we booked was full (not exactly what you want to hear after 12 hours travelling). They managed to sort it quite quickly and we end up in a private room, bonus!
After dumping our bags we decide to go out and explore a bit around us. After a long day travelling we decided that we didn't want to walk too far so the nearby Central Park sounded like a good idea, little did we know that the Park is huge and is not really a park at all but more of a maze!
It is a really nice place, full of people running (even saw a 70 year old man rollerblading round the lake, I mean what the f**k! Only in America) playing baseball and just chilling on the great lawn having picnics.
We finished taking in the sights and decided that it was time to go back to the Hostel and hit the sack. About 2 hours, 3 miles later (and us getting really pissed off) we finally found the way out!
Next day we felt refreshed and awake (especially me after I couldn't figure out how to use the shower, ice cold every day grrrr) we decide to do the Empire State building and that area.
We start by going back to Central Park and taking pictures before making our way to the zoo at the bottom of it. Again we got lost, so when we found our way out we sacked the zoo off scared that we would waste all our days stuck in that park!
When we finally reach the bottom of Central Park (doesn't look that big on the map!) Jodie informs me that she really wants to go to Bloomingdales
and Macy's as apparently every woman has to do this in NY. It's another long walk (and us getting lost again) before we find the stores, don't really see what's so special about them, they are just big expensive shops and I couldn't even find Rachel from friends working :-(
After shopping we decide to walk through Times Square. By this time it's lunch and we are both starving, we spent an age (literally 2 hours) looking for a cafe and can't find any. We finally manage to find one on the corner and stop there before we starved to death. After we had eaten we walked on an the next corner we went round was just cafe after cafe on both sides, was not impressed!
Times Square was quite impressive, wasn't really too much to do there except go to a few cafes and a theatre.
We carried on walking and got to the Empire State Building, as soon as we got close we got harrassed by people trying to sell us quick passes for double the price, must have looked like tourists! The sales guy continually told us that the queue was hours long and that it was best buying off him. Didn't really like the sound of him so we walked straight past him and up to find out the queue was only 20 mins long! Lying b******!
The views from the top are amazing, you can see right out across all NY and it really is impressive.
We spent a while up the top before heading home, we were walking down to the Grand Central Station when Jodie started getting all giddy about something. The NY library was coming up and I never knew she was that interested in books!
We went in to check it out and I then found out that it was where Carrie was supposed to get married on Sex and the City!!
We signed up and decided to book our next journey on their computers. While I was there picking out our next hostel Jodie noticed the old guy opposite me getting a plastic fork out of his pocket to comb his hair! Strange people over here!
Next day we went down to the boats to go over to the Statue of Liberty. The statue is really impressive but whatever you do don't get the audio tour, what a pile of s***!
We walked round the island but didn't get to go up the statue, after we had finished we jumped on another boat to Ellis island. This is where the immigrants came years ago, again the audio tour was awful so we just walked round taking in what we could until our feet felt like we had done the Parish walk!
After we got the boat back to the mainland we walked up to Ground Zero. They have started work on the new buildings and the memorial so you can't really see in but they have a memeorial site nearby which is really touching.
Jodie then wanted to walk to the City Hall as this is the place where Carrie got married in Sex and the City! The gardens were nice but we couldn't get into the building. After here we went over to Brooklyn Bridge. Jodie walked about a quarter of it before turning back but i was like man on a mission and walked most of it. On the way back there was a big group of people looking at the roof tops. There were a load of police snipers checking the area out before the Vice President arrived, i was going to stay and watch but I really wasn't that interested!
New York is now done and it's on to Niagara Falls for us!
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