New York, New York

Saturday

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:57:06 +0100

We had arranged to meet our cousin tonight at 8pm to go for a few drinks, so we had a lie in this morning.

At about 10.30pm we took the subway one stop uptown as we wanted to visit the Natural History Museum. It's apparently the biggest museum in America, but we couldn't find it! It took us lots of walking around and looking at the map, but we eventually found a back entrance.

We booked a time to go into the planetarium, which was absolutely fantastic! I felt like we were spinning as we watched the film called 'Collisions' on the ceiling above us. We hadn't had any breakfast and by the time we came out of the planetarium, it was midday so we found the restuarant at the museum and had some brunch.

We then looked around the rest of the museum. This took us most of the day, as there was so much to see! Lots of stuffed animals, dinosaur bones and one of the most amazing things was this humungous tree trunk!

It was now late afternoon, so we decided to walk back to the apartment and see if we could find a shop that sold suitcases. No such luck. We did stumble across a pottery barn, and ended up walking pretty much the whole length of broadway looking for a suitcase shop. Nothing. So we decided to go back to Times Square, as we knew there were some cheap shops there and we found a suitably priced suitcase quickly. We then had to get it back on the subway, during the rush hour.

We did some last minute packing when we got back, and then decided to get a pizza before going to meet our cousin. We didn't go to the Jewish place this time and managed to get a pepperoni pizza!

We went to our cousin's hairdressing salon at 8pm (we were a bit late because it was further away than I thought!) and met the people she works with. Was really nice to see her and we had a few drinks in the salon. We then went to a few bars and I drank way too much white wine! We had some food in the first bar, and then her colleagues took us on to a party. They were all really nice and friendly and it was a lovely way to finish our holiday!

Our flight was at 7am Sunday morning, but we didn't get back to our apartment until 2am. I was wasted. I collapsed on the bed and the next thing I knew (after being sick) was Peter waking me up telling me it was time to go. He had packed all our last minute things, so we went to wait for the taxi we had booked in the foyer.

We waited, and waited, and waited. The people who run the apartments had told us they had booked us a taxi, but one never arrived. The porter said it was probably just as easy for us to go into the street and flag one down, so that's what we did. We managed to get one as soon as we got out onto Broadway. The drive was again very bump and I was feeling so ill I couldn't speak.

We made sure we got to the right terminal at JFK and checked in at the Virgin desks. They gave us our suitcases back and told us that we had to take them to security. A last took them off us and just left them there. We were very worried they wouldn't make it onto the plane with us. We thought we would have a look around the shops before the flight as we still had a couple of hours before we could board. But there were no shops! We went through security and still no shops! Well, there was a little newsagent where I bought loads of bottles of water (I remembered how thirsty I was on the flight out so I prepared this time, especially considering how hungover I was). We then sat and waited for a couple of hours, until we could board the plane.

It was all running on time and our seats this time were in the centre. It was an Airbus plane we came back on and much older than the plane we had flown out on. The entertainment wasn't as good, as it wasn't on demand. And we had pretty much the same meal...although I liked a bit more of it this time. Must have all been loaded in America because it wasn't all so healthy!

I just wanted to get off the plane now and get home. But coming into Heathrow we were circling for a good half an hour. With no entertainment and nothing to do, it was very boring.

New York is such an amazing place and would recommend a trip to anyone! There is a lot of walking involved however, even if you decide to get taxis you still have to walk a lot. There is so much to see and even we didn't get to see it all in a week! However, it was a great holiday and can't wait for the next one!

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Friday

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:39:46 +0100

Today we had to do a bit of exploring as we wanted to go to the 'Bodies' exhibition, which was all the way down by the docks. We got the subway to the South Ferry, and had breakfast in Starbucks again. Then we started walking through the financial district to try and find the exhibition centre. While walking we found Wall Street, so we had a little look up there. Very boring and nothing of interest.

We did eventually stumble on the exhibition centre, a bit by chance really. So we went in. It was extremely interesting, but again full of school kids so sometimes it was a bit difficult to read all the information. Pete bought a skull in the gift shop!

We had to turn our phones off inside, and when we got out we both had messages from our cousin Melisa. She lives in New York and we were hoping we would get to see her before we left. We left her a message back and carried on walking as we wanted to wlak across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Well, it was a long walk all the way over to Brooklyn but so worth it! The sun had come out today and it was really warm. Had been warm all week really compared to the UK. The views we got from the Brooklyn Bridge were lush!

We walked all the way over, and then all the way back! Believe me, it's a tiny bit scary as the pedestrian walkway is right through the middle of the bridge and all that is under you is water! It's quite high up as well. When we came back, just opposite the bridge was the city hall and the sun was shining on it, making it look very pretty indeed...

We went back to our apartment for a long rest. We watched a bit of our new favourite TV show 'Adventures of the Hidden Temple' and I did a bit of packing. I soon realised though that not everything was going to fit in our cases (we had bought SO much stuff!) so we were going to have to buy a new case!

We went back to Times Square this night and were surprised to see there wasn't a queue at Planet Hollywood. So we decided to have dinner here. The food was lovely, and we only had to wait 10 minutes for a table. When we came out the queue was out the door and there was a 2 hour wait!!!

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Thursday

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:30:51 +0100

We had a little bit of a lie in today and then decided to explore Central Park seeing as it was just on our doorstep. We had seen how big it was from the views at the Top of the Rock, but when you are actually in there it is so easy to lose your bearings! It's absolutely beautiful. I just pictured a big expanse of open space, but it's all wonderfully landscaped with little walks through different parts, big lakes and parks for the children. As well as an enourmous all year round ice skating rink - The Woolman Rink.

It's great sitting in such tranquility and then seeing the skyscrapers above all the trees. The only reminder that you are still in New York City.

We had breakfast in the Central Park pavillion, although it was really brunch by the time we got there. We then had a long walk around and found the zoo.

The zoo was great fun and it was wonderful to see polar bears and monkeys and seals in the middle of the city.

The other side of Central Park is Fifth Avenue, so we went to find some shops! Bloomingdales is just off of Fifth Avenue and although it was a bit of a walk, we eventually found it.

It's mostly just full of designer clothes, but I really wanted a 'Big Brown Bag', so I let an English shop assistant talk me into buying some perfume. It came with a free pink handbag, which is just what I had been looking for so I was pleased! Also, the shop assistant who served us could tell we were English and tourists, so she gave me a little stash on 'Little Brown Bag's as well, bless her!

We then visited some of the other shops on Fifth Avenue and Pete wanted to see the outside of Trump Tower. We found it and realised it was right next door to Tiffanys!

I wanted to go in, but knowing I couldn't afford anything in there I changed my mind!

Also, right opposite Tiffanys (where we were standing) was the Playboy building!! So Pete was doubly pleased! No bunnys though he he!

We walked back to our apartment, a very long walk, through Central Park. It was very picturesque though and we came across a carousel and Candy Floss stands - like being at a fair!

As we were walking back we passed a little Italian restuarant a block away from our apartment, so we went back there for dinner that night and it was very cheap! 3 courses for about £15 for the two of us!

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Wednesday

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:19:56 +0100

We got up pretty early again today as we wanted to go to the Empire State Building. I had heard that people start queuing from 7am onwards, but I think we eventually got there at about 8.30am. We got off the submay at Macys, but it wasn't open so we found somewhere we could get breakfast. We tried Macdonalds, but there wasn't much choice so we found a little deli and got some croissants. We then went to Empire State to find there was nobody there! We tried to go in but the doorman told us it didn't open until 9 o' clock. We sat on a bench and ate our croissants, and then had a walk around the block. We found that we were right on Fifth Avenue and I knew there were supposed to be some good shops there.

Eventually we were allowed into the Empire State Building and started queing. It was very quiet and we only realised that when we went through all the security (again!) when the lady at the ticket desk said the 102nd floor was zero visibility. We still bought tickets to go right up though and were glad we did!

The view you get of the city is absolutely amazing, and I can only imagine it must be even more astounding if you go up on a clear day. In the distance you can see the skyline of the financial district, but it was pretty fuzzy. However, just looking down from that kind of height gives you a view you can't get anywhere else (apart from Top of the Rock!)

Then we went up in a rickety lift to the 102nd floor. We were the only ones up there, and although I don't like heights there was too much to look at to be scared!

After savouring the views, we went back down and went off to find Madison Square Gardens. It was very different to what I imagined and absolutely massive. Just like everything in this city! Was also pleased to see that they had Annie on!

Check out all the yellow cabs! They really are absolutely everywhere!

After that we went back towards Empire State and into Macys! Wow, it is absolutely huge! I was looking for the toy department, but actually that was very much a let down. Pete bought some aftershave here and I bought a designer handbag. We decided to go up the escalators and visit every floor, and when we got to the basement level we realised that Macys was having a 20% off everything sale and the place was heaving! People were going crazy over kitchen goods and as soon as the shop assistants bought more BBQ's and crockery out - they were gone! The queues for the tills were miles long!! It was madness!

We then went back to Rockefellar Centre for our tour of the NBC studios.

There were loads of school kids on the tour and they seemed to know what they werehttp://www.blog.co.uk/admin/b2edit.php?blog=330963___##0##___ blog.co.uk - Create your free blog here being told but we didn't have a clue! It was interesting all the same as the studios are being used every second of every day. We were pretty amazed to hear that the NBC news 'anchor' has ot be on call every minute of every day in case a massive story breaks out. Apparently he's the only news 'anchor' the Americans want to see telling the news or something! Found this very odd...We sat in the studio where they film Saturday Night Live and got to see how the weather people do the weather!
After this we had another look round some of the shops in Rockefeller and saw they were in the process of putting up the famous Christmas tree with swarovski crystal star on the top!

We wanted to go ice skating in Rockefellar Centre but had just missed the start time for that session. So we decided to go back to our apartment, drop off our shopping bags and come back.

I loved the ice skating, but Pete's feet were already hurting from all the walking we were doing and he was in real pain. I probably skated around for about an hour, before I was exhausted.

We had dinner at TGI Fridays in Rockefellar and then went home via Times Square. Which was really lovely as by now it was dark and Times Square was all lit up!

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Tuesday!

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:45:56 +0100

On Tuesday we were still pretty tired from the day before, but we got up reasonably early and decided to try and find Grand Central station, Chrysler Building and UN Headquarters. We got the subway again and got off at Times Square as we needed to swap here to get the Grand Central. We weren't quite sure yet how to swap, so we thought we'd have a look at Times Square while we were here. I didn't quite expect to see the lights as soon as we walked out of the station but that is exactly what it was like. I think my mouth actually dropped open. I have seen it so many times on the telly, and now here we were, standing in the middle of Times Square!

We had a walk around and found some shops we wanted to go in. By now it was about 9am, but the shops here didn't open until 10am! Thought this was the city that never slept! So we decided to come back here later.
We went back to the subway station and found out how to get to Grand Central. Again, I was amazed at how large this train station was. It has to be the most amazing train station I've ever seen in my life! I took some photos, but Pete was worried they might think I was a terrorist so didn't take too many. We got some breakfast here and then went outside. The outside of the station is quite fascinating in itself, but was difficult to get pictures of it as the traffic is always so busy and it's on a main road.

We then walked to the Chrysler Building, which we didn't find that interesting and then carried along to the UN Headquarters. We walked through the Tudor District here, and it was very picturesque. This is also the place where every embassy in the world is! We found Kazakstan's but not the UK's. On our walk we also passed lots of drains that had smoke coming out of them...this amazed us!

We then walked back to Grand Central and got the subway back to Times Square. By now the shops were open and we let rip in Toys R Us! We bought a pressie for our new nephew, who we had now been informed was named Connor Jack. We then went into the world's biggest Virgin Megastores and spent a lot here too!

We thought it would be a good idea to go to Rockefellar Centre while we round this way, and a policeman told us it was within walking distance. Which it is, but it's a pretty long walk, especially when you are carrying huge shopping bags! Rockefellar wasn't what I thought at first and then we found the sites such as Radio City and the NBC Studios. After a little bit of a sit down, we decided to go to Top of the Rock, which is an area about 60 storeys above the city where you can get amazing views. And amazing views they are! In a way it's better than Empire State because you get wicked views of the Empire State Building itself and Central Park and you can see how massive Central Park is!

It was cloudy but the views were still incredibly impressive!

The lady at Top of the Rock convinced us to buy a ticket that also gave us access to Radio City Music Hall and a tour around the NBC studios. So next we went to Radio City, and we were so glad we did.

The theatre is the world's grandest and I wished we could have actually seen a performance there. The guide was excellent and even the toilets there are astounding! Then at the end of the tour, we got to meet an actual Rockette! I have been in awe of the Rockettes ever since seeing the film Annie, in which she goes to see a movie at the Radio City Music Hall!

We booked a tour for NBC Studios the next day as it was pretty late by now, and made our way back to Times Square. We had dinner in the Hard Rock Cafe, which was amazing, and I was so full I felt almost sick! Then we got the subway back to our apartment.

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The first day!

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:30:29 +0100

We got up at 6am, as the tickets we had already booked for The Statue of Liberty said to be at Battery Park for 8am. It was still pretty chilly at this time in the morning, and as we weren't sure about the undergournd (or subway as they call it in America!) I flagged down a taxi. Was quite surprised at how easy it was, but also quite expensive. But it got us to Battery Park and now all we needed to do was find where we needed to go to pick up the tickets we had booked.

The first thing we saw in the park was Castle Clinton.

Castle Clinton was the original place where slaves owuld be processed before being allowed into the United States, before Ellis Island. We had a wander through the park and then we had our first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty!

I felt very excited, as I finally felt like I was in New York. Before, it could have been pretty much any other city.

Battery Park is in New York's financial district, and these buildings are pretty much what makes up New York's fantastic skyline. There are some amazing buildings, and they're all so tall and modern. Just my kind of place!

We found some other English tourists and they looked just as lost as us, so we asked them about tickets for the Statue of Liberty and they told us that we actually had to pick them up from Castle Clinton. After queuing for a short while, a man came out with all the pre-booked tickets. He then informed us that the times for the tours had changed as it was winter. The ferry didn't leave at 8.45am, but 9.45am. So we followed the English people over to a Starbucks where we had some warm sandwiches and a bottle of water, for breakfast. Then we queued again for the security procedures to get on the ferry. It's just like being at an airport...everything out of pockets, coats off, bags off, belts off and everything goes through an x-ray machine.
We were then hearded into a big tent where we thought we had to queue for the ferry. Being English we thought we had to queue, but really we all just had to squeeze in! And then we were on the ferry going to Liberty Island.

Got some amazing views of the skyline as we pulled out of the harbour, and even some views of New Jersey. We sailed really close to the actual statue, but we were about to get a lot closer to it!

When we got off the ferry we went straight to queue (again!) for the tour of the statue...you are not allowed right up the top of it anymore after 9/11, but you can go as far as the pedestal which was still pretty amazing! You can also look right up inside of it, and I found that I probably wouldn't have wanted to go right to the top even if I could have.

This picture isn't zoomed in...this was how close we were to it.

The American's are very patriotic. Their flag is absolutely everywhere!

We then walked around the island, even though it was freezing!! And a nice couple offered to take our picture. In return we had to take theirs too!

We then got back on the ferry and it took us to Ellis Island. There is a museum on Ellis Island that is completely free and really interesting. It's all about when the immigrants came over to the States and what they had to go through. It was really a tough process and we saw the cells they had to sleep in if they weren't allowed through. We had done so much walking already today though that we were knackered. So it took all our energy to walk around this huge museum!

We then got the ferry back to Manhatten.

Looking in my guide book I could see that Ground Zero was pretty much near to where we were, and the English people had sort of pointed us in the right direction. After more walking we finally found it.
There wasn't really much to see at first. It just looks like a big building site, and we realised we had driven past it earlier in the cab. Although when you start to look around you see the buildings next to the site, and they are still damaged. One building has the side totally ripped off still and looks like it has been burnt. 5 years on and the damage is still all there.

There is a brand new subway station that has been built, and as you walk down into it it's more like a shrine for everyone who lost their lives in 9/11 and there are pictures that the children have drawn for their parents who died. It's very moving and isn't until you actually see the site and picture it happening in your head how it must have affected the Americans.

We decided to go into the actual subway station to try and get a metro card for the week, as taxis everywhere would turn out very expensive. As we went into the actual station, there are signs which say that this is the original subway station. It survived the blast, except there are still holes in the ceiling that remind you of what happened 5 years ago. We got our metro tickets and then needed food so we found a little cafe and had the most delicious cheese burger in the world! Pete then wanted to buy an umbrella and some trainers, as his were falling apart so we went to the cheapest department store in New York - Century 21! What a shop! We spent quite a long time in here (Pete did get his umbrella and trainers...I had a look around but didn't get anything) and when we came out it was dark!

While we were down this way, we had heard that you can get some of the best views of the New York skyline on the Staten Island ferry. It's free and we thought it would be nice to do it in the evening so we could see the city lit up. Peter was absolutely knackered from all the walking, so we just sat down for the ride over to Staten Island. The ferry was packed with commuters so we were lucky to get a seat. You have to physically get off the ferry and get back on if you want to do a round trip, and although we got seats again I wanted to be outside so I could see the view.
It was absolutely freezing and by now it was raining as well. The wind was behind us so it was almost impossible to open the doors to the outside deck, and once I was out there I felt like I was going to be blown over the egde. I tried to take some photos as the view was stunning, but because of the rain they didn't come out that well.

By now we were both shattered, so we got the subway back to our apartment and got a pizza on the way back. What we didn't realise was, that it was a Jewish pizza parlour and we asked for a pepperoni pizza. They didn't do pepperoni. So we asked for ham or sausage. "No meat here!" was our answer. So we had cheese and tomato. Then as we sat down we noticed all the men wearing their little hats and praying, and we realised our mistake. We took our pizza and ran!

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The flight...

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 18:41:30 +0100

The night before we were due to fly, we had some unexpected news. Our sister had given birth to our very first nephew!! It was all very exciting when she went into labour, even though she was extremely calm about it. I was eager to see the little one before we flew off for our weeks holiday, but we had to leave for Heathrow at 4am and so at 10pm, I lost hope of seeing his little face and went to bed. 5 minutes after closing my eyes came a bang on my bedroom door and my mum shouting "It's a boy!". The hospital were really kind and let us all go up there in the middle of the night to see the latest addition to our family. He had come 3 weeks early, so he was very tiny. I was so pleased to be able to see him before we went away.

As you can imagine, I didn't get much sleep this night! After texting pretty much everyone I knew to tell them of the news of my new Aunty status, I did go to bed, but couldn't sleep. Now I was excited about my forthcoming holiday!

We left for Heathrow, and got there about an hour before check in opened for Virgin Atlantic. Better safe than sorry after watching programmes like 'Airline' where people miss their flights. After checking in, we went straight through to departures where we had a look around some of the shops. Didn't buy anything except a sandwich for breakfast. I wanted to see some planes so we did a bit of exploring and found a tiny window where we could see some of them. And I saw our plane!

We kept watching the board and eventually our flight was called. We went to the gate and had to go through MORE security! I was randomly selected to have a full bag search and had to take me shoes off and everything. They even had to check the photos on my camera. Thankfully, the pictures of the planes were OK. Phew! We were then shown into a big waiting room, where there were free newspapers and magazines and about an hour later, they called the first class passengers onto the plane. We were flying boring old economy, but they called us pretty soon after. I was so excited to be flying longhaul for the first time and had no idea what to expect! The legroom wasn't that great and the seats weren't amazingly comfortable, but I was hoping I would be able to sleep anyway. Wrong! The guy sitting in front of me decided to have his seat reclined for the whole flight. I reclined mine and didn't feel bad as we were in front of the emergency exit so nobody was behind us. However, it is very uncomfortable and being in the window seat I felt bad having to ask Pete and some stranger to move everytime I wanted to get up and stretch my legs and go to the toilet.
I wasn't impressed with Virgin Atlantic at all! They served us breakfast first, which was disgusting. I know airline food is crap anyway, but this was far too healthy for my liking! I had the veggie option for fear there may be bacon in the meat version (there wasn't), so I ate the omlette and that was it. I couldn't wait for the snacks to come out. I got one tiny glass of juice with breakfast, and the drinks trolley didn't come round until 4 hours later!!! And there were no snacks - just a measley biscuit with the drinks and an ice cream before landing. I didn't like the biscuit and I didn't like the ice cream. I know I'm a fussy eater so maybe I should have prepared better, but after working on charter flights I am used to our passengers having eveyr kind of option available to them! VS didn't even sell bottled water!!! How important is it to keep rehydrated on a long flight? We had to ask to cabin crew to fill our bottles up from the tap...and I felt bad having to keep asking them. I tried to watch a film but couldn't concentrate on it properly. In fact I kept wanting to look at the map to see if we were nearly there yet. Felt like the longest 7 hours of my life!

Eventually we got to JFK and I started to feel nervous. Now we had to get through immigration, find a taxi and find our apartment in uptown Manhatten.

Immigration was surprisingly quick, if a little scary, and as soon as we got through there we could see our cases on the conveyor belt. JFK was quite quiet and I can only assume that was because it was a Sunday.

We then passed through customs quickly and were out in the fresh air! Now, the taxi. There was a queue for taxis and at first we weren't sure so I guess we looked a little lost. We were approached by a man who said he would take us into Manhatten. We agreed a price beforehand and even asked to see his license. Then we climbed in.

His car felt like it was falling apart, but we later realised this was the roads. They have huge holes in them and can only assume that New Yorkers have massive bills for their car tyres. He was a great guide and took us the long way round so we got to see Queens, Astoria and some bits of New York we wouldn't have seen otherwise. As we went across a bridge we could see the Manhatten skyline but it was incredibly cloudy...so we couldn't see a great deal.

We finished off our tour by driving straight through the centre of Central Park and arriving at our destination. Central Park Apartments. Check in wasn't until 3pm and it was 1pm, so we dropped off our cases and then had to find something to do.

Something to do in a big city that we had never been in before. I felt totally overwhelmed and I'm sure Peter did too. I kind of felt like I wanted to go home. But it was an adventure so we went for a walk, making sure we didn't go too far and get lost! We found a starbucks and as it was familiar we went in and got some sandwiches and bottles of water. It then started to absolutely piss it down. There wasn't anywhere to sit in Starbucks so we made a mad dash for it back to the apartments. It was only about 2pm by now so we sat and waited for the next hour until our apartment was ready.

When it was ready, we made our way up in the lift and we pleasently surprised. It was very nice! We were by now so tired and Peter crashed out. I stayed awake for a bit longer and planned our whole week, looking at the map and seeing what things were close to each other. I felt a lot better after doing that, and set the alarm for 6am as we had tickets for the Statue of Liberty the next day. Then I crashed out. (Although I did wake up at 8pm thinking it was 8am and we had overslept!! HE HE!)

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