I Heart NY

Such an amazing trip, I love every part of New York. It wasn't exactly how I imagined it to be but it was so cool to actually be there.

Day five - Meatpacking district and home

10th January 2010

Today was our last day so we thought we'd have a look at the west coast area. We got the subway to the Meatpacking district which was a really nice and quiet place. We had a look at some of the piers and all the ice then went back uptown.

We went to Macy's for lunch, they have a cool basement bit where you can get practically anything to eat. Before we went back to the hotel to leave we had a look at the public library where the 'Day After Tomorrow'and 'Sex and the City' was filmed.

After getting back to the hotel we got the coach back to JFK and started our super long journey back home!

Day four - Downtown

9th Jan 2010

Today we went Downtown. To get there we went on the subway, even we couldn't face the walk! The subway is hilarious, the first one we clambered on involved a massive bloke getting on and starting to sing 'Lean on Me'. Clearly this type of ordeal is normal to the New Yorkers but I found it rather startling. On another occasion 3 kids, clearly a bit hip-hop, got on and started dancing step-up style. After the Subway we got straight onto the Staten Island ferry to have a look a the statue of Liberty for free. It was nice to finally see some sky and to see the city from another angle. The statue itself was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, but impressive none the less.

After getting back to the mainland we wandered off to see Ground Zero. The site itself wasn't particularly distressing as it was just a building site. The most interesting place was a nearby church that remained undamaged by the actual 9/11 event and held some memorial stuff which was sad to see. We then went to see Wall Street, I was mostly just excited to see the place wear 'Sleep Now In The Fire' was filmed with the band Rage Against the Machine.

Chinatown was next on the agenda, the contrast between regular New York and Chinatown was surreal. It literally felt like we were in a completely different place. We had a Chinese for lunch then looked at some more down town shops. Also we had been warned about people selling 'designer' bags, which meant Chinese people shuffling up to you and whispering "Prada" in your ear.

Later on we went into an amazing old school record stores, it had hundreds of cd's and vinyl's. We spent a good half hour in there trawling through all the names, I left with the Smith's greatest hits. We wanted to try some proper New York cheesecake while we were there so we went into this darling little cafe with the most incredible patisserie display. I ordered a 'Chocolate Lulu', Abbie the New York cheesecake and Alix the chocolate cheesecake. They were to die for, I could only managed a few mouthfuls of each of them.

After getting back we started to pack as tomorrow is our last day!

Day 3 Uptown

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Day 2 Midtown

7th Jan

We started off at 8am for breakfast downstairs, which involved muffins and tea. Around 10 me, Alix and Abbie went off to the the FIT museum - without following the rest of the group! The displays inside were interesting but I think an hour there was enough. On the way to Times Square we walked past a museum called 'The Museum of sex' which called for several photos and countless innuendos. Times Square was amazing, the amount of adverts crammed into one space was crazy. We took a few pictures then ventured into Sephora, which has the most amazing collection of make-up. Luckily inside they had the 'Kat Von D' range which I had been searching for ages. The card system over here is bizarre as they never ask for PIN just a signature or just to swipe the card.

Just before the Rockefeller we saw a massive ferris wheel in the Toys R Us and decided it had to be done. The best part was we were the only people on the wheel and it went all the way up through the levels of the shop.

The Rockefeller was next on the agenda and we got tickets to go to the top. The view from the roof was incredible. It was such a clear day as well, seeing central park bang in the middle of all the crazy skyscrapers was so strange but really cool. Also up top was a special light room where you ran around and the lights on the walls would follow you around. Which of course led to us frantically running around and taking videos. Lunch was a McDonald's, which had to be done at some time. I think this was the point that really confirmed that Americans have a completely different concept of the word 'large' to us. I foolishly agreed to a large meal, which turned out to be enough to feed about 10 English people.

After lunch we made our way to 5th avenue, we spent hours looking into some fabulous shops such as Chanel, Prada, Juicy Couture, Burberry and Gucci.

Also randomly down one of the streets we walked past the creator of Lost, JJ Abrams, which was pretty cool. Especially as I had just watched 'Cloverfield' before I came to New York.

Day One!

6th Jan 2010

Today began with a painfully early start at 4.45am, needless to say I struggled to get up. Fortunately I had packed the previous night, which involved several hours of folding and swearing. I met Charlotte from next door to amble off the coach around 5.20. Amazingly people were still up from the previous night building massive snow men, so we trailed off quickly to avoid any impending snowballs. As soon as we got settled on the bus we fell asleep and only woke up when we finally pulled into Heathrow 3 hours later.

The flight was fairly pleasant; I sat by a nice girl which I hadn’t met before and spent the duration watching films. The first of which was ‘500 Days of Summer’ which I’ve seen before and liked a lot. Later on I watched a documentary about classic guitar players such as Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack white. When we arrived at JFK we got greeted by a lot of unhappy American staff who worked at the airport. Clearly customer service isn’t high on their priorities. When we at last got through customs we got on the coach to travel to Manhattan. Driving through the American residential areas was really cool as all of their houses are completely different to home. They seem to be big on porches and stairs leading up to the front door. We also saw some school buses, which must have amused the bus driver as they must appear mundane to him. As we got into Manhattan we saw the skyline appear, which was incredible to finally see. When we eventually got to the hotel it was a very pleasant surprise as its look rather grand from the outside.

Once we were inside and in our rooms, we all decided it would be fairest to pull out randomly which bed we'd sleep on as one was massive. Luckily for me I pulled out the bit of paper with 'MASSIVE BED' scrawled across, so the other two were in the separate room in two singles. After faffing around for a bit unpacking we thought it was time to find some food. As we weren't feeling particularly up for a long walk we went into the first pizza place we could find. We only had one slice each, but blimey were they huge! I've never seen pizza so big and struggled to eat the one slice we did buy.

We got back to the hotel for 8 and fell asleep straight away as we were so tired.

Day Before

Finally just finished packing, I had to make a few amendments with my initial clothes plan. I went out today and bought some more thermals, which make me look like a burglar when I wear them.