Hello,
So our final, slightly delayed post. New York was our last stop and after a fairly turbulent flight we arrived at 4am our body clock time, 7am NY time.
After taking the air train and the subway into downtown Manhattan, we walked a few blocks to reach our hostel for the next few days, the YMCA. We checked in our luggage and found the nearest cafe! It then started to pour it down outside and we decided it would be nice to go and meet Barry and Felicity at the airport as they were coming to NY for the week too. Chris did a lot of working out of how to get to Newark airport and we made our way there.
Later on we got our room key and found our extremely tiny, bunk bed, air-conditioning-that-sounds-like-it-is-about-to-take-off and 2 toilets/3 showers for 50 people room.
After an afternoon nap we went out to Byrant park where there was a ‘starbox’ with people queing to go and see who was inside, luckily we are not that sad and just waited on seats nearby to meet with Barry and Felicity. We all went to a bar as there was a storm brewing (excuse the pun) and we had some tea and beer. The storm was immense, nearly a match on Melbourne, but not quite.
The following day, after a surprising lack of fighting for the showers, we caught the underground to The Bronx area and got off at the Yankees stadium. It was a great stadium. We bought a big foam finger each, blue for Chris, pink for me of course and Chris got a hat too!
The New York Yankees game was against Kansas city and had 9 innings. In the end it was a pretty tense game in the last innings, but unfortunately Yankees lost with the final score of home runs 7-4.
We both really enjoyed it and I bought a t-shirt with my favourite Yankees guy on the back (the one who scored the most home runs!). We then went out for tea to O’Neills, an Irish pub and had some yummy food and beer with live music where a stag do was having a good old sing and dance. We then settled into our lovely hostel for the night.
We began the following day with brunch at Starbucks and then caught the underground to Brooklyn bridge/city hall. We walked along part of the Brooklyn bridge which was made out of wood and had fairly big gaps looking down onto the road below, but it was so hot so we decided to turn around once we reached half way.
We walked through city hall park where there were lots of squirrels who we fed. We decided to do a lonley planet guide walking tour so began by following Broadway and went into St.Pauls chapel. It is very old and inside is really moving with many dedications to the September 11th victims as this was a refuge place for the 9/11 workers. It then started to rain and it seems with NY that when it rains it really pours so we called off the walking tour and went into Century 21, a huge discount department store, where surprisingly Chris was in his element! After nearly 3 hours shopping, no joke, we caught the metro back to Grand Central station and walked to the hostel picking up a ‘slice’ on the way (pizza).
The following day we began our walking tour from where we broke off from it yesterday. Our first stop was at the World Trade Centre visitors centre. We signed up for a tour and had a look around the museum with all memories of the WTC and the destruction of September 11th. Our tour was lead by a lady who was a reporter for CNBC news on the day of 9/11 and a man who was security guard inside one of the towers when the plane hit and guided as many people as he could to safety. His story was particularly moving. They took us outside and around the building site where the twin towers once were, told us their story of that day and what is planned for the area where the towers once stood.
We then continued our walking tour. We went into the Trininty church, walked down Wall street to see the NY stock exchange and went to bowling green where Chris had his picture taken with a charging bull ( you may remember seeing a similar one in our Shanghai pictures).
Next stop was battery park where they had a monument that was originally based next to the WTC and survived their collapse, all be it a little worse for wear, so they erected in battery park as a memorial to all those lost on 9/11. From battery park we could see across the water to the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get tickets to go across and up the statue as they are sold out 3 months in advance, much to our disappointment. We were going to catch the Statton island ferry but it was so busy as it is a free service that we decided to give it a miss.
Our next stop was Union square, which is a small park. After relaxing in the sun, we walked down 5th avenue, bought some souvenirs and stopped to watch the filming of a capital one tv commercial with the guy out of King of Queens in – we were both very excited!
We then met up with Barry and Felicity in Bryant park to wait for the sun to set and watch an open air screening of Monty Python and the holy grail.
It was an early start the next day as we had to check out of our YMCA hostel and catch 3 underground trains to get to New York Penn station. We had a bit of waiting around here as the platform number for the trains are only released 10 minutes before leaving so it is a massive squash and rush!
AFter 3hours and 15minutes we reached Washington D.C. We boarded the underground at Union station to Farragut North station and found where James works.
James is one of Chris’ friends from uni who was letting us stay with him for the time we were visiting. He took us to get some Mexican lunch which we ate in a park just behind the White House. We did the usual picture opportunities in front of the White House, before saying aurevoir to James as he had to go back to work. We then embarked on our touristing for the day. Forst stop was the front of the White House. It was very well protected with a sniper on top of the roof and lots of police. After walking quite a long way we reached an obalisque war memorial and then carried on to the Smithsonian museum where we had to walk through the National Mall (a grassy patch). Our first museum stop was at the American history museum. As soon as we got through the security checks we were approached by a lady for us to get involved with the opening and showing of the American flag, replicating the star spangled banner that was flown 100’s of years ago. We felt priveledged to br doing it as lots of people were watching and once it was opened out everyone began to sing the National Anthem and put their hands on their hearts.
After helping to fold the flag back up we saw the original star spangled banner and the history of the American presidents. Unfortunately, we were short on time so we moved on and walked to the Air and Space Museum.
Chris was very excited! It was interesting to see the capsules that had been into space and especially seeing the Appollo 11 capsule. Chris was also very happy with his souvenir from the museum shop – space food (dry frozen food)!
We met back up with James and caught the underground with him to Columbia Heights. AFter plonking our bags and having a beer we got back on the underground to Chinatown. Here we had yummy Thai food and a huge power tank full of beer. Unfortunatley Chris didn’t feel so good so he couldn’t enjoy it to his maximum potential! We then went to the cinema to watch Inception and then nipped across the road to a bar where we played shuffleboard before getting a taxi home for a hot nights sleep.
The following day our first stop was the Pentagon. It doesn’t look like that shape from the ground! It is very well protected by security so we could only go to certain places. We went to the memorial for the 9/11 victims. This was a very moving area; it had a bench with water running underneath it for each victim, the youngest being 3 years old.
We then caught the metro to Arlington cemetery. This is massive and contains the grave of John F Kennedy. We also went to the area of the unknown soldier where we watched the changing of the guard ceremony.
Next stop was President Lincoln’s memorial. This was very busy and actually a lot smaller than I imagined, but still very impressive.
We got an ice cream as it was so hot and made our way down the steps to the rectangular lake which looks over the big obalisque. We took a few pictures and Chris dipped his toe in. At the other end of the lake there was a huge memorial with all the different states and fountains. Next we walked up to the obalisque, people were filming a tv show here. Apparently you can go up the obalisque, but we didn’t know and the tickets were all sold out.
To get from the obalisque to the Capitol building we had to walk along the national mall. The Capitol building is beautiful and I swear every time I’ve seen it on tv I’ve thought it was the White House! We took a lot of pictures
It was then time to meet up with Jocelyn, my friend from my childhood who I hadn’t seen for about 12 years. It was great to see her.
We met up with James too and then went back to the White House to have one last look at it.
Chris and James then hung around to meet their friend Nikki from Univerisity. We all met up in a bar to have a beer and a good old catch up! After a while Jocelyn and Nikki left and myself, James and Chris decided to go to happy hour. We went to one bar called Madhatters that had live music where we stayed and had a couple of beers or five! We had a great night and I had a good old boogie!
Getting up the next day was not easy but it was time to say goodbye to James and to get the train back to New York Penn station. We checked in at a different hostel. The room was ok and better than our first hostel in New York, not that that’s hard! We headed out and caught the underground to Macy’s. I was so excited and celebrated when I stepped over the threshold! After a lot of looking around and no purchasing, we caught the underground to Bloomingdales, woohoo! Here I got a 10% off for voucher as I was foreign! I bought a little brown bag for my Mum and a big canvas bag for me, plus a gift card which I put $1 on as I just wanted the cool gift card! The lady also gave me some free paper brown bags as she could see how excited I was! We then went to an Australian steakhouse for some tea. After our food we went back to our hostel with our fingers crossed that our bags were still there.
The next day we woke up feeling sad as it was our last full day of travelling. Tomorrow was our flight. Our first stop for the day was a metro ride away to Central Park even though our hostel was on the cuff of the park we headed to a more popular area on the west side.
We walked around and the first place we stumbled on was strawberry fields, a place where there is a mosaic dedication to John Lennon. We moved on and managed to get lost as we were trying to follow a Lonely Planet walk. We stumbled across the reservoir where there was a random fountain and runners were all going in one direction. We made our way back to the start after spending some time on some swings.
We then went in the other direction where we found the theatre, the belvedere castle and sat on a bench to have brunch infront of the Great lawn. We continued our walk and passed turtle pond. We went to explore an area where there were lots of tents. It turned out to be Korea day at Central Park. It was really good. There was a group playing all different types of drums and then some young children came on to do Taikwando.
We went out of Central Park, but not before oohing and ahhing at the beautiful horse and carts which would take you for a tour at a big price $50 for 20 minutes. Chris then got very excited as he spotted an Apple store, so of course we had to go in! We had a quick Starbucks stop and walked into Times Square. It was mentally busy but so cool with all the big flashing advertising tv screens. We went into the M&M shop and then to the Hard Rock cafe. We didn’t have any food here, but we did buy souvenirs.
We then caught the subway to Greenwich village and visited the block on the corner of Bedford and Grove Street. The building here was used in the Friends episodes. They were actually filming in the same location that day. We took lots of pictures and caught the metro to the United Nations.
There wasn’t really that much to see and Chris thinks that it was under renovation. We then walked to the Rockefeller centre to go the observation deck to look over New York city. We went up to the first observation deck on floor 67, then to floor 69. From here we got a really clear view of the Empire State building, all of the other high rise buildings and on the other side, Central Park – such a vast space of greenery.
In the distance we could just see the Statue of Liberty. We sat down on a bench and watched the world go by. I had a few tears as I was upset about leaving. After a while we went up to the top observation deck on level 70. Here it was more open and we took lots of pictures.
Chris also realised that there would have been a much easier way to take pictures of us both together – bit late since it was our last day! After a couple of hours, we decided we should go down and get some food. We wondered back into Times Square and checked out Planet Hollywood, TGIs and Hard Rock but decided they were too busy, so we went to a pizza place and got two slices each and took them to Bryant park. This was our perfect evening and we loved it. We then left after pretending no to speak English to a homeless man! Back at our hostel we stayed up and reflected on our travelling, wrote blogs and I sewed my English badge on my back pack.
Home time. We couldn’t believe it had arrived. We got up and packed our things, I had to sit on my bag to get it shut. After working on the hostel computers for a couple of hours we left at about 1pm to get the underground and airtrain to get to JFK airport.
We got to the airport at about 3pm and checked out duty free (the first proper time as we haven’t been able to carry anything before). Our flight boarded early and as per usual I didn’t like the flight, but after a couple of bottles of wine (small ones) and tv I nodded off. We were running 30 minutes ahead of schedule, but at the London end we had to circle 3 times before we could land.
Flying over England was so wierd and we could see some of the iconic places.
We got off the plane and stepped on English soil for first time in nearly 9 months.
Home sweet home.
The End.