New York New York!!!!!

Saturday 30th October- Wednesday 3rd November.
Sorry folks-I have alot of writing again. So I have broken it down into days which might make it easier for you to read when your at work!!! Hope that helps. xxx

First glimpse of the city

Let us start off by saying that JFK airport has been one of the easiest airports to get out of. The queue for customs was not long at all, the customs control officer was having a laugh with us suggesting which hotdogs to eat , and our bags didn’t even go through a x-ray. It was the shortest time and the least amount of board security to date. Hmmmm…though we did get electronically finger printed.

The signs everyone ignores!!

After our pleasant arrival we decided to get a shuttle bus to our hostel which was in Manhattan. It took us about two and half hours to get there as the traffic was atrocious and some of the roads we needed to take were closed. The drivers are insane here, people just pull out in front of each other, turn into on-coming traffic and beep their horns constantly as if to part the sea of twisted metal. There are signs that indicate that horn blowing is strictly prohibited and fines apply- not that anyone adheres to this rule!! By the time we got to our hostel we were pretty tired. We had to walk four flights of steep stairs with all our gear to get the shortest room ever made. Pete couldn’t even stand up straight! We went for a little walk around our neighbourhood, got some dinner then had an early night to try and sort out the jet lag.

Sunday.

ToysRus

Our little coffee shop

We were up early so decided to walk down into Time Square. We stopped in at a diner for some breakfast, were I had coffee, I’m talking the filter, top up, sugar and ‘cream’ on the tables type, while Pete had pancakes. We had a little giggle over how ‘American’ the whole thing was. After our fill, we continued our walk to downtown Manhattan-Lexington St, stopping at Grand Central train terminal as we went to have a nosey. We had been informed that it’s a nice place to see, and it was , but not too exciting. We then carried on our walk and made it to Time Square. This place was mad!! There is so much for your eyes to look at, people, lights, signs and shops and traffic and cops and buskers-it was full on. We went to the biggest Toys R Us store in America where they have a Ferris Wheel in the foyer and the BIGGEST \Barbie store I have ever seen. My inner-child wet her pants. It had candy land and Willy Wonka World and huge Lego displays and a Jurassic Park T- Rex and Superman and the list goes on. We had a look at the Hard Rock Café with music memorabilia and walked around the Broadway theatres. We also bought bus tickets for hop on, hop off guided tours that would last us for a couple of days. The bus took us past Central park, through Harlem, past the Apollo theatre, through the streets and past some pretty expensive homes. It was pretty cold on the top of the bus, which was surprising as the sky was blue, the sun out, it was the wind that killed you.

At Central park zoo

After over an hour in the wind, we decided to get off and go to the zoo at Central Park. It was only little, but very cute and had polar beers, seals, a snow leopard ( which didn’t really come out to say hi), a great bird enclosure with bats and little fury creatures and great birds. The maddest thing about the zoo, is when you look past the enclosures, it it surrounded by high buildings. You’re still in a big city, but you kinda forget that its there.

Halloween people

We walked home after seeing all the animals, had a rest and went back out to see the Halloween parade. Now the thing with this is that ALL of New York was talking about it, most people get dressed up for it and planned on being a part of the parade, but, no one could tell us where it was starting or what time things were kicking off. Even on the subway, on the way too the event , people still couldn’t give us any details! But we soon realised that it didn’t matter, as long as you had the general area, all you had to do was follow the hundreds of people that were all dressed up going in the same direction. (Peter’s note: “It was the best Halloween parade ever- they literally recreated HELL, and let me tell you folks, the queue into hell is looooonng”) We made a small, cheap effort to get dressed up with shitty animal masks that didn’t look anything like the animal they tried to represent and waited for over an hour in a thick crowd not being able to move at all. When the parade came it was great….for 10 mins. There were huge puppets of a ghoulish fashion and stuff we couldn’t see. After that… well, that was it. We waited for the rest of the demon spawn but they didn’t come to the party. The rest of the parade were people that were dressed up in quasi gay icon outfits walking sexually down the street. I couldn’t see anything this again is Peter’s account of events so don’t count on it being that true. So after at least three hours of wading through crowds, witnessing fist fights and people undoubtedly touching each others arses, we only saw 15 minutes of parade and decided to (try) to leave. Unfortunately so were heaps of other people thinking the same. The crowd was think as was its mentality- push as hard as you can and see how many people with move. I had to get Pete to make sure that he was holding me as there were a few times where I was being pushed forward but my feet had no room to go and I was scared of completely losing my footing. It was manic. It was shit.. An experience, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t like: waiting, their personal space being violated, violence: watching small children getting crushed, and above all disappointment.

Halloween parade

Halloween people

When we finally got out of the melee we took the subway home and went for a very late dinner, at David Copperfields Restaurant. Not the magician, as I was getting very excited about, but the Copperfield from the book of the same name. Not as exciting. I had some magical ribs that were huge in their half serve portion (I always think of my sister Tanya when eating ribs as when we used to get them when we were younger she would steal my leftovers). Pete had a LITRE of beer with his fish and chips. (Peter‘s note: a litre of beer is a daunting task now I speak from experience. At first you think you’re up to the challenge, it’s easy to do on paper, but trust me, your bladder needs to sublet a room or two for it all to fit and if you drink it an hour before you go to sleep you wont“) . Our feet hurt from all our walking and the beer was good and our bellies food and we went for
another big sleep.

Monday

Worlds biggest button

Macys huge department store

Monday saw us getting on the bus for the downtown Manhattan tour. This took us past: Madison Square Garden, Greenwich Village, the Soho districts, the business district, a glimpse of Wall Street, the Empire State Building, Macys (the biggest department store in the world- this thing is scary), the fashion and design district where the biggest button ever is, the registry office where Matt Damon was married (sigh!) (Peter’s note: he’s a fucking sheep’s dag), and a peek of Ground Zero. We didn’t get to see too much of Ground Zero, but as far as we could tell it is in the process of being rebuilt as we saw a lot of cranes and construction equipment. We hopped off at the bottom of the island to get the free ferry across to Staten Island in order to see the Statue of Liberty. I have to tell you that this day was the coldest that we had experienced so far- Europe include. When we got off the bus we went in search for a café for a cup of tea and some warmth due to our fingers being frozen stiff and our feet being so cold they had pins and needles. Downtown is predominantly a business district so all the places we went to were take away only with no seating area. We finally found somewhere that had great broccoli and cheese soup, but the worst sandwich ever. Coleslaw sandwiches…ummm. After defrosting and eating we went and waited at the ferry terminal. As I said it’s free and they go every half hour and I think that over half the people there were just like us and only on the ferry to go past the statue. The ferry showed us a lovely view of the city and statue, however the statue looked smaller than we expected it to be, we didn’t go to Elise Island, I guess its bigger when you’re right underneath it. We got to Staten Island, and hopped straight back on the boat to come back as we had a date with the theatre.

The statue!!

OUr little theatre

We had previously booked to go to see Driving Miss Daisy at the Golden Theatre. We got dressed up in our best jeans and thermals and headed out to dinner in a lovely little restaurant and then went to the show. The theatre was intimate but lovely, but the most important part was that the show starred the legendary James Earl Jones. The show was great and as I have never seen the play or movie before I had a teary at the end.

BB Kings Blues club

After the show we went to BB King’s blues club to have a drink and listen to some music. It was so much fun. There was a blues band there doing some great covers and they had people get up and join them for a jam. We had a bit of a boogie at the bar and even had a chat with the band. Made friends with the cutest old lady that was up having a sing during the night, her voice was great. Our couple of drinks turned into a couple more and it ended up being a bit of a late night. Lucky for us, being in the city that never sleeps, the subway doesn’t either, so getting home at any time is not a problem.

Tuesday.

Question: When do you know that your really on holiday? When you pack up all your stuff ready to leave, go and check that your flight is on time, and realise that you’re a day ahead of yourselves. That’s what happened to us!!! I don’t know what we were doing, but it worked out that we had an extra day in New York! Our accommodation was booked right, maybe we were overly excited about going to South America. So on Tuesday we had a lie in, got all our stuff packed and ready to go for Wednesday, by accident, went back to our favourite diner, ate, and decided to go back to the room!! A late night and too much booze and blues will do that to you. So at least we got to have another whole other day with a clear agenda. We had a big salad for dinner, went for a little walk to look at the lights on the Hudson river, but that was about it.

Wednesday.

From the High line

Wednesday we checked out and headed down town to go to the High Line. This is a walk that is above street level, that used to be a railway. The tracks have been covered over and they have put shrubs and flowers all along the sides and made it a beautiful walk. I really enjoyed it. It had a whole industrial feel to it- there are big buildings and car parks along the bottom and the sides, but you can also see views to the river and the Empire State Building. So many people were there enjoying it and it was a lovely day- we had taken so many layers because of the days previous, that we ended up carrying a pile of clothes!

The High line

Central park

The Dakota Building

After going for a walk, we took the subway up to Central Park.

At central park we hired bikes so we could look around better. This park is massive!! It had 26000 trees and 7 lakes. We cycled around the whole thing, by accident, stopped a couple if times and went to the Dakota hotel. This is were Mark Chapman killed Mr John Lennon. I took a shot of Peter outside the Dakota’s gates where the event took place. The bike riding took us just under two hours to arrive back at our starting point. Our legs were so sore! The park is lovely though, with a big reservoir/lake in the middle of it, accompanied by lots of trees, grass areas and walkways. It was a little crisp out, but heaps of people were enjoying it, and the colours were beautiful.

After punishing our bodies we went back to David Copperfields for Pete to get his last litre of beer before we picked up our bags and headed to the airport. We had got there really early and had to wait for a long time, but we got on the plane for a very late night time flight with minimal sleep. We loved New York. Not one person was rude to us! Sure, they are a bit abrupt, but that’s just how they are, but not at all rude. A little disappointing as we were ready for rudeness, oh’ well maybe well find it in Lima.

Look us up soon, Love Peter and Rochelle x x x x x

P.S On a side note, it has to be mentioned that we have now conquered most of the major cities of the world and their public transport systems: The Tube, Metro and Subway and we’re pleased to report that they have all been very user friendly. Despite this, New York City was the easiest city to truly navigate around, the streets included. The fantastic thing about this city is that its made up of grids, the streets go from south to north 2nd street up to 222nd St, and the avenues go East to West in a similar fashion. Sure there were streets with names in the mix, but you could always rely on stumbling across a 5th street or 2nd ave that would give you a good idea as to where you was’ at. Make sense?! It did to us after a couple of days.

Roch & some NYPD Cops!!

Time square lights

New York New York!!!!!

New York, United States