Taking a bite out of the Big Apple

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Our first day in New York we went on a bit of a shopping spree as Dave wanted to take advantage of the cheaper prices in the US compared with 'Rip Off Britain'. He was beginning to worry that one back pack and a couple of shipped boxes wouldn't quite be enough for a couple of years in England.

On loading ourselves up with a sufficient amount of clothes and a new laptop we decided the next day that we had time for a bit of sight-seeing. We headed first to Wall Street and marvelled at the huge number of armed police that could fit into such a small area.

We then boarded a Circle Line ferry and headed out to the Statue of Liberty, followed by Ellis Island (where all of the US' immigrants entered the country in around the 1920s).

That night, Nic's parents joined us in New York and we upgraded from a dingy hostel on the Upper West side to a much swisher hotel called The Wellington, between Central Park and Times Square.

Nicola's dad arranged for us to watch some baseball, so we hopped on a subway train heading to the Bronx to witness the Yankees narrowly beat the Royals at Yankee Stadium. Unlucky to the 'fans' who left half way through the 8th inning when the Yankees were losing, only to pull it back with an amazing 4 runs in the 9th inning.

After all that excitement, we decided the next day to take it easy and joined the countless other tourists on the Grayline sight seeing bus around lower Manhatten. We visited the Brooklyn Bridge, Chinatown, Ground Zero (where the World Trade Centre used to be), and the NBC studios. Dave showed off his skills as a weather man but unfortunately ran into problems negotiating his contract with NBC. It appears your soul is included in every contract they sign and Dave wasn't willing to sign his over just yet.

That night we went on a family outing to Hooters where we drank lots of er tasty American beer and got chatting to the bar lady in sexy bright orange running shorts. We were amazed to find out that she only gets paid $30 a week!!! Welcome to America: land of opportunity, wealth, freedom....

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