NYC

From Philly we drove to Ramsey, New Jersey to meet up with our friend from San Francisco, Matt Shiel. He showed us around the area and took us hiking in New York (only about 10 miles from his parents house). Matt also turned out to be a great resource for our trip to New York City because he grew up in the area.
We got on the train (with Matt's help) and wandered into NYC with out a clue where we were going to stay for the night. As it turns out, it is hard to find an inexpensive youth hostel in NYC during the summer (duh...) so we took our chances and called about 8 hostels once we got into the city. Luckily, the one we wanted in Chelsea had a cancellation and we were able to book 4 nights in a row.
We walked around the city the first night, trying to get a feel for it. Our walk took us to Time Square, Central Park and to the top of the Empire States Building.
The next day we left our hostel early and went to the southern tip of Manhattan. We saw the World Trade Center site, the Statue of Liberty (we didn't take the ferry because of the 3-4 hour lines) and all the excitement of Battery Park. At night we found a great Cuban restaurant near our hostel and drank Mojitos.
On our second day, we got up early again and went to Time Square to get Broadway tickets. We scored tickets to a musical called Spring Awakening for $25 a piece with our student discount cards! Usually the tickets are around $100 a piece. From there we went to the Modern Museum of Art, Grand Central Station, The Guggenheim (didn't go inside), and the John Lennon memorial in Central Park. In the evening we went to our show.

On the third day, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge in the morning, and went to Greenwich Village in the afternoon. We went to a bar that Darren recommended to us in the evening called Blind Tiger and Paggi ordered "Dogfishhead" and "Cask" beers that he says were amazingly hoppy.

We loved New York, it was one of the highlights of our entire trip. It felt like a whole different trip in itself. We both agreed that we would love to live there (probably not for long though). It is a place I'm sure we will return to someday.

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