Day 38 - Arriving in The Big Apple - New York!

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Today was another early wake-up for us, but we sort of didn't mind (as much as we would usually!), because today was going to be our first day in New York! The alarm woke us up at 4:30am, and surprisingly we were both pretty energetic - probably due to a fairly sensible bedtime the previous night. We had packed most of our bags yesterday so quickly got washed and dressed so that we could pack away anything else that we had used during the morning to get ready.

We were too early for breakfast, so thought that we would check out the vending machine in the lobby, as there were a few snacks such as pop tarts and cereal bars inside it. However, the pop tarts were strawberry flavoured, which we didn't really fancy, and $1 for a single cereal bar is a bit steep! Emma ate one of her cereal bars from the other week that was in her bag, and Craig decided to wait until we were in the subway station, where he knew that he could get a morning donut from the trusty 'Dunkin' Donuts' inside.

At this point, we made our way to the front desk to check out nice and early so that we had enough time to get to the subway to catch the trains that would take us to the bus station. Once we had handed in our key, we hauled our cases outside the building, down the street (making a right racket on the brick pavements!) and up the slight hill to the Back Bay station. We also spotted what we first thought was a massive cat, until realising that we had just seen a racoon running around in the dark!

We got to the station, and as planned, made our way to the Dunkin' Donuts counter so that Craig could get himself some breakfast. We headed down to catch the orange line to Downtown Crossing, where we then changed to the red line which took us to South Station, where our Megabus would depart from. Thanks to our careful planning and timing, we were perfectly on time for each connecting train, and were ready and waiting at the gate for our bus a good 30 minutes prior to departure.

A guy came round with a clipboard to tick off our reservation number, and our bus pulled in bang on time at 6:45am. As the bus was a double-decker, we hurried to the rear of the bus to offload our cases to the driver as quickly as possible, so that we could get the best seats at the very front of the top deck, with the big, panoramic window. At first, as there were a couple of people in front of us, we thought that we had missed out (we would have gladly nudged them out of the way!), however, for some unknown reason, they didn't sit in the best seats, instead opting for seats in the middle of the bus, allowing us to scoot past and get those precious seats! The reason we wanted these seats so badly was that it would give us a great view of the New York cityscape as we approached from a distance.

The journey lasted about four and a half hours, and was pretty much as expected; a little cramped and uncomfortable, but what do you expect when you only paid around £3.50 (the price of a daysaver back home!) to travel over 220 miles?! We won't bore you with the details of the trip, the bus basically went through the usual scenery such as small cities, forests and open areas, before finally, we could see the silhouettes of the high-rise buildings of New York on the horizon.

As we got closer, we took a couple of pictures and waited patiently - in lots of traffic full of yellow cabs - as our bus drove from the Bronx (north of New York city), all the way through Manhattan to completely the other side. Frustratingly, we also 3pm, but that we were welcome to leave our bags in the luggage room. Bemused, we notified her that we had already put our bags down there and that she had told us that 2pm would be fine for check-in. She gave a half-arsed apology and basically sent us on our way again for another hour!

This time, we headed in the opposite direction of the previous park, and instead (using our Google Maps knowledge!) took a 10 minute walk a few blocks down, where we reached Central Park. The sun was really blazing, so we walked to the top of the nearest hill to a clearing with benches and pathways, and basically took in the sights and sounds of this famous landmark. It was even so hot that people were sunbathing in bikinis and shorts, so we were soon sweltering in our jeans and hoodies, quickly removing the latter! We observed joggers, dog-walkers, a baby enjoying his first birthday party, and a father and his children playing ball (which Craig had to keep rescuing the ball after the kids kept throwing it past their dad, who later informed us that he had recently undergone open heart surgery - that's one dedicated father!).

Once again, the time came for us to take the short walk back to the hostel. Thankfully, we were finally allowed to check-in! We paid swiftly and received our key for our room on the third floor. We were happy to find that we had a fridge - meaning that we could maybe stock up on food supplies for breakfast and evening meals and not have to rely on fast food. We also had a chest of drawers with a vanity mirror, a sink, a closet and plenty of electrical outlets, the only downside being that the wifi doesn't seem to reach our room. 😞

We went downstairs in the basement/lounge area to try the wifi, which seemed to be playing up, but managed to connect in the hallway near reception, long enough to check where the nearest McDonalds was so that we could leech their wifi instead, as usual! We saw that the nearest McDonalds was a short subway ride away, so we hopped back on the number 1 train for two stops, emerging at 96th Street, pretty much right next to the McDonalds we were after. We went in and found a seat, booted up the netbook and did the usual things such as checking in on facebook and emails, before uploading the blog for yesterday's events.

It was around 5pm by that point, so we had planned on eating soon, and had enough willpower to not stay in McDonalds to do this! We decided that, since we are in New York, why not head to Times Square to check out the eateries there, and also do the usual touristy things (i.e. taking lots of photos!). We got onto the number 3 train (which is an express train that literally took 5 minutes to get to Times Square!) and walked up the steps into the bright lights of the Big Apple!

We wandered around in awe for a while, mesmerized by the huge skyscrapers around us, as well as the glowing screens and advertisement boards plastered on pretty much every available flat surface (sometimes even curved ones!). We did a lot of window-shopping, as well as entering some stores of interest - at one point, a member of staff in the Billabong store insisted that Craig try on a $450 watch, even though we told him that we couldn't afford it - which he did tentatively, scared to the core of dropping and breaking it!

As we walked in the centre of Times Square, we looked up and noticed a massive HD LCD screen that had a live camera feed of the street below - and we were on it! We took a few pictures of us on the screen as a memento, whilst watching others do silly dances and generally making fools of themselves for everyone watching to see!

After about two hours of the usual shops, eateries and photo-taking routine, we decided that we would save us some money and buy some groceries for tea nearer the hostel and return to Times Square when we weren't so tired on our feet. On our way back to the subway station, we noticed a large, neon sign with 'New York Police Department' on it (it seems that even the police in New York are very glam/showbiz!), with a couple of on-duty officers overlooking the very busy streets. As we passed, we decided it would be a perfect photo-op, so Emma stepped up in between and asked for a picture. They jokingly said no and that they had work to do, to which we replied "you're just standing there doing nothing!", which they then laughed off and happily posed for a picture, saying that they were defending Emma from terrorists!

We eventually reached the subway station, hopped back on the train and were back at our station within around 10 minutes. As fate would have it, right next to the exit of the subway was the entrance to a supermarket (which we had somehow failed to notice earlier) - perfect for our planned grocery shop! We went inside and grabbed a few things, such as a couple of microwaveable chicken dinners (much healthier than our recent diet of fast-food!), some pop, some pineapple chunks for dessert, a box of cereal and a carton of Lactaid milk (which Craig has assured Emma tastes just like normal milk!) - hopefully this will last most, if not all of the week for breakfast. We also picked up a pack of disposable bowls to eat from whilst in our room - we had already pocketed some plastic cutlery from 7-Eleven in Boston.

We paid for our shopping, walked back to the hostel and took the elevator back up to our room. We packed away our stuff in the fridge and took our microwave meals to the kitchen area just down the corridor. Emma's hunger seemed to have subsided by this point, so she decided that she would save her chicken dinner for tomorrow and just eat some of the pineapple chunks as her tea. Craig heated up his meal and took it back to the room to eat, which he found was surprisingly tasty! Emma munched down her pineapple chunks, handing Craig his portion of the pineapple for his dessert once he had finished his meal.

Since then, we've relaxed in the room, took a look at the photos from earlier, and given the wifi another shot - no luck. 😞 We instead have hovered in the hallway, where we CAN get wifi to upload this blog! Once again, sorry that there are no photos just yet - we will try to upload them as soon as possible!

As we've not paid for a breakfast at this hostel, we have no real rush to get up in the morning and so can instead enjoy a nice, relaxed (and probably sleepy) breakfast-in-bed!

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