New York

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We didn't get the best first impression of New York (the bus driver, obviously a New York native by the accent, in response to a polite request to turn the movie volume down: "Nope. Its fine, thank you.") This followed by getting dumped in the middle of Harlem in a serious downpour and having to take a long circular route to the hostel, where our accomodation turned out to be someone's closet. The weather was stifling, and we had only a small temperamental fan to cool the room down (the next day we switched to a room with about 2 extra square feet of floor space, and Raj pinched the other fan so we had two. shhh.)
Sunday afternoon I heard a confused-sounding Lucy out in the corridor (we hadn't managed to tell them about the room change) Got to love Lucy and Joe for travelling 2000 miles to see us! Or maybe the sights of New York, we're not sure. We hit Times Square in the rain that evening - Joe searched in vain for the WWE wrestling building and we saw the new Fast and Furious film (no comment. except maybe ouch, I wouldn't want to be a tire in this movie).
New Yorkers in general were a lot more friendly than our bus driver - on some occasions people who overheard us arguing over directions would step in and tell us what train we needed to catch, which turning to take etc.
On Monday we headed to Greenwich Village and spent a lot of time in record shops, which was fun. Greenwich was nice, but didn't really seem to be as hippy-infested as we thought. Tuesday was shopping in Soho, where I didn't spend nearly as much time or money as I would have liked to! I think this was also the day we trekked across Central Park. Wednesday we did the sightseeing bit, taking a free ferry over to Staten Island to pass by the Statue of Liberty. On Staten Island we didn't do much - it was very hot. We also saw the World Trade Centre site, where they are building a new 9/11 memorial - its currently not the most peaceful place with all the construction activity.
On our last day in the city we headed over to the Bronx and paid too much for a meal in a restaurant that may or may not have been used in the filming of the Godfather, and came close to missing our plane! (actually we weren't that close, but Raj panicked) - yeah right! we had like 5 minutes before the plane took of!!

Lucy and Joe - we hope you enjoyed the rest of your time in New York! Joe - SLOW DOWN!!

Raj-fans - check out the 'what Raj ate in America' round-up, coming soon.

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Comments

[Lizzie]

Awesome guys! Hurry up and come home so I can stop reading these and getting jealous :P I've moved down to Southampton now and managed to land myself a £300 minmum a week job so...Reading this year will be great!! See youall there :D xxx