New York, New York It's A Hell Of A Town!!

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We arrived in New York on the 23rd of December, just in time for the Christmas rush and a sleep after a long night on the booze with a couple of Poms, a Dane and a German. But first we thought we should get into the Christmas spirit like everyone else in this country and go down to the Rockefeller Centre to see the Christmas tree (also like everyone else in the country it seems). We were shoulder to shoulder with tourists from everywhere and after starting out being the considerate Aussies we are, we ended up using elbows, legs and anything possible to push through the crowds, knocking over all ages from kids to the elderly. We weren’t prejudice to any ages. We eventually saw the tree, and what a tree. Its really big and an actual tree. We also took a gander at the ice skating rink at the Rockefeller Centre which was packed with hoards of people travelling at about 2 km/hr in an anti-clockwise direction. I didn’t like the chances of anyone who fell because they would surely have been skated over by the hundreds of people behind them. After seeing the Rock centre we barged our way to Times Square which is a sensory overload. There is neon everywhere you look and when there’s no neon there are adverts for clothes, food, you name it. We came out of there with a sudden urge to see a Broadway show whilst eating our McDonalds and wearing the latest designer label. We fulfilled the second of these urges at the largest McDonalds in the world which is more like a night club. From there we did go to Broadway, not to see a show, just because it was close and we had nothing better to do. All of the major shows were down there from Phantom of the Opera to Chicago to The Producers and Rent. Well, they are all of the ones we’d heard of but then again we don’t frequent Broadway often.

We thought that the Museum of Sex would be a good starting point for today so we headed on down in the fantastic (but definitely not snowing) 45-50 degrees Fahrenheit clear weather. Interesting museum with everything from the history of sex to the crazy machines different weirdos, I mean people, have invented to do with sex. One rather interesting part was the Japanese drawings depicting the fallas as a huge loch ness monster like creature. I won’t elaborate much further on this museum as our blog is M rated and some of this certainly was not. After the museum we thought it would be a good idea to go to 5th Ave which is one of, if not, the biggest and most famous shopping district in the world. We kind of forgot that it was also Christmas Eve and this meant that 5th Ave was packed to the brim. Luckily we had learnt how to walk (or pummel) through crowds the night before and this came in handy, especially when we got into toy and candy stores. Speaking of which we paid the biggest Toys R Us store in the world a visit and saw everything from an in-store ferris wheel to exhibits for all kinds of toys including a giant dinosaur for Jurassic Park, a huge King Kong for the Lego exhibit, a Barbie mansion and big Spiderman and Superman exhibits for the toys which relate to the movies. We also went past the 3 storey M and M’s World and the giant Hershey’s Store. Sarah arrived later so we went out for some pre-Christmas drinks to the Hotel Chelsea which was made famous by Sid and Nancy.

Merry Christmas!! Ok so it’s a bit late but at least it came. We started our New York Christmas by whinging about the sunny local weather and cursing the snow gods for not showing up and then taking a horse and carriage ride around Central Park which turned out to be a bit of a struggle considering all of the hoards of people trying to do the same thing. After Ian fired up and embraced his very minimal rangerness we got a carriage and rolled around Central Park. After our ride we went downtown and to our surprise a lot of the shops were open. I thought these yanks embraced Christmas and spent it with their families but this wasn’t the case. We dined at a decent Italian restaurant for Christmas dinner complete with a bottle of wine to share. We thought we could spoil ourselves.

We wanted to ice skate on Christmas but the abundance of people at Wollman Rink stopped us, so we went today. We really did look like Aussie tourists on the ice with Nick being the standout skater in our group with Sarah a close second. They were both face-plant free which is more than can be said for Ian and Emma who both experienced the sweet taste of ice twice. Following the ice skating we hopped on a train and saw the second of our 5 boroughs, Brooklyn. We crossed the rather impressive Brooklyn Bridge, entered Brooklyn, walked around for a bit and then left again, nothing much to do there. We booked the Hudson Café for dinner, which is a swish establishment on the west side of town. We thought a decent dinner was in order and this was very decent and we racked up quite a bill.

We hit Broadway for a show today, more specifically, The Producers. The stage show was certainly much better than the movie which made watching paint dry interesting. As a bonus, Tony Danza from Who’s The Boss, was the star of the show. I guess he is reinventing himself as a Broadway star. Following this we went to Hard Rock Café which is massive in New York.

Yankees stadium is very impressive and marked our third of the five boroughs, the Bronx. It’s not as scary as everyone makes out although we did go there in the day and spent about a maximum of about 10mins off the subway. Queens was next on the agenda and was the fourth borough of New York. We saw the tennis centre at Flushing Meadows and again spent minimum time off the subway. Not only are these areas considered the “bad” parts New York, they are also the least interesting so walking around would be pointless and dangerous. We got back on the subway and off again at Wall St, let’s move on not much to talk about here. World Trade Centre was next, again let’s move on we’ve all seen a big hole in the ground. Staten Island was next on the agenda and saw us complete our five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten Island. We got the ferry there, got off and walked around and got back on bound for Manhattan. We went to the Comic Strip, which is a famous comedy club in New York, after the ferry. Comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler and Dave Chapelle have all performed here and the line up we saw was really good apart from one over offensive bloke who’s act can’t be repeated and practically got booed off.

The “Grand Olde Girl”, what a site for a tourist in New York. We took the ferry to Liberty Island to see the statue today after lining up for a couple hours. She is impressive. On the way back we saw Ellis Island which was made famous as the place where the immigrants were led before they could get into New York in the early days. We followed this by going to Soho and then we busted through more crowds to see the outside of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings as well as Madison Square Garden which is where the Knicks (the local NBA team) play.

Ian went to the Top of the Rock today to see New York from a more birds eye perspective. The views are amazing and you can see all of the 5 boroughs clearly as well as all of the major landmarks. We all headed into Chinatown and Little Italy later that day before heading out later to Coyote Ugly, which is the original bar from the movie of the same name. This place is great with the perfect mix of lifes most important ingredients: beer and dancing girls. (Guess who is writing this blog) And before all the girls start throwing their Bacardi Breezers at the computer, the girls (Or Coyotes) keep their clothes on, however little they are wearing. Having sampled two Coyote Ugly’s now we decided that the Charlotte one was better, with a more personal service.

It’s New Years Eve and we are gearing up for Times Square but before this Ian Emma and Sarah took a tour of Manhattan’s TV and Movie Sites. The tour went all over including the inner Manhattan areas as well as Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Soho and Tribeca. Some of the sites included the firehouse from Ghostbusters, the apartment building from Friends, the soup nazi from Seinfeld and locations from movies such as Big Daddy, Taxi Driver, Sleepless in Seattle, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Spiderman, Men in Black, Hitch and The Godfather just to name a few. We also found out that Coyote Ugly wasn’t filmed at the bar, it was filmed at a bar call Hogs and Heifers which is far more dingy. Now to new years. We stood in the cold for 3 hours about 6 blocks back from Times Square watching a tiny little ball descend down a pole which we could barely see along with over a million other people. But it had to be done. What an experience. We were told that about 85% of the people there were tourists by a local New Yorker. We also hit a party afterwards with about the same amount of people (well maybe a couple of thousand as opposed to millions). We all danced and drank the night and early morning away until we decided to call it a morning at about 4am. We braved the stinky subway back and avoided the poo on the station to arrive back at our trusty hostel.

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Comments

[Ainsley]

My first comment! This has been a pretty damn entertaining travelblog (do you call it a tlog or a travog or something?) and it's a pity I forgot about it until today. You've filled me with a desire to tour the States now, how annoying. Can't believe you spent NYE in NY! What a gas! Ems I'm fading away to nothing with you here. The postcard and sticker in an envelope (zomg!) were MUCH appreciated! Email me and let me know where you are. Hope you guys are having a tremendous time x

[Gordon]

Still trying to work out who wrote this, I guess it was Nick. As a point of interest what the hell does 'rangerness' mean?

[sue]

Great photos!! Especially the one of Brooklyn bridge. I assume that the famous Empire diner is at the Empire State building.

[Mysterious Enigma]

The Deffinition of Rangerness
Rangerness: How much of the attributes of a red head you exhibit. Ranger Rage: A red head blowing their top over nothing. (eg Watto on a soccer field). Not Ranger at all: Cool level headed Very Ranger: Biffing a chick cause she said no

[Jeremy]

Ian wow it must be a rally bad time delay between us all back home and where u guys are - i had no idea you were still in Movember - Giddity

[Samantha]

Facial Hair
What's with the mo Ian?? Its very 50's...(I think that's the right decade?!)