Advertisement
Published: March 2nd 2011
Edit Blog Post
NEW YORK CITY
After spending 3 days in NY we can really say we love the place, more so than we expected we would. It is a cool and foremost crazy place where you can expect anything at any time at any place!
The first day we started out with a stroll through Central Park which started close to the hostel, It was pretty much as you would see in any movie which was shot in and around NY, joggers EVERYWHERE!!! We were jumping from side to side just to avoid them 😊 After 2 hours walking through the park we ended up at the beginning of 7th Av. (just like Dari said we would😊 although a full 75 meters of course) This is where it should all be happening, Time square, Broad way, and all the crazy and exaggerated stores like M&M's, Disney, and a monstrously big Toys R Us with the real Willy Wonka chocolate bars and a 1:100 scaled Empire state building made out of Lego (King-Kong included)
After paying a visit to Madison Square Garden, Grand central station, the Chrysler building and after we spotted the Empire State Building (not a very hard thing to
do by the way) we started looking for Rockefeller center. After we finally found the place we discovered that we have been walking through it and around it for over 30 minutes, BIG PLACE we can tell you, a town within the city you could say 😊
Although we finally found the place we had no time to fool around because we previously bought tickets to get to the observation floor of the Empire state building (Top of the Rock) on which we got ripped of by the way, I mean $50 per persons sounds a little much don't you think? What happened was that we bought our selves a simulated helicopter ride which was definitely not worth $30 😞 so far for our budget for that day 😊 but never the less we wanted to be on the top around night fall to witness the transition from light to dark 😊 which we did!!! and decided that we would visit Rockefeller center an other time mainly because we some some kind of Lego super store😊
On “Top of the Rock” it was extremely cold and windy but we had an amazing view on the city below! Central Park, lower
and upper Manhattan, New Jersey, Brooklyn, Coney Island, …..
We waited for it to be completely dark so that we could see the 2 light beams where once the twin towers were, but were later told by one of the guys that work there that they only turn on these lights during national holidays and weekends, so be it😊
After a very exciting day in NY tired and hungry (we spend our lunch money on the Empire state building) we returned to our hostel and tried to plan the next day
A while back we reserved 2 tickets for a small cruise to Liberty Island and Ellis Island it had gotten a lot colder over night and the wind had picked up as well, but nothing was going to stop us 😊
Besides the temperature and the wind the sky was completely clear which you can see on the pictures. We forgot the name of the cruise company we set off to find the place where we had to board only having a reservation number and knowing that the boat was leaving from Battery Park. We still don't know rather there are 2 Battery Parks or that it
is just a big place but it took us quite some time to find it. I (Dari) lost the sense of my Butt and had to ask Joost to check if it was still there or not, just to give you an idea of how cold it was that day. We followed the horde of Chinese people and a point where some boats seemed to dock we found our way to the cruise company. Yeeaaa we found it!!!!!!
To get to the Liberty Island took few minutes by boat, once there we were treated as VIPs 😊)
Several months ago we reserved the tickets including crown access which appeared to be special, there are only 100 of these tickets available on any given day, they also prevent you from staying in long cue's at the security check making you feel like a VIP 😊
After climbing about 320 steps up we arrived in the crown where we had a spectacular view over the Hudson river and Manhattan. The place was a little cramped so we couldn't stay there very long but it was well worth the climb and the time!
They love their security. They check you everywhere
before you board, when you pick up the reserved tickets and during our accent we got checked 2 more times. Oh yea, and I would forget about our hand luggage, If you ever go there guys you must store them in a tent specially made for this. But just do not store everything, for example your ID, passports and tickets which you will still need – like us 😊)) From Liberty Island they brought us to Ellis Island, where all immigrants arrived from late 18 hundreds until 1928
Joost found a relative between a list of immigrants
Even at the begin of our tour we thought we will get back to Manhattan after lunch, it was not until 4p.m. before we got back. So we decided not to walk that long anymore and we went to take a look at Grand Zero. Such a disappointment that they took out the memorial with all pictures and messages.
After that we walked around downtown for a bit to get to Wall Street. Surprisingly it's a small and short street. Even though we didn't plan it we found the Trump Building with its gold and marble plated walls. Before the night fall we
walked up to the Brooklyn Bridge to cross it to get a spectacular view on all of Manhattan, Hudson river and the Brooklyn Bridge.
After a nice long walk and metro ride back to the hostel we found out that the guys that work there are not very planners. after our first 2 nights in the same room they now changed our room for a non understandable reason. Dari got transferred to a different room -with other 15 French parting people- but the person that was now in her bed actually belonged to the group which stayed in Dari's new room. The next day they forgot to tell us that they did it again while our stuff was still in the old rooms 😞 What to say...really helpful guys.
So on the third day we thought to take it easy and just stroll around downtown Manhattan for a while.
First we had to make our itinerary for the rest of the trip through the US, that was not as easy as it sounds because we have to depend on when and where the Amtrak trains can take us 😊 But we did it (we think) We did it sitting
in a McDonald downtown and had a nice show during our visit there because of some lady loosing here marbles and started screaming all kinds of discriminating things, which was not the smartest thing to do because 80% of the guests at that time were either black or Hispanic😊 She is still alive by the way.....
After we were done planing, we made our way to Rockefeller center to checkout some of the stores over there, especially the Lego store seemed promising!! After that, we payed a visit to the St. Patrick's Cathedral and lit some candles whilst thinking of our loved ones. Next stop was China town. We walked down the 5th Av. through the Soho area with all of its stores and arrived in China town which was not really what we expected it to be, better luck in San Francisco we guess. So that was basically it for that day other than that we visited Washington square and took some pictures there. We are going to miss NY I think, it is a really great place to be! But what I (Joost) will remember the most is the huge amount of crazy people in on place,
I have always thought that the people in Amsterdam are nuts but compared to NY Amsterdam is sane 😊 But it fits the place though!!! The thing I will remember most (Dari) is that it seemed like that company “The North Face” was giving away their stuff for free because every other person in NY was either wearing or holding something that came from them 😊
WE LOVE NY!!!
Next stop Niagara Falls, NY.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.139s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 11; qc: 49; dbt: 0.086s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Honza
non-member comment
:-)
That's perfect man, g'd luck on the journey both to you .. :-)