New York, New York

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The flight over wasn't too bad. It was a 7-hour flight over from London Heathrow to New York, but to be honest it actually felt a lot longer. We did land on time however, so I was happy. As I was only going to be in New York till Saturday morning, I wanted as much time as possible to go exploring.

However, on arrival at JFK passport control, I was confronted with a massive queue, as people waited for their fingerprints and eye iris' photos to be taken, It wasn't good. It was hot, the air conditioning didn't seem to be working, and some people were also trying to jump the queue.

After a couple of hours I eventually got through. I'd already lost two hours now of my crucial sightseeing time, and I hadn't even got to the hotel yet!!!

I found my luggage, then found the place where I could get a shuttle bus straight to my hotel. The driver was nuts though. Crazy! He kept cutting people up, and weaving from side to side, I was so sure he was going to have an accident. Anyway, $20 lighter and I was at my hotel, The Hotel Beacon, which was on the corner of Broadway and 75th Street.

I checked in no problem, took my suitcase up to my 16th Floor room. It was a large, clean and cool room. I was impressed, though the view wasn't great. Just looking out at the walls of other surrounding hotels.

I went back down to reception and called up Bex and Juz, two of my friends from the Contiki message board. I was looking forward to finally meeting them. First I rang Juz, as I knew she'd probably been wondering where I'd got to. She was in, and so she came down. However, Bex was in but already had plans with her new friend Anna, who was also going to be on the tour. It was a shame, but we had originally planned on meeting up on the Friday, so left it at that. We would definitely meet each other the next day.

Juz, short for Justine, came down shortly, and it was good to put a face to the name, as it had been a couple of months of just e-mailing each other, and getting excited about the whole holiday thing. She was from Brisbane, Australia. So without wasting anymore time, we set off. We walked through some of Central Park, passing Strawberry Fields first, then Heckscher Playground (where there was a large children's fair), and then the Chess and Checkers Pavilion.

From here we walked down 7th Avenue to Times Square. It was so busy, and there was so much happening. We took some photos, then went into some of the shops along Broadway, where I bought two NY panoramic skyline prints and walked some more. Our next stop was Grand Central Terminal station on E. 42nd Street, and then to Hudson River Park, passing through Hell's Kitchen, where I'd managed to get my picture taken with one of the NYPD police officers and his patrol car. My policeman brother had wanted to see what they looked like. The River Park was nothing special, just a dock that was supposedly being rejuvenated. We obviously didn't stay here long, and decided it would be time for dinner.

We found a nice little Irish bar, called McCoy's, where we had drinks and dinner. It was a really nice bar, though the whole building was only about 10ft wide. I don't think I've ever seen a place as narrow as that before. My cheeseburger meal was huge, and not surprisingly I couldn't eat it all. But what I had was lovely.

From here, the plan was to go to the Empire State Building. After a little trouble finding the entrance, we finally got in ($14 each). It was around 11pm by now, and so we didn't get any of the crowds that are there during the day. We got some amazing photos from the observatory deck. You could see the city lights for miles, and there was only a minimal amount of caging, meaning I could get my camera underneath and take some amazing uninterrupted night shots. We left here just before midnight (when it closes!) and we were both now quite tired, especially after all the walking we'd done today, so decided to call it a day.

After a few problems finding our way back, we eventually got a cab back from Grand Central to our hotel. It had been an excellent first day, and I really never thought we could've crammed what we did into just one afternoon and evening. I was hoping tomorrow would be just a good.

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