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Published: August 8th 2007
Well hello again my lovely family and friends! How's it going?
Things are great with me. Just writing to give you the latest on my New York jaunts! I've got to say what a fantastic city this is.... it's so cool.
I never thought I was going to arrive here at all at one point. I boarded the Delta Airlines flight like a 'gudden' and was sitting in my seat getting ready for take off when the pilot came onto the airwaves and said that our take off would be delayed because of a few 'concerns' and he would talk to us again shortly! Well for those of you who know me, you'll also know that I'm not a great fan of flying at the best of times! So... after this announcement I'm sitting there and my imagination is getting the better of me. Next thing I know the pilot makes another announcement saying that we had a Hydrolic leak and maintenence would be working on it for a good while trying to locate it!! (I know I spelt that wrong but I digress!)... anyway I think I nearly fainted at that point :o) He also announced that our 5.5 hr
flight would take up to an additional 2 hours because we had an unusual easterly wind instead of westerly! Great I thought.. (If we even lived to survive take off with our faulty hydrolics!!)
Anyway to cut a long story short we took off over 2 hours late, the flight also took an additional 1.5 hrs and the turbulance we experienced on the way was better than a day at Alton Towers! I wasn't a happy bunny :o(
Eventually I arrived at New York JFK Airport and got into a Yellow cab.... I was happy I'd survived the flight, but that happiness was short lived when the cab started moving as the taxi driver drove like a loonatic!! It was a complete white knuckle ride..... and then to top it all off when I arrived at my hostel, the fire brigade was just arriving at the same time as me!!! There were about 5 fire engines and apparently someone had set the fire alarm off here.... the firemen weren't happy at all, shouting at reception staff and all sorts!
Anyway, since I've settled into NYC everything has been great. I stayed in the Hostel for a few days when I
Hmm Yes Please!
This lovely was splashed across Times Square in all his glory! :o)first arrived and done some sight seeing in Times Sq, Broadway etc, and then last weekend I met my friend Karyn (from the Trek America Tour) and we made our way to Brooklyn as I was staying at her house for the weekend. The Friday night we went for a nice Italian meal local to her apartment and then just chilled out.
The next day we caught the metro to Greenwich Village and had a roam around. When we came up from the subway station I was realy shocked to see a large basketball court with all the metal fences with people spectating from the street (just like in the movies :o) We then walked to Washington Park and this place was really cool as there were proper domino park benches and people would stand and watch the domino players! There was also a live Jazz band and people were sitting in the sunshine taking in the music and the atmosphere. There were people doing majic tricks, market stalls to look at with Chinese people doing massage right there on the spot!....Very amusing!!
On the Saturday night we went into Manhattan to a good club and danced the night away.
At the end of the night I thought I was completely knackered but as we come down the stairs to exit the club we walked into another room and Karyn said "Oh look Marie.... they've got a dancing pole on the stage!".... BIG MISTAKE! It was like a scene from a wedding in slow motion where someones running to catch the bouquet! Only there was no bouquet.... just me and the pole!! WELL..... Talk about a second wind....I danced around this pole for a good half an hour with this completely gay guy (with his top pulled up halfway around his chest!!) It must've been so comical to watch the pair of us up there like Calamity Janes!!! he he he!!
Anyway since last weekend I've been back at the Hostel and I've done quite a lot of sightseeing. I went up to the top of the Empire State Building! Yes ME.... Marie 'I'm afraid of heights' Connolly! On my own too! Wow... the sight up there are just amazing. You can see everything up there...the whole of Manhattan, uptown, downtown, midtown, upper west, upper east side, central park, the lot.
I went for a little stroll afterwards down 5th
Avenue all the way past the Rockerfellar Centre to the designer shops and then I met my friend Karyn on Broadway and we went to see Les Miserables! It was a great show and we got the tickets for $30 each! They were first row mezzinine seats, which were about 8 rows from front. Ahhhhh.. it was brilliant.
Today I caught the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and spent some time on Liberty Island. It was good to get some nice close up photo's of her (check em out).
As I was in Lower Manhattan I decided to take a detour to the Ground Zero site. I must say that although there isn't really much to see as it's still like a building site in a huge hole in the ground... it's still really upsetting to think about what happened here.... kind of a somber feeling. Just looking at all the pictures of what the New York Skyline used to look like before the Twin Towers were taken down, compared to what it looks like now really puts things into perspective. The towers dominated the skyline and were almost double the height of all their neighbouring skyscrapers in the
financial ditrict. Even when out at Liberty Island you had great views of the Manhattan skyline but it seemed empty compared to the pictures I've seen when they once existed. So... although it was sad I'm glad I went nontheless.
This weekend I met my friend Angie (the girl I met in LA) and Friday we went to Soho for drinks and then went to a place called The Grand in Midtown (around 59th St and 5th Avenue). She knew the promotor so we skipped the queue, got in free (it's normally $25 entrance, and didn't pay for one drink the whole night as the VIP section had free bottles of spirits etc!!! We were like a pair of celebrities :o) he he....
Yesterday I went for a nice stroll around central park. Well actually it was more like a HIKE! Nobody told me the park is miles and miles long which meant I was wandering round getting lost for most of the time until I bumped into a man on one of them buggie things and he kindly told me where I could get a map. I asked where I'd find the zoo in the park and he told
me it was about 2o blocks down south!! I'm not joking you cannot walk around the park... it's far too huge for that.
Anyway, after the shock of discovering the sheer size of it, I went to visit the turtle pool... it's so beautiful. A huge lake filled to the brim with little turtles. There's so much going on in the park... people catching tan, picnic'ing', kids taking baseball lessons, and I seen a kiddie sack race! Remember them? It brought me back to my childhood days when we used to have the egg 'n' spoon races and the sack races where you'll fall at the first jump! I loved junior school sports days! If any of you feel the same then lets egg'n'spoon it down the local park when I get back for a laugh! :o) LOL!
Today I went to visit the Natural History Museum and checked out all the Dinousars ... wow the T-Rex is HUGE! You should see the size of it's head and teeth! This museum is fantastic as they have a huge array of dino fossils and even mummified dinos. They also had a special exhibit of live frogs! May sound boring to
some but it was brilliant. It was really informative and good to see all the poisonous ones. They had some gorgeous bright coloured frogs too... it was really great. Unfortunately I didn't get to see all the exhibits as the place is huge and it would take a couple of days to get around it.... however it will give me an excuse to visit next time I'm in NYC!
p.s. Can you believe I'll be coming home this Friday?!!! Can't believe how quickly the time's passed!! One thing I'll be glad of is my moms Sunday Roast and a good cup of Tetleys Tea! I guess England has got SOME benefits!!
Talk to you all again real soon! xx
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Ian Evans
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Home James!
Am so proud of you for doing all these things Marie. See, I told you all that work we did would help you with fear of spiders, flying and heights as well. You just ain't the same old person any more ;-) Anyway, you still owe me a bottle of wine so next time you have time, come and bore me with all your holiday tales. Take care sweetie x