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Published: June 19th 2008
Thursday 22 - Monday 26 May 2008
To set the scene for New York, we spent our first night in the Big Apple (though nobody calls it this anymore) watching the Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. We bought our tickets at the last minute counter in Times Square and couldn’t believe how many shows there were to choose from (my second choice would’ve been Legally Blonde and I think Sean would’ve gone for Frankenstein). Times Square was great, although always so, so crowded. In fact, there was a queue for just about everything we wanted to do in New York and one of our tour guides commented that people weren’t interested unless there was a queue.
Our excursion to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island took up most of a day, mainly due to the two grand hours Sean spent lining up to board the ferry (while I was checking out some nearby shops). It worked out pretty well though, because Sean had developed a cold, so standing in the sun was about all he was up for. This was our first experience with an audio tour and Sean and I diligently wore
our headphones and listened to all the sections as they came up. The Statue of Liberty tour was fairly brief and we actually spent most of the time wandering around the administration building on Ellis Island. Twelve million immigrants passed through Ellis Island over a 30 year period from 1890 and the pictures and information were fascinating.
We spent another couple of days doing Hop on Hop off red bus tours, which were pretty good value. A two day pass cost $50 and allowed you to travel on four different bus loops that took about two hours each. We did the Downtown Loop, Night Loop (which included Brooklyn, the Manhattan Bridge and views of the Brooklyn Bridge) and the Uptown Loop (including Harlem). The guides were funny and interesting and pointed out things like the home of Sesame Street, the largest Macy’s Department Store, the Waldorf (where the President and Paris Hilton stay) and apartment complexes comprising over 100 buildings. The only downside was that there were massive queues to get on the buses and sometimes we were waiting for 30 or 40 minutes.
We were also very pleased with ourselves at the Empire State Building because we
managed to get in for free. The entry fee is normally $19 per person and we were hoping to get a $2 discount by showing our military ID. When we got to the counter the man said it was free entry for military people due to the Memorial Day long weekend. Not only that, but we were put into the express line, which meant (for once) we got to skip all of the queues. The view from the top was great and we were able to point out most of the main sights, thanks to our informative bus tours.
Probably one of the things we missed out on was the World Trade Centre Memorial. We walked all the way around Ground Zero, but were unable to find the memorial and later read that there is a dedicated centre located a little back from the actual site.
We spent our last afternoon watching a baseball game and wandering around the lakes and reservoir in Central Park, which is just huge. The place was packed, because of the long weekend and great weather, but very beautiful. And I should also add that despite being totally weighed down, we managed to
find some time for shopping. I bought a handbag and a couple of shirts and Sean bought a pair of shorts.
We spent the whole of Monday travelling, mainly because of the time difference between New York and the UK. We left Dexter House at 5am on Monday morning and were picked up at Heathrow by Alex at about 9pm that night. The British Airways flight was oh so British, and Sean started to get excited when he pointed out that Ireland was below all that cloud we could see out the window.....
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alex
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excellenat photo of sean being denied entry