Day 35 - New York City

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New York City - 32°c

I woke up shortly after 9am, and after taking my morning doses of cold and flu medication, showering and making myself presentable, Aaron and I headed down to the club lounge for breakfast, with Jen needing a bit more time (and peace!) to get ready, and then joined us shortly afterwards.

After breakfast we headed down to the subway at 53rd street & 7th avenue, to pick up the ‘E’ line down to the World Trade Center. Although I visited the site around 18 months ago when I was in New York City last time, a lot has changed and it’s great to see that the building and construction work is definitely progressing. Last time the builders were still excavating in preparation for the foundations, and now the framework must be at least 20-storeys high.

Once we’d looked around and taken some photos, Aaron and Jen headed off to see the Statue Of Liberty. Having seen it just last year, I decided to skip out another trip over there, especially since the contents of my wallet are now wafer thin, with only a few tattered dollar bills remaining! Still, being the day before I head home and 35 days after I arrived, I guess that was to be expected!

So once we agreed to text message one another later on to arrange a meeting point, we went out separate ways. I went over to the Century 21 shop, where I managed to find lots of reduced clothes and bargains last time I was in New York, and this time was exactly the same! Thankfully there wasn’t too much to tempt me, and I only picked up a couple of items.

Next I took a walk around down to the Seaport area of lower Manhattan, to take a look at the river and bridges, before heading back to the subway and walking the remaining blocks back to the hotel.
Once back inside I freshened up from the hot New York humid summer weather, before walking down to Times Square to meet up with Michelle, Marnee and Lauren to pass on some of the belongings that I had in my case. I wasn’t able to spend too long down there though, as Aaron, Jen and I had arranged to meet back at the hotel ready to head to Rockefeller Center.

I arranged to meet up with Michelle, Marnee and Lauren again later to say our final goodbyes, and walked back up to the hotel. Once I got back up to the room, Aaron and Jen were exhausted from their trip over to the Statue of Liberty. Apparently it had taken nearly all day up until that point to see the statue, with long queues both to get over to Liberty Island and back again, and time needed in between the two to properly see and take everything in. So because they felt quite drained, we decided to put off our trip to Rockefeller Center until a bit later on, and headed back to the Club Lounge for our complimentary afternoon snacks and drinks. I checked my email whilst we were there, and managed to catch my Mum and sister online, so chatted to them for a while.

After a while, we headed back to the room to pick up our things and head on over to Rockefeller Center around 7pm. Surprisingly for the beautiful time of day (the sky just starting to go pink and the sun just beginning to set), there was virtually no line to purchase tickets, and only a few people in the line for the elevator. Once we got in the elevator, the lights went dark, the ceiling of the elevator went clear and by looking up it looked as though we were part of a rocket launch! There were flashing neon lights and a clever video projection down onto the ceiling of the elevator to build up the suspense. Within a matter of seconds, we were at the top, some 850 feet from the streets. Stepping out of the elevator, panoramic views of New York City greeted us from large floor to ceiling windows. We then walked around until we found the steps taking us up another floor and onto the lower outdoor observation deck. Although we were very high up, the air was still very hot and humid, with next to no breeze even at such a height. However the city itself looked beautiful. It wasn’t the clearest of days so we couldn’t see as far as perhaps we would have done if the air had have been a bit clearer, but we still managed to see so much.

Having been up the Empire State Building a couple of times, I kind of knew what to expect from being at the top of a very tall building, but the views from the top of Rockefeller Center were entirely different. Obviously we were able to see the Empire State Building, which in itself was fantastic, but on the other side of the building heading north, we were able to see an amazing view of the entire length and width of Central Park. Being twenty blocks further south and with several tall skyscrapers in the way, it’s not possible to view Central Park from the top of the Empire State Building, and being able to see it from here almost made the admission fee worthwhile for our view of Central Park alone. It looked amazing, almost as though it was an enormous buffer of greenery between block after block of skyscrapers.

Whilst we were up there and after we’d spent some time in the gift shop, the sun soon began to set and the sky went from being a beautiful pink colour to a dark blue. All of a sudden the city came to life and lit up as though it had just woken up, and for as far as the eye could see, lights from the windows of the skyscrapers shone into the night sky and made for a beautiful sight.

After taking more than a couple of hundred photos between us, we headed back down, our ears popping as the elevator dropped so fast. Once on the ground, we called in at the new branch of the Magnolia Bakery that we noticed on the way to Rockefeller Center. Having been to the original shop down in the West Village part of Manhattan on my last visit (copying Miranda and Carrie from Sex and the City), I managed to encourage Aaron and Jen to get in on the cupcakes too! After buying several, we came outside and sat by a fountain in Rockefeller Plaza to enjoy them, taking photos of one another doing so!

Once finished, we walked several blocks back over to Times Square to meet up with Marnee, Michelle and Lauren. We’d arranged to meet outside the Hard Rock Café since it’s an easy place to spot and meet by, and we then walked to the large McDonalds around the corner for some food. Michelle and I had agreed that going to McDonalds for our farewell dinner was quite a fitting end to our time together since when I originally met up with her all the way back on day 1 of the trip, we ate in McDonalds for our first meal together. Marnee joined us on what was day 3 for me, and Lauren joined us from day 6, so the four of us had arguably spent the most time together out of anyone.

Although we’d finished our food and were all exhausted and in the back of our minds wanting to get back to our hotels, none of us particularly wanted to leave the table, knowing that once outside, we’d be heading in separate directions for the final time. However eventually we did, and I walked down the stairs with my arm around Marnee who was already getting choked up.

Outside, Aaron took some photos of the four of us (Lauren, Marnee, Michelle and I) in front of some passing taxis in the background for the authentic New York look. We all hugged, kissed and got teary eyed as we said our goodbyes, promising to not only stay in touch, but very, very hopefully to see each other again someday. With that, as we walked away, for Lauren and I at least since we both leave tomorrow, the trip had officially come to its end.

Aaron, Jen and I walked back through Times Square to the hotel, where we all collapsed on our beds, exhausted from walking around all day, and headed to bed around 1:30am.

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Comments

[pauline krohn]

Hi Carl.Thanks for letting us travel across America with you.For the past 5 weeks we have enjoyed reading your blogs,so much so that we were starting to feel like stalkers.Marnee is fortunate to have found a great friend like you and I know she will treasure your friendship forever.Have a safe trip home.xx