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Published: August 10th 2006
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Another night skyline
Picture really shows the bright lights of New York!! Heading back downtown after our trip past the Statue of Liberty we decided time was getting on and we should head towards the Empire State Building where we were to meet Annie and Paul. On the way I was starting to feel a bit grouchy which usually means I am hungry (poor old Kim had got used to my hungry grouchy turns by now). We stopped at a vendor and decided to try one of the Giant pretzels on the way to keep me going!!
We finally reached the Empire State worried that we would be late and that we would have a huge queue in front of us. It was now evening and our plan was to catch the sunset at the top and stay there until it got dark so we could see the city skyline at night. Luckily however the wait turned out to only be about 25 minutes and we managed to jump the queue as Annie and Paul were slightly ahead of us. Eventually we made it into the lift and ascending to the 86th floor observation deck. The actual building itself is not as high as the John Hancock tower in Chicago; however the
Pretzel munching
Actualy tasted rather bad. Least I managed to eat one without choking on it Mr Bush!! skyline in NYC was much more impressive! Walking on the outside deck you could see for miles, though the view was a bit hazy probably down to pollution and the heat you could still see very far across to the surrounding mainland and make out clearly the statue of liberty. From the uptown side you could make out all of central park, and onto Harlem, from the left hand side you could see the Brookland Bridge. It was pretty breath taking, but as night drew in and the sun went down the view become even more fantastic, the whole skyline lit up. Down bellow streets such as Broadway were bright with all the bustle of taxi cabs and cars, and many other smaller skyscrapers such as the Chrysler building looked fantastic with their night lighting on. Looking downtown you could definitely see where the twin towers would have been so it did seem like there was something missing from the skyline.
After spending at least a couple of hours there, we decided to head back down and get something to eat (once again I was hungry). We decided to eat a place Id wanted to go to our whole
Empire State
Towering over the city, very impressive building. time in the states…..HOOTERS! Obviously the main reason I wanted to go was because of the food……..right (the waitresses all wear next to nothing and are usually all stunning!)! We hadn’t yet had a ride in yellow taxi and no trip to NY would be complete without it so we thumbed one down and got it to take us to our destination, at a speed which seemed way above the limit! He didn’t even know where he was going and dropped us off about 5 blocks away! The food at Hooters was did end up being pretty damn good, of course we also had great service (lads you would of loved it!;-)!!
Next morning we headed out to central Park and ended up going by horse and cart around the park which is actually quite scenic. Kim was in her element as the guy taking us round went through all the places where parts of famous movies had been filmed there. After the ride we headed out of the park and come across a band playing on a stage on the street called the Dixie Chicks (pretty well known in America and those who like country music) playing so
View form atop the Empire State
Pretty fantastic view of the island, even if it was a bit hazy that day. we hung around for a bit and watched them, not really our bag to be honest!! After being in New York for several days now we Kim finally got to do what she had been looking forward to for 6 months…..SHOPPING!! So I let her and Annie go and shop them selves to death while me and Paul also had a look round for souvenirs and some clothes albeit to a lesser scale then the girls!! During the shopping the girls went to look to see if they could buy some Broadway tickets for a show. After a tiring day walking round to we all headed back to meet at the hostel and I had found Kim had bought tickets for a show called Lestat (based on the interview with a vampire books). I wasn’t too happy that the tickets were twice as expensive as we had been given to believe and was a bit angry that the girls hadn’t phoned us to check to see if we were willing to pay the price. However I couldn’t get a refund and had to go (still owe Kim for the ticket shhh). The show itself I found personally pretty boring though
The gang & Kims giant head
Kim, me Annie and Paul on the viewing platform. some of the visual effects were pretty impressive, the girls seemed to enjoy however. The whole audience found it funny when the main stars wig fell off by accident half way through the play!! At least I can say I’ve seen a Broadway show in New York *shrug*
The next day it was just Kim and I as Annie and Paul had headed back to Canada. We spent most of the time over the next few days shopping round. We both visited museums, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art which has things like Egyptian/ medieval etc art and relics, and Kim visited The Museum of Modern Art, both were enjoyable. We generally took a last look around the city before preparing to go home. Even though New York is a fantastic city we were very excited about getting back home to surprise everyone. I was very content in the fact that we had made it for six months and everything had gone well and most of all Kim and I were still talking and actually getting on!! As mentioned above we felt we had been very lucky on our travels but on the last day, in fact
Statue of Liberty
Kims impression, see the vacant look in her eyes....... the morning of our flight back to the UK I and three others in the dorm woke up to find that someone had been through our wallets and stolen money and credit cards. I cancelled mine straight away and reported it to the police, luckily Kim’s cards were not stolen (probably because her bag was so full of crap they couldn't find it) so I was able to borrow some money from her. Typical that something like that would happen on the last day!!! I wasn’t too annoyed as I was far more excited about the prospect of coming home. We both felt we had seen lots of different sides of the US, and both agree that we had great experiences. It definitely wasn't the best country we visited but was really interesting and certainly exceeded our expectations. It was the only country in which we went where many of the stereotypes seemed to be proved true. What got me most was the amount of truly bizarre people there are. One night whilst having dinner at a restaurant in Time Square we looked out the window to see a big black man wearing a pink dress, smoking and dancing to
New York City at night
Amazing skyline, quite breath taking.. the music coming from our restaurant, it didn’t even shock us that much anymore as we had come accustomed to seeing bizarre things in the states. The US was a very strange country…… Bring on England!
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