Day 15 - New York

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Woke up with a bit of a sore head after Superbowl festivities and after a nice breakfast, we went to the shop downstairs to buy some gloves. We've been lucky with the weather so far however that will change later in the week.

We decided that the best way to see the main parts of New York without wasting too much time was on a 'hop on - hop off' sightseeing bus where they take you to all the main sight and you can get off whenever you like. There is a new bus every 30 minutes so you can spend as much time as you need at each stop.

We first got off at the Macy's/Madison Square Garden stop, MSG is probably the worlds most famous sports arena and unfortunately due to recent renovations we weren't able to do a tour. Looks like Loz dodged a bullet there. So we spent some time in Macy's and didn't find anything which started to frustrate Lauren a little.

Back on the bus and our plan was to stop at Greenwich Village however the tour guide on the bus said that nothing happened there until about 4pm, we bypassed that and went to the main fashion precinct Soho. One thing I've noticed is that from end to end, New York isn't as big as I thought it would be. We actually also realised that the hotel where we're staying next is a lot closer to where we are now than we thought, which shows that on a map they look much further away.

Off at Soho and had a good look around, there is a lot of money in Soho and as the tour guide said if somebody says the live there, you know they're worth a fair bit. We stuck to the main streets until Lauren suggested we walk down a side street and luckily we did because we found this really nice place for lunch.

After walking around Soho and Tribeca we were back on the bus and stayed on until the end. We took in Ground Zero which we will go back and see properly on Wednesday, Wall Street, United Nations building and the Brooklyn Bridge. Our final tour guide was really working hard for tips and ran his own stand up comedy routine which included some of the most racist jokes you've ever heard, although most people on the bus didn't speak English so he was safe.

Back to Times Square and we went to the M&M's shop, they are very popular here and the shop was packed. They have this wall where you can choose any colour you like and so we grabbed a bag and went back to the hotel.

Tried this Chinese restaurant across the road called Ruby Foo's which was like Yum Cha. It was really nice and was packed which is always a good sign. Our last stop for the day was the Broadway Comedy Club where we had bought tickets from that guy in the street.

We walked in and the room was very small and dark with not a lot of people inside. We were made to sit right at the front which meant that we would most likely become involved in the show at one time. Basically there were about 10 different stand-up comics who would each do a 5-10 minute show each. It was really good and definitely something we normally wouldn't do at home so a great experience. Lots of laughs although the crowd could have been better. It was only a small crowd and a lot of foreigners who didn't get half the jokes so at times there were only the same few people laughing. We did become part of the show when they asked if there were any foreigners in the room, the guy made fun of my accent but we got off lightly compared to others.

Tomorrow we're up early to take a ferry ride to the Statue Of Liberty, unfortunately it's closed at the moment however we will still get close enough for a good look. We'll also get back on the bus and go to Brooklyn. As tomorrow is the last nice day for a while (11 degrees), we'll also aim to finish the second half of Central Park.

Having a great time and don't want to come back. The parade is on today through the streets of New York for the Giants after their super bowl win and we've been told to stay as far away as possible as there will be people everywhere. Forgot to mention yesterday, as you might know the super bowl is also famous for the commercials that are played throughout the coverage as each 30 second slot costs so much money.

Here are some of the funnier ones that we saw, just click on each link.

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