New York / New York

NEW YORK - 20th May? 1 week

New York is simply one of the greatest Cities on the planet. I never had any real desire to visit, well I wasn't in a hurry to visit more like. But as soon as we came out the Lincoln Tunnel I was blown away with the skyline. It was HUGE, way more impressive than Chicagos. We pulled into the station and jumped into a yellow cab and headed to our hostel on Broadway in upper Manhatten.

Our dorm was TINY, 4 of us crammed into a train carriage sized room with 2 bunks, the hostel itself was ok though and was in a great location. I think we had breakfast at Broadway Bagels every day for 7 days, it was cheap, fast and nice.

I think the thing I liked most about New york apart from the architecture was the Villages, East and Greenwich..you could wander around for days just looking in shops. Being on a budget turned us onto Happy Hour, something I wish we had in the UK, it's great finding a nice little bar and drinking dollar bottles in the afternoon. I much prefer the drinking scene in the US, it's more laid back and more focussed on talking with friends, similar to the Australian drinking scene..in fact I think it's only the UK that drinking is focussed on load music and talking desperately to the oposite sex. It's not all like that but you know what I mean.

Anway, we spent a day wakling round lower Manhattan, we caught the free ferry to Statten Island which is grea because you get to see Liberty Island and Ellis Island fairly close without having to pay for a ferry tour. Ground Zero was ok, seems like they've left it like it is for so long purely for affect when a new tower or statue or monument would be a lot more fitting.

Another day was spent in the Villages and Chinatown as mentione before, went to a cool little record store and bought some nice records which I then had to carry round with me for the next 6 months.

A day was spent walking the Brooklyn Bridge to....Brooklyn. Nails needed a pee a quarter of the way across, not realising how bloody long that Bridge is. We finally get across to the other side and the queue to the pizza place under the Bridge (Grimaldi's - check it out, it's awesome) anyway, Nails skipped the queue and ran in to relieve himself. The pizza was good and we jumped on the subwa to Coney Island....What a shithole. Coney Island is nasty, that said we rode the old wooden big dipper that was actually more fun than a lot of modern rides and Hat got to have a Hot Dog at Nathans.

(Me, outside Nathans)

After the "delights" of Coney Island we went for drinks and "thrift store" shopping in Williamsburg. I really liked Williamsburg despite the hipsters, I think they added to the place. It's weird sitting in a bar where a group of 20 somethings are sitting ound a table drinking, all have thei dogs with them in the bar.

Oh, we watched the Champions league final in NYC, Liverpool lost. We along with 2 Milans fans were the only ones watching it in the bar.

What else? Empire State building, that was cool..one of my fave building and much more to it than Sears Tower. Times Square was pretty average, Central Park was great, got to see the Lennon Memorial and took some pics of the Dakota building.