Frank Sinatra said it best … NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!! I was originally planning on going it alone and meeting up with a few friends and making some new aquantinaces out there, however at the last minute I managed to find a willing soul to drag around the city. After a lot of bad luck in getting to Toronto, I finally found Barbara and we set off on the overnight journey on a crampt Greyhound coach for the Big Apple!! I revised my plans on the way and flipped through the guide book once more then we ‘tried’ to get some sleep. I don’t think I slept at all and we were all herded off the bus at some ridiculous hour in the morning in Buffalo to cross the border.
DAY ONE – Coffee, Central Park and the Museum of Natural History!
We arrived in New York at about 8:00am, managed to find the subway and due to my awesomeness in planning ahead and subway instinct we got off a few stops down and walked a few blocks to the hostel where we were greeted by in interesting array of people. The hostel was great! Run by students who had graduated recently and were trying to make their way in New York, it has crazy stairs all the way up to the fourth floor and carrying bags up made you feel terrible off balance! There was a kitchen and a huge living space in the basement with thousands of DVDs and a TV. Me and Barbara were both pretty shattered after the journey so we hunted down the nearest star bucks and got ourselves loaded up with cafeen (Mocha for me … straight coffee makes me feel sick as there aren’t any calories to give me energy and I end up feeling drunk all day) and we had a muffin too =] It was a beautiful day so we headed for central park and decided to walk the few blocks to 81st street, taking in the ‘New Yorkness’. It had snowed over the last few days and the park was crisp in the sun. We spent a good few hours exploring and were surprised how warm it got at mid day (I think I had forgotten what warm felt like after living in the midst of a Canadian winter for the last few months). We walked across Great Lawn and up to the reservoir and looked over to the elitist Upper East Side! In the afternoon we headed to the museum of natural history … which is huge and covers four blocks!!! We managed to suss out where the free tours were and got shown around all the main museum treasures then visited the planetarium as we got free access for buying the city pass (a pass for all the main city attractions). We hopped on the subway and stopped off at a supermarket on the way back to the hostel to buy some food for the trip. Cooked tea that night and made friends with a Scottish guy who was from Dundee! (Small world). Spent the evening hunting down the best places to get cheap ‘on-the-day’ Broadway tickets and found a place way downtown Manhattan =O. Mary and the rest of her crew had arrived that day and we exchanged first day stories in the dorm that night before I promptly passed out onto my pillow and had the best sleep of my life.
We arrived in New York at about 8:00am, managed to find the subway and due to my awesomeness in planning ahead and subway instinct we got off a few stops down and walked a few blocks to the hostel where we were greeted by in interesting array of people. The hostel was great! Run by students who had graduated recently and were trying to make their way in New York, it has crazy stairs all the way up to the fourth floor and carrying bags up made you feel terrible off balance! There was a kitchen and a huge living space in the basement with thousands of DVDs and a TV. Me and Barbara were both pretty shattered after the journey so we hunted down the nearest star bucks and got ourselves loaded up with cafeen (Mocha for me … straight coffee makes me feel sick as there aren’t any calories to give me energy and I end up feeling drunk all day) and we had a muffin too =] It was a beautiful day so we headed for central park and decided to walk the few blocks to 81st street, taking in the ‘New Yorkness’. It had snowed over the last few days and the park was crisp in the sun. We spent a good few hours exploring and were surprised how warm it got at mid day (I think I had forgotten what warm felt like after living in the midst of a Canadian winter for the last few months). We walked across Great Lawn and up to the reservoir and looked over to the elitist Upper East Side! In the afternoon we headed to the museum of natural history … which is huge and covers four blocks!!! We managed to suss out where the free tours were and got shown around all the main museum treasures then visited the planetarium as we got free access for buying the city pass (a pass for all the main city attractions). We hopped on the subway and stopped off at a supermarket on the way back to the hostel to buy some food for the trip. Cooked tea that night and made friends with a Scottish guy who was from Dundee! (Small world). Spent the evening hunting down the best places to get cheap ‘on-the-day’ Broadway tickets and found a place way downtown Manhattan =O. Mary and the rest of her crew had arrived that day and we exchanged first day stories in the dorm that night before I promptly passed out onto my pillow and had the best sleep of my life.
DAY TWO – Broadway, Wall Street, Ground Zero, Times Square!
Up the next morning and went down to make breakfast. We managed to make it to get Broadway tickets (Im still surprised how we only got mildly lost once on the whole trip!) for hair (BIG MISTAKE!!!) We decided to do the whole financial district next and had an explore down Wall street all the way up to Ground Zero and on the way we got out photo taken in a news stand with a random man … just for fun! Stopped off for a sit down in a diner at some point during the say. Hopped on the subway to 34th street and payed Macy’s a visit … there were so many people we gave up and scouted out the empire state building and Times Square before heading back to eat and get ready for Broadway!!! So here’s the deal … I have danced since I was about 6 years old and have done a number of shows (some more professional than others) as mostly a tap dancer (Cray for you – A Broadway reproduction) and it was my dream for many years to perform on Broadway … to the events that followed this night upset me a bit. I read the review of ‘Hair’ before we bought the tickets and it said that children over the age of 10 are only allowed because of the content – you would think this was referring to a use of bad language or the odd mature comment … however, after sitting through half an hour of seeing odd sex positions and hearing disgusting comments … I decided to leave (Barbara came with me) I asked to speak to someone at the desk (turned out to be the manager for that night … eek) and told him quite politely I didn’t think the description of the show was a good representation of the mature content … Im proud of myself for making a stand, especially when I found out from Chris later that night that there is some element of naked dancing at the end of the show! (Shattered my Broadway dream a little too = [) soooooooooooo after walking out of Hair we went to Times Square, and saw EVERYTHING! From a huger Toys ‘R’ us with a freeis wheel and a real Barbie house (I’ve never wanted a Barbie sooo badly before!!) to the hard rock café! We headed back at about 11pm.
Up the next morning and went down to make breakfast. We managed to make it to get Broadway tickets (Im still surprised how we only got mildly lost once on the whole trip!) for hair (BIG MISTAKE!!!) We decided to do the whole financial district next and had an explore down Wall street all the way up to Ground Zero and on the way we got out photo taken in a news stand with a random man … just for fun! Stopped off for a sit down in a diner at some point during the say. Hopped on the subway to 34th street and payed Macy’s a visit … there were so many people we gave up and scouted out the empire state building and Times Square before heading back to eat and get ready for Broadway!!! So here’s the deal … I have danced since I was about 6 years old and have done a number of shows (some more professional than others) as mostly a tap dancer (Cray for you – A Broadway reproduction) and it was my dream for many years to perform on Broadway … to the events that followed this night upset me a bit. I read the review of ‘Hair’ before we bought the tickets and it said that children over the age of 10 are only allowed because of the content – you would think this was referring to a use of bad language or the odd mature comment … however, after sitting through half an hour of seeing odd sex positions and hearing disgusting comments … I decided to leave (Barbara came with me) I asked to speak to someone at the desk (turned out to be the manager for that night … eek) and told him quite politely I didn’t think the description of the show was a good representation of the mature content … Im proud of myself for making a stand, especially when I found out from Chris later that night that there is some element of naked dancing at the end of the show! (Shattered my Broadway dream a little too = [) soooooooooooo after walking out of Hair we went to Times Square, and saw EVERYTHING! From a huger Toys ‘R’ us with a freeis wheel and a real Barbie house (I’ve never wanted a Barbie sooo badly before!!) to the hard rock café! We headed back at about 11pm.
DAY THREE – Docks, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Brooklyn, Empire State Building!
Day three in the Big Apple!! It was a big day today!! Had a look around the docks and then decided to go and see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Got on the ferry and arrived on Liberty Island first. After looking around the island and the statue and after lunch I found … ANOTHER FREE TOUR!!! Learnt some pretty interesting things about the statue which I won’t bore you with now. Headed over to Ellis Island next where all the immigrants were processed through … trying to push my luck as always I went over to the desk in the welcome centre ‘Where do we go for the free tour sir??’ … ha-ha, he just smiled and pointed over somewhere … yeah …. I had New York sussed. Again, Ellis was a pretty interesting island and by the time we got in that night I felt like I could take a course in New York history!! We were feeling pretty adventurous and while on the subway on the way back to the hostel I decided we should change trains and go across the East river to Brooklyn … why I don’t know as there was not much to see … I think we ended up in a really dodgy part … or is Brooklyn all like that!? Chilled with Barbara, Chris, my new Australian friend (I think he may have been from Cairns!!) and some others in the basement for a bit then crashed.
I think it was this night (Valentines Day) that me, Barbara and Chris went up the empire state building … to me, this was the highlight of the trip. Looking out on the whole city going about its night, seeing the Manhattan skyline stretch out almost in infamy, surly took my breath away. I waved across the Atlantic to everyone back home =] did you see me!!?!?! … Wow it was cold that night … thermals required.
Day three in the Big Apple!! It was a big day today!! Had a look around the docks and then decided to go and see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Got on the ferry and arrived on Liberty Island first. After looking around the island and the statue and after lunch I found … ANOTHER FREE TOUR!!! Learnt some pretty interesting things about the statue which I won’t bore you with now. Headed over to Ellis Island next where all the immigrants were processed through … trying to push my luck as always I went over to the desk in the welcome centre ‘Where do we go for the free tour sir??’ … ha-ha, he just smiled and pointed over somewhere … yeah …. I had New York sussed. Again, Ellis was a pretty interesting island and by the time we got in that night I felt like I could take a course in New York history!! We were feeling pretty adventurous and while on the subway on the way back to the hostel I decided we should change trains and go across the East river to Brooklyn … why I don’t know as there was not much to see … I think we ended up in a really dodgy part … or is Brooklyn all like that!? Chilled with Barbara, Chris, my new Australian friend (I think he may have been from Cairns!!) and some others in the basement for a bit then crashed.
I think it was this night (Valentines Day) that me, Barbara and Chris went up the empire state building … to me, this was the highlight of the trip. Looking out on the whole city going about its night, seeing the Manhattan skyline stretch out almost in infamy, surly took my breath away. I waved across the Atlantic to everyone back home =] did you see me!!?!?! … Wow it was cold that night … thermals required.
DAY FOUR – Broadway take two, a night out in New York and Subway rides!!
The next morning we headed downtown to get tickets for Mamma mia and we saw the show that night … and it was AWESOME!!! We got in that night at about 11pm and I managed to get dragged out again in all the confusion and found myself on the subway at midnight heading for the New York night life! We managed to find a place that didn’t card check and had a few Margaritas courtesy of Mary. There was some confusion on how we were getting back and people end up talking cabs in all different directions back and forth for a while before we decided to explore the subway … I think we went on about 10 different trains all over Manhattan and we caused ourselves rather a lot of amusement along the way! Got back to the hostel at 4am!!! Up and out by 8 the next day (New York is the city that never sleeps!!) and saw Chris and a few others who we lost the night before walking back down 88th street … just coming in from the night out … hardcore!!
DAY FIVE – Chilin’, The Met and home =]
Last day! … What did we do!?
Last night we shifted our stuff into the next dorm as a Spanish group had taken over our room and engaged in a very interesting conversation about Malaysia with another Australian till late, when one of the students who runs the hostel came into our room as he couldn’t sleep due to some very loud conversation down the hall on his level. So on the last day w packed up to our things and headed for a coffee shop where we just chilled for the morning, read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and worked on my songs a bit more while watching the streets and people go by. I’ve actually started a song about New York! It was really cold and snowy that day so we visited the Met and used up the last few tickets on our city pass. Ended up losing Barbara in the mid centaury European gallery so later I headed back to that coffee shop, wrote my post cards and worked on my songs. Met up with Barbara at the hostel later and we moseyed down Columbus Avenue stopping off at a fruit and veg shop for me to get some long-bus-journey-home supplies. We took the subway and got off at Grand Central, found the greyhound station, got on the bus … ahhhh =] We drove through and stopped off in Pennsylvania … nice state! At some point we got to Buffalo border cross again and I think I did actually sleep the last few hours into Toronto, and then onto London. Got back onto Campus at about 2pm.
Note – At some point in the trip we went to see the public library (the one in The Day After Tomorrow film!), New York University and Columbia University (Its Ivey!!!) and walked down the Hudson river and Chelsea Piers… , but we did so much I have no idea what day we did this … anyhow it was all pretty awesome =]
To conclude – Top city, felt like I met a lot of interesting people, stretched my urban navigation skills and proved myself a useful person to go travelling with as I like to get lots done in every aspect … on a budget.
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