The first stop of course was every New York tourists destination - Times Square. I could just sit there for hours watching all of the people and looking at the lights and the billboards, it's captivating, if completely crowded and overwhelming. From there we walked over to Rockefeller Center to buy our City Passes which basically give us discount to all of the big tourist destinations and mean we don't have to join all of the ridiculously long queues, so it's money well spent. My Lord Rockefeller looks different to the last time I was there. In December it is an ice rink, full of skaters with over an hour long queue and Father Christmas taking pictures with happy holidayers. In the Summer, the ice is gone and there are tables and chairs and a set up bar and hoards of people eating overpriced and delicious looking food. We also heard a tour guide telling his group that they do weddings there for anything from $350 to $1500! Crazy!
Next was Grand Central Station which I didn't have a chance to visit last time, so I was looking forward to seeing the big clock that the giraffe got his head stuck in in Madagascar. It was pretty cool, a beautiful building and of course, like the rest of New York, absolutely heaving with people! There was also this archway outside of the Oyster bar that is nicknamed 'The Whispering Gallery' that Danny had heard about that we had to check out whilst we were there. Basically you each stand on opposite corners of the archway and whisper into the wall and the other can hear what you're saying, just like magic. It's super weird and I have no idea how it works, but it's a quirky little thing to go and check out whilst you are in NY that a lot of people don't know about.
By this point the evening was already upon us so we decided to go out for a few drinks. We put our name on the waiting list for a rooftop bar that we heard was good, and went round the corner to a sports bar for a couple of beers and to try to figure out the basics of baseball before we were to watch a match the next night. I think we got the gist of it by the time we had to go grab our reservation. Wow. Just wow. This rooftop, in the middle of Manhattan was just spectacular, it's no wonder there was such a long waiting list. It was like being in another world, all the glittery lights, the view, the hustle and bustle of the city, it was something else. A little bit tipsy we headed back to Times Square, ended up on a billboard, ate some pizza and then off to bed. God is this travelling malarkey tiring...
Day Two began with the Statue of Liberty. A pretty standard sight in NY but she is magnificent and we got some great pictures from the side of the boat. Like most people, we didn't spend more than 10 minutes on Staten Island before we got straight back on the boat to the mainland. We then went to Wall Street and passed the New York Stock Exchange and all the men in their funky sales jackets, and then round the corner to the World Trade Center. When Danny last came it was all construction, and when I came the museum was just being built so we had a look at the memorial and spent a long time in the museum, a long long time - it is HUGE. Honestly the size of the place is insane, you could spend an entire day in there easily. There were some really interesting exhibits and some you hear some really emotional stories. It's an incredible museum and I urge anyone to go who has the chance.
Back out in the sunshine we took a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. Well not quite all the way, maybe halfway, we took some pictures and turned straight back around. My God it was hot, so so incredibly hot. By the time we had done that, again time had escaped us so we got on the subway and began to make our way to Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets! I won't lie I was pretty dubious about how I was going to manage watching baseball for a minimum of three hours, but I actually really enjoyed it, we had a great time! The Mets may not have won, but it was a great game that left us hanging until the last pitch - I'm definitely going to try and keep up with watching it, it's the only sport that I've ever shown a slight interest in, so we shall see how that goes. As the game went into extra innings we weren't back in Manhattan until gone midnight, so it was another late night pizza stop and bed.
And then it was Saturday, already! We started off the day at the American Museum of Natural History. I took a picture of the giant talking head from 'Night at the Museum' and we looked at a load of stuffed animals, and of course the dinosaur exhibit. It was rather cool. Then we began our walk through Central Park which is just beautiful in the sunshine. We arrived at the Rockefeller Center and went to their observation deck 'Top of the Rock' and Danny had a good old time using the binoculars to see all the way to the WTC. It's always cool to see cities from so high up and get a completely different view. After that we made our way to Soho to visit the Patagonia shop, look around Chelsea Market and just have a little wander. We found the most delicious cupcake shop called 'Georgetown Cupcakes' so got some goodies from there and then went down to the driving range on the pier where Danny thoroughly enjoyed himself hitting a load of golf balls over the Hudson River, or trying to anyway. And then it was time for Aladdin!!! I am a huge musical fan, so any opportunity I get I will go and see one, and you can't possibly go to New York without catching a show on Broadway obviously! It was incredible. Amazing props, amazing costumes, amazing dancing/singing and it was so so funny. My sister tells me it is in production in the West End for next year so I will definitely be going to see it with her when it opens to compare the UK and US version. But yeh I loved it, it's definitely made it into my top five!
I've just noticed how long this blog post is getting and I don't want to bore you all, so I'll quickly flit through our fourth and final day and let you get onto the fun part - the pictures! We went to the MET which is the art museum, I was completely bored because I have no appreciation of 'art' I'm sure would be most peoples response. I fail to see how a canvas painted red with one green stripe is art. There was one picture I thought was amazing but that was it. Just one. I'm sure I'm very uncultured and have no idea, but for this reason we went and looked at the Guggenheim as a building for it's funky style and then left for the good stuff. Shopping!!! I finally went to Bloomingdales and got myself some treats and proceeded to skip for the next hour out of pure joy. I swear to God shopping releases endorphins. It makes me so happy. And then as night fell we made our way up the Empire State Building and ogled at New York City in all of it's sparkling beauty. And that was it, another destination done, just like that. Bye bye New York, I have no doubt that we will be back...
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