NEW YORK - DAY 5

This was our last day in NYC. We had to leave the city at 5:30pm in order to fly home. Before making our way to Newark, NJ we had a couple of things left to do! We had to wake up super  early to make our way down to Battery Park in order to get on a ferry to Ellis Island. This is the island where all the immigrants that came to America had to go through before they were aloud to enter, work and live in the United States. The ferry passed the Statue of Liberty on its way to Ellis so I was able to take some photos with my, this time, charged camera! 

We grabbed an audio tour when we arrived at the Ellis Island museum. The whole thing was really very interesting. It's kind of hard to imagine what it was immigration was way back when. We walked through the main hall where 80 years ago thousands of immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Britain, Russia etc would have stood waiting to see if the 6 month journey on a very cramped and horrible ferry ride was worth it, or if they had to turn around and go back home. We stayed at the museum for around 2, 2 and a half hours and I have to say, as someone who enjoys history, I really found the whole thing very interesting. 

A real Oscar! (Bob Hope's Oscar) 

After getting back on to the mainland we had some lunch/breakfast in a little Diner a couple of blocks away from Grand Central Station. As we made our way back to the hotel we went to see B.B King's bar on Times Square. 

We also passed the Men In Black headquarters. (Well, maybe. It looks like the building from the film though! I love MIB!)

We were nearly back at the hotel when we saw a few people standing outside a building shouting "Emma!" Obviously I was confused! However when I looked at the signs on the barrier I realised that they were standing outside  Late Show With David Letterman. After asking around we found out that Emma Stone, from the new Spider Man, was in there. If we had time and it was not raining we might have stayed to see her come out of the building, but we had a flight to catch and we were soaking wet so we went and had a lovely piece of New York Cheesecake at Lindys! (However, If Rhys Ifans was in there I would have stayed and missed out the cheesecake!) 


At half past 5 the bus took us to the airport and after hanging around talking to a few people in the departure area we got on the plane back home! It was an awesome trip! Tiring, yes! But AWESOME!

NEW YORK - DAY 4

Day 4 in NYC was a more relaxing (but still a very busy) day. We woke up around 9am and headed over to 42nd on 5th to watch the Gay Pride Parade. It wasn't very hard to find  as there were men covered in glitter, wearing fairy wings and pink speedos everywhere!. Also there were 7ft drag queens walking around in nothing more than a couple of feathers that were (thankfully) strategically placed! Everyone was dancing to Lady Gaga and rainbow flags were everywhere! After a while of standing by the barrier watching the parade I decided to go to the side and sit on the wall of the New York Public Library where the view was much better and I could see the NYPD, Fire Service along with many other services and organisations marching down 5th avenue. If I would describe the parade in one word it would be FUN, bundles of fun! 

We watched the parade for about 2 hours and after grabbing a juice from Jambo Juice we caught the Subway and headed Uptown to Central Park. When we arrived at the park we sat down for a bit on the bleachers watching the locals play baseball which was pretty darn cool. By this time we needed some lunch (it was around 3/4 o'clock!) so we headed past the volley ball courts and on the way we stopped to watch the hundreds of people chillaxing in Sheep Meadows, eventually we made it to a little restaurant in the middle of the park which made lovely salads and a very nice Mozzarella, pesto and tomato open sandwich - yuuuum! We people watched for a while and then we perused around the park whilst making our way over to Strawberry Fields, the Dakota building (where John Lennon was shot) and the 'Imagine' John Lennon memorial. The apartments in the Dakota Building cost $10million dollars each! $10million!!! Yoko Ono owns 3 of them! It surprised me how quiet Central Park was compared with the City, it was like you were in the middle of the country, well if you ignored the sky scrapers that peaked over the trees! Whilst walking around, there were runners and cyclists everywhere, they even had their own lane on the road which was quite cool! 

We raced over to pier 83 to go on a ferry, once we had finished in Central Park. The ferry left at 7pm and went around Manhattan, under the Brooklyn Bridge and passed Liberty Island on the Hudson river. The ferry lasted 2 hours, therefore as we came back to the harbour we passed the City in the night where millions of office and apartment lights lit up the sky. I had been waiting and waiting to take a picture of the statue of Liberty and just as we got close enough to take a picture my battery died! It was OK though because we were going to Ellis Island the next day so I knew I'd be able to take a picture then. The ferry was nice as we were able to see the city as well as have a bit of a break from walking everywhere!

Once we got off the Ferry we walked too Hell's Kitchen to grab some supper (it was 10pm at this point!). We ended up eating outside (it was still very hot!) at a little Italian restaurant which was nice! We then walked all the way back to our hotel, well, after stopping at Hershey's to buy some presents for people back home, and eventually got to bed at around midnight. What a relaxing day - eh?  It was a lovely day of not rushing around too much and enjoying the sunshine! 

NEW YORK - DAY 3

My legs were hurting so much by the morning of day 3! I'm used to doing a lot of exercise but having 12 hour days, walking over 8 miles a day in very high heat was something else! We decided to go and have breakfast in Applejacks on Broadway. I opted for the typical American breakfast of pancakes and syrup! Yuuum! After breakfast we caught the Subway down to the financial district and down to the World Trade center memorial. We didn't realise that we had to buy tickets, we were lucky though because they give out a certain amount of tickets a day and we were able to get these. However we got them at around 12pm and had to wait in till 3pm to actually go in to see the fountains. While we waited we headed over to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked over the bridge in to Brooklyn. The weather was beautiful so the views of Manhattan behind us were spectacular! 

After our lovely walk over the bridge we headed in to Brooklyn for some lunch. I wanted to eat at Grimaldi's but the line was so long and we didn't have much time as we had to be back for the World Trade Center memorial fountains. In the end we had to grab a yellow cab and eat after we visited the site. The security to get in to the memorial was incredibly rigorous and totally understandable. When we got in to the memorial it was a place of calm compared to the constant race that is New York. Everyone was very quiet just looking in to the fountains and reading the names on the sides. The NYPD and Fire service were all there both for security and to answer the many questions of the tourist. The fact that over 3,000 people were killed during this attack in NYC is unbelievable. Why? Well we'll never know why someone would plan such a thing, I guess we can only ask, How are we going to protect the people from terrorist attacks in the future. Close to the site were the two new freedom towers they are building. One of them has already past the hight of the Empire State and is the tallest building in NYC and it hasn't even finished being built yet! 

After our time remembering those from 9\11 we headed for some lunch. We eventually found a little place close to the financial district that was populated with the locals so we guessed it was good before we even received our food! Once we finished our lovely, and much needed, lunch (at around 4:30pm!) we caught another Subway and made our way to SOHO. I have to say that SOHO was one of my favorite things about our trip to NYC. When we got out of the subway and in to SOHO square the calmness of the place and the lack of crowds and noise was noticeable and appreciated! It was a nice little escape from the 24hour party that is the Big Apple! The houses were hidden behind loads of trees, there was (which I thought was awesome) a caged basketball park just off the street that you see in films! There were nice little cafes and restaurants also there were small shops that we don't have in Wales like the jewelry shop Alex and Ani where I bought two new bracelets. All the bracelets have been made from recycled metal and most bracelets have a specific meaning. I bought a bracelet with a shark finn and another with an elephant. The elephant represented - Luck | Inspiration | Loyalty and the Shark Finn - Stability | Protection | Courage. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures in SOHO probably because I was too busy just taking all of it in (I loved it!) and possibly because we shopped . . . a lot! I think I bought over half of the Victoria's Secret LOVE shop! I also bought some white Converse from an actual Converse shop (which was awesome!) and we bought a couple of things from Lacoste and Levis also. 


We were supposed to go on a ferry on the Hudson around Manhattan and Liberty Island in the night, we spent so much time in lovely SOHO however we decided that we'd do it the next day. This gave us time to relax and make out way back to our hotel with enough time so we could take in the sites around us which was nice! As the weather was so warm we didn't want much for supper so we decided to go to a little health-shop-place-thing not far from our hotel and we had a juice and a little sandwich. We also bought Teddy Grahams here which they don't sell in Wales but I'd heard of people talking about them on blogs and different places. We opened the pack a couple of days ago and WOW they are awesome! SOOOO tasty! After supper (which we had at around 10pm! The New Yorkers eat so late and stay up so late!) we sat outside facing Times Square which was in the distance, watching the world go by! Lovely Jubbly!