New York

Well I finally made it to New York after countless visits to Washington DC, Virginia and Florida. I'm staying in the HI on Amsterdam Ave. It's a couple of blocks away from Central Park, about 2/3rds of the way up Manhattan from the Statue of Liberty. It's a massive hostel but they have some tours (mostly walking tours and free!) set up, so that will help with meeting up with some others.

Spent most of the first evening taking a walk along Riverside Park, all the way down to the Columbus Circle at the southern end of Central Park. Then took a walk through Central Park back to the hostel. The guidebooks seem to suggest staying away from the Park at night, but during the evening it is packed with runners, walkers, cyclists and people walking their dogs so its not so bad.

The next day was spent wandering around Central Park again before catching the subway down to the Staten Island Ferry (which is free!) to take a look at the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately by the time the ferry left the dock, the fog had comein and so there wasn't a get deal to see, so I took the ferry straight back to Manhattan. From there I took a wander around Chinatown. Visually the place is pretty full-on, with lots of foods for sale, in little restaurants / cafes and normal food stores. What I wasn't expected so much was the smell that came from this mix of different aromas. At times it smelt wonderful, but then this was balanced with the times which smelt like an open sewer - not pleasant! I decided to give my nose a rest and headed to the UN building. To my surprise it didn't really stand out that much and seemed lost in the midst of a number of other buildings and from the look of it nothing much was happening there. After that I decided to head back to the hostel to join the first of the walking tours - the Empire State Building.

The Empire State Building tour wasn't just limited to the ESB but we were led around a number of the other sights as well, including the Columbus Circle (so a second visit in one day for me and a third in the space of 24 hours!), Union Station, FAO Schwartz (the toyshop with the big keyboard - if you've seen the film 'Big' then you've already seen the inside of this store), 5th Avenue and the Chrysler Building. By the time we got to the ESB it was already dark and we were all quite tired but we had to see the NY skyline by night so we all made the trip up to the top (luckily via a series of elevators rather than steps!). The overview of the city was stunning - once you made your way past the mass of people. After that a few of us (couple of English s and an Aussie ) headed off for something to eat. The original plan was to head off to Little India but by the time we got to street level we were all too knackered to head off there so we hit the nearest fast food place - the first of many on this trip I suspect.

The next day (Weds) was spent revisiting most of the places I had already seen the day before, but in daylight this time (including some shopping on 5th Ave - very minimal as I knew I would have to carry it along with the rest of my stuff for the next year). I also managed to fit in a number of more cultural places - the Public Library and the Natural History Museum. I was a bit disappointed by the museum as it doesn't match the standards set by the museums in London and the Smithsonian in Washington DC. The evening was spent on another walking tour - going back to the Statue of Liberty. This time the weather was much better and as it was evening we got to see both a daylight and nighttime view of both the statue and the Manhattan skyline from sea level. Whilst on Staten Island we also managed to get a quick look at a minor league game of baseball (featuring the Staten Island Rangers). I don't think they're very good - the only 3 batters (is that the correct term?) we saw from the home team didn't even make it to first base. Still we had managed to blag our way in for nothing so we hadn't lost anything! Before heading back to the hostel we took a walk around Times Square - lots of neon and lots of people looking upwards. Rather than call it quits there, a few of us decided to head back out for a few beers. Originally we were going to go to a bar near the hostel but after a recommendation from someone else, we headed back to the Times Square area. Funny old thing - we ended up in an Irish bar! A good night was had by all - I think (hic!).

After the night in the bar, Thursday started very slowly! Still I managed to make my way out to Brooklyn in order to walk back to Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge. It's a kind of wierd feeling crossing a bridge on a walkway with the traffic passing below you. After that I decided that I should just chill out for a bit and so headed for Greenwich Village to just sit and people watch in Washington Square. The square had a triumphal arch, a bit like the Arc d'Triomphe in Paris. Having been to Paris whilst I was at school, I could now say that I had seen 2 links between the 2 cities (the Statue of Liberty being the other).

Whilst I didn't have time to do everything that New York had to offer, I decided to head off on the Friday to my next stop - Philadelphia.