Thursday 7th March
New York day was here, and the day started early, 5:30 wake up, so we could all get ready and get Amelia to my parents for 7
We made it there on time but then realised we'd forgotten something at home so that added 15 minutes, still we had plenty of time, I'd allowed for that. I didn't so much allow for doing the wrong way on the M4...something I do every single time....or the delay waiting for our minibus to take us from the parking place to the airport. It saved us money, but it's a little aggravating when you're running late that you have to drive past the airport, only to come back again
Anyway, we made it to Heathrow with a massive 40 minutes to spare before boarding, just enough time for a cheese and ham toastie and to find the gate....we had to get a train to this as its a bloody long way
As you board the plane, due to the fantastic boarding routine, we had the joy of walking past all the First Class and Business Class 'Beds', if you're ever looking for a way to make yourself feel poor, get on a place
I had a window seat so for at least 10 minutes I had a view, after that it's pretty much clouds.
My plan to seat us near the toilet backfired slightly though, it was broken, grrr, still we managed to go nearly 6 hours without needing the facilities so only had to queue for 20 minutes once. I like to imagine that in First Class you get some sort of comode built into your seat and someone to wipe you when you're done....the air stewardess was most rude when I asked for similar
Skipping forward slightly, after 2 films and numerous TV program's, (I should have watched 3 films) we arrived and on leaving the plane befriended two ladies from Essex, think Stacey Solomon (who?) and you've got a good idea
We chatted as we went through customs and decided to share a 'cab' (taxi) to save money on the way. I was advised on Facebook to avoid dodgy looking foreigners that lead you into underground car parks for taxis, so the first thing we did, was follow a dodgy looking foreigner, lets call him Jamal, into a car park
I don't know whether the price he charged was good, bad, or ugly, but to be honest $70 to travel in a Lincoln town car seemed pretty reasonable and gave us some people to share the experience with
We arrived at the hotel around 15:30, I think, and it's very nice, though the bath is very shallow and doesn't hold water so it may be a showering type of holiday, it also has the most amazing view
We took a walk around the block, in the rain, trying to find somewhere to buy an umbrella, which we did. Then we went to check out Grand Central Station. It's 30 seconds from our hotel, and is amazing. When you consider when it was built its even more impressive....plus it has an Apple Store with free wifi so that was useful just to email home and let people know we'd arrive safely
The hotel is joined on to an Irish pub and it was there that we went for dinner, bizarrely we were sat outside, with patio heaters etc, it was actually really nice, warm but with character. It was hear that we gained an understanding of the 'tipping' etiquette
The waitress explained to us that a standard tip was 18% and we should tip up to 20% if the person was nice to us. Crikey, if you only get 2% more for being nice, I wouldn't lose out too much. Still, she was very nice and I think she appreciated us asking the question, we tipped her 10%....twice
By 19:30 we were both shattered, after all, that's 12:30 UK time and we'd been up since 5:30, so we went to bed and this is why I'm sat here at 3am, wide awake, typing a blog.....
Friday 8th March
Today is the day that we both, at different times, considered turning to credit card theft. Of course I'm joking, but we were amazed today that at no point did we need a PIN number when using a credit card. At the most we had to provide a signature, but they'd already given us the card back before we signed so they clearly didn't check it....on the plus side, it made paying for things really quick and easy
We woke up today to quite heavy snow, a fact that I could not easily forget as Jac kindly gave me a weather report every 2 or 3 minutes, either by telling me the snow was in her face, or that her feet were cold or wet....we had the same updates from the American girls behind us on the tour bus, so there was no chance of me forgetting it had snowed
I know as a country, in the UK, we are not used to getting snow, but it was still amazing to see how New York deals with it. By 8am there were already men out clearing all the sidewalks (pavements) and, as it stopped snowing around lunchtime, by tonight you wouldn't even know it had snowed....compare that to the UK where we'd still be seeing, and sliding on, the effects of snow for at least a week
Having been awake early today we finally ventured out around 8 o'clock, with breakfast being our first target. Being away from home, we wanted something local, something truly American, something different to the norm. So today I had a hash brown and orange juice with my sausage & egg mcmuffin
We decided to walk to Times Square, a walk of around 5 blocks, which was great as we got an idea of our surroundings and got to grips with the road network, ok it's pretty simple, but was still good to familiarise ourselves with it
We had to go and collect our bus tour tickets, which did leave me wondering why I'd paid $25 delivery for our New York passes when we had to go to the same office to get the bus tickets. Still, it gave is an opportunity to buy some theatre tickets as well. A good tip here would be when you ask for two tickets, and they give you a price, check whether its an individual price of a price for both, then you won't find yourself paying as much as we did for them. However, come Sunday night we shall be very much enjoying Spider-Man on Broadway :-)
With the snow still coming down hard we were quite pleased to get on our first tour bus, and just as amused when we realised that we couldn't see out of the windows....the tour guides favourite line was 'over there is...well...use your imagination'
We were going to do the whole loop on the bus, but around halfway we'd lost the feeling in our feet so thought it time for a walk. This worked out perfectly for a site we both wanted to visit, the World Trade Center (centre) Memorial. Our ticket, for 11am entry was printed at a rather optimistic 10:56...the shop is 10 minutes walk from the site. Still, it took around 30 minutes to clear security anyway
The memorial pools are a very impressive sight, tragic, but impressive all the same. It was quite upsetting to see the names of all the people that lost their lives that day, but what touched us both the most, apart from all the emergency services were the names followed by the words 'and her unborn child'....not only had someone lost their wife/daughter but also their child/grandchild...it certainly emphasises the tragic losses of that day, a pain that is still so clearly felt amongst the people of the city
We decided to walk down towards Battery Park after our World Trade visit, and were just in time to jump on the tour boat cruise to the Statue of Liberty, the weather still wasn't great, but the boat was heated which I think we'd have both been happy with even without seeing and sights. Luckily the mist cleared slightly as we got to the statue, and we got to see the lovely lady...she's actually a lot smaller than we both expected, though we can't actually visit up close this weekend as its still closed due to hurricane damage
After the boat tour, I'd had enough of Jac moaning about her feet being cold, so we were off to Macy's. For anyone that's not been there before, imagine Primark, 4 times the size, multiplied over 8 floors. Similar clientele, just more expensive prices. So Jac got some lovely blue wellies and a pair of funky socks and I got to admire American shoppers at their 'best'
Whilst at Macy's I did take the least exciting pictures you may see, but I was amazed to still see original wooden escalators
Before ending the day with a full loop of the bus tour and a room service meal, we did some more shopping, mainly for Amelia. We got some Skechers, a Disney towel and purse and a New York baseball cap. The best shop of them all was Toys 'r' Us, with a full size Ferris wheel inside, amazing!
Tomorrow we are planing some movie and TV tours before meeting up with friends in the evening for an NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden....can't wait :-)
Bye bye for now
Location:E 42nd St,New York,United States
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