Chinatown, Little Italy and Greenwich VIllage...

Simply fantastic.

Seriously though, we walked for miiiiiiiles yesterday and managed to see loads again. Got the subway down to the Rockefeller centre and had a coffee in the starbucks there which was pretty sweet! From there we jumped on the subway again (which is pretty easy to use once you get used to how it works) and went to see the NYC public library which was huge! Some really nice spaces in there. Went to china town next which was really nice, felt like a million away from NYC and yet you were just a few blocks from some of the biggest landmarks in the world. We walked around there and then little Italy for a good while just taking in the atmosphere and then we headed over to Greenwich Village (Queue round of applause for Lorenzo...).

Greenwich village is pretty big as far as I could see and full of trendy restaurants, bars and clubs. I think its the NYC equivalent of the West End only much cheaper. We just strolled around for a while then got talking to one of the PR guys for one of the small bar/comedy clubs who turned out to be one of the comedians (Guy died royally on his arse but he was a nice guy all the same!).

We went for some Mexican then went back to the club and watched the show. Some pretty good comics imo, the last 2, who everyone expected to be the best, were pretty mince to be honest. They all picked up on the fact we were Scottish and got the old drinking and violence references in but it was all good fun. A few beers later..... we ended up talking to one of the comics and he was wanting to head to the west coast. He offered to chip in for petrol if their was a spare seat and we may end up taking him up on the offer! He's got some friends in Boston and Chicago which is where we're off to after poughkeepsie so he might be able to help with a place to stay also, we'll see what happens. We ended up back in time square to meet some friends of Iain and stu from back home. Chilled a bit in their flat and I was pretty knackered so decided just to jump back on the subway and head home.

NYC has been very different to how I imagined it. I mean yeah its really big and busy and theres occasionally people yellingN"EY! AM WAWKIN EEEEAR!!" things like that but its so friendly. Anytime we've been a bit stuck people have offered to help us like we were family, giving maps directions and even taking us to things like subway stations. I suppose the accent might help a bit but they do seem very friendly regardless. The subway runs 24hour and while up in the Bronx and Brooklyn its perhaps a bit more of an adventure to travel on at night, on Manhattan island it feels safer than at home! There seems to always be cops down on the platforms. All in all I'd say its been a great 3 days here and we couldn't have started in a better place! (The women in my room just offered me part of her sandwich there, she's from Denmark tho but the whole place just seems to emanate friendliness! :D). Iain managed to phone Erin, our contact in poughkeepsie, and she's organised a big party for us 2nite which should be fun! Gotta get a train from grand central about 3:30 so we've got this morning to check out Central Park, the natural history museum and a few other small things.

So far so good. I really wish the wireless wasn't so intermittent in this hostel so i could up load some pictures from all the things we've seen so far. I've already filled the camera :).

Best be off, getting kicked out of the hostel soon.

Later.