New York, New York!

Thats us not long in from a day walking around NYC! Arrived at JFK last night without any really bother. The customs guy told me to give him a break with the "nationalist stuff" after writing Scottish as my nationality on my green card. Think the guy appreciated the "patriotism" though so after changing it to UK he cheerily sent us on our way!

Stepping into the main airport terminal was pretty strange, such a massive place and the skyline is just incredible! Got a mini bus to take us to our hostel seeing as we had no real clue how the subway network worked :) Took maybe 40 mins from airport to hostel but on the way we got a great view of the Manhattan skyline. Would have taken a few pics then but we were fighting sleep and losing badly! Got into the hostel to discover we were in different rooms which at the time was a bit daunting but imo a good thing really. Im sharing with 3 Swedish guys and a Muslim women in her late 20's and her son who went to long island today to record with Keet Williams or something. Boy was only 13 but right into his rap and really friendly! he Swedish guys were up pretty early to go see the conan obrian show which only 2 of the 3 got into unfortunately.

Anyway, this morning - Got up and after getting some directions from the hostel receptionist we hopped on one of the main subway lines (#1 Broadway) via a station about 1 block north of us. Totally roasting day ( about 85-90F) and waiting for the train underground was pretty intense :D Thankfully all the trains, along with about 95% of the buildings here are air conditioned which makes getting about easy. Got down to 59th street and walked across the south edge of Central Park onto 5th avenue where we checked out the Apple store and a few other things. Didn't come here to shop however so after a nice stroll down 5th we got to the Empire State building! Cost $19 dollars each but it has to be done :D Got some great pictures of the building itself but the views from the top are incredible.

From there we grabbed some dinner in a cheap buffet place and headed down to wall street were we doubled back and checked out Grand Central Station which was pretty grand to say the least :) Headed further down again to Ground Zero where theres just an imense space and the beginnings of a building site where there building the new "Freedom Tower" due to be finished in 2012. After there we went down to battery park and jumped on a ferry that took us up the Hudson river, round the statue of liberty and then up underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Jumped back on the Subway heading uptown and got off at Time Square which was every bit as impressive as the pictures :) Hung about and got some pics then decided to go for a few drinks. Where better to go than the Time Square Hard Rock Cafe :D. The place was just the same as any other worldwide but a lot bigger, good onion rings tho! After that we just got the subway back up home and chilled out in the living room/kitchen area on the ground floor. The hostels really nice btw, really clean and a decent size, probably about 6 bathrooms on each floor which is handy in the mornings!

Theres apparently 3 beds with our names on them at our first friendly port of call in poughkeepsie. Iain bought a sim card that works in his phone and managed to phone erin. Getting the train from grand central up there on friday afternoon which gives us 2moro and friday morning to check out things like central park and the natural history museum.

We've managed to fit so much into this one day and I could go on about it for hours but im pretty beat from all the walking so i'll call it a night here. Hopefully get a few pics resized and uploaded 2moro too, taken close to 50 so far :D.

Later.


P.S - excuse the grammar, im too tired to check it :)