New York

We were staying at a hostel called Jazz on the Park in New York and when we got there we we delighted as it was right beside central park and very close to the subway station. We had a week to explore New York and it was Ger's first time so got back into the tourist backpacking regime and up early in the mornings to start walking!!

We wanted to see if we could cover most things on foot seeing we could sort of take our time, so one of the first things we did was go walking all around down by ground zero, wall Street and the famous bull and then on round the coast by the ferries.

The World Trade center site was very sad it is just a building site now but you can see the remnants of the building blocks and foundations where they are building a memorial in its place, the weather was fab all day and needed to get out of it for a it so we decided to go to the famous Bodies Exhibition - real bodies that are preserved so well and you can see muscles, veins, everything! i however had to leave it early as one of the parts was showing mums to be that had died and the wee babies still inside them. It was remarkable though for those who like that sort of thing.... To clear our heads we decided to walk across the brooklyn bridge and it was fab the views were amazing although you have to make sure you stay out of the bike lane as those boys are bonkers and arent afraid to verbally assault you!

We got up on the following sunday morning and decided to go to mass at St Patricks cathedral followed by some store browsing for a while and then chill out in central park and read papers for the day, it was brilliant and that wasnt just because we had visited Tiffany´s and i bought a new charm for my bracelet back home and a new pair of shoes! The whole park was full of people and teams playing baseball, the strawberry fields were as relaxing as ever and we just picked a spot and spent a few hours there, seeing how many people we could count reading Harry Potter!!

The following day it was raining so it was a definite museum day and off we went to the Guggenheim, neither of us are terribly arty people but it was cool to go even if we didnt get why 12 flourescent light bulbs tied together was a peice of art!!

That night we meet up with a friend of ours from the hostel Callum from Reading and we headed into greenich village for a few pints! This off course turned into a bit of a pub crawl and a few hours later after having gone to comedy show by a guy called Paulie.. we ended up in the Red Lion pub with a great jazz band and Callum getting the waitresses number!

The following morning as you can guess we didnt do much at all but meet up with Callum and another friend Lynne from Edinburgh and we headed to Madison Square Gardens for the White Stripes concert. This was fab, the place was amazing just to be there and you can drink away bopping about in your seat! It was a great night and off course pints after where a must as well as hot dogs and pizza slices!

Our last full day in New York and we headed out as early as we could.. to get the ferry for Liberty and Ellis island.

It was another fab day and we got some great views and even found some of our ancestors in the lists of immigrants to Ellis island!

We finished off our day up the Empire State building for sunset before heading back to meet the lads for a leaving drink, we were all leaving the next day - thursday but it had been a great week all round and Ger got to have his infamous hot dog in New York and yes everyone leave we left without buying anything in the diamond district!!