Day 2 in NY!

Nick is a pain in the butt to get out of bed in the morning if he doesn’t want to wake up! This was one of those mornings. Eventually we got going and went off to the Cathedral of St John the Divine. I think it's America's largest Gothic Cathedral or something along those lines. Whatever it is, it was very impressive! It’s huge and there are such beautiful stained glass windows. It looks like it belongs in Europe to be perfectly honest – not on the upper west side of NY! We couldn't see the whole thing because they had a fire in 2001 and half the cathedral was shut off because they were replacing the organ. So next time I go to NY I’m definitely going to have a look at it again. Unfortunately when I got there I realised that I didn't have my camera battery so I couldn’t take any pictures which was quite irritating! I was not about to spend the whole day sightseeing without my camera so we went back to the hostel to fetch it before carrying on to Central Park.

Central Park is huge and very confusing. I wasn’t always sure where we were even though I had a map. Inside the park the first thing we went to see was the Strawberry Fields which is the John Lennon Memorial. There’s a very pretty garden around it and in the middle of the walkway is a mosaic with the word ‘Imagine’ in it. Someone had decorated it with flowers and petals. I’m not sure if it’s always like that but it looked really pretty. We then wondered down through the park to the classic carousel to have a look and then got lost on our way to the mall which is the main, tree-lined walkway through the park.

On the advice of my guidebook we headed off to Barney Greengrass the Sturgeon King for smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels which were divine. In true American style they were definitely not stingy with the salmon either. He (or his father or whoever owned the store before him) is credited with creating the smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. I think he deserves a culinary Oscar – it’s a fabulous invention!

We then headed off to Central Park again to see another section of it (I said it was huge!). First stop was Belvedere Castle. I’m not to sure why it’s in the middle of the park but you got a really good view from it! Plus I call Andrew (my brother) Belvedere sometimes so I decided I had to have a look. On our way down to the road there was an old guy on a bench who was also feeding the squirrels. After last time I decided against that idea and just settled for watching them instead. There’s a really cool statue of Alice in Wonderland in Central park as well as one of Hans Christian Anderson. They were both by a pretty pond that people were sailing little remote control sailing boats on – very picturesque! By the Alice in Wonderland statue there was a group of Jazz musicians who were really good! They had pulled in quite a crowd so we stayed and listened to them for a while.

Central Park is bordered by 5th Avenue on one side so we strolled down there and had a look at all the fancy apartments and expensive shops! The only one we bought stuff in was the Lindt store and they also give you a free sample when you walk in! I dragged Nick into the Ferragamo store to have a look. I think some of the prices shocked him! He said that the handbags price tags should have SQ on them!

Our last stop for the day was Times Square where we watched the Dark Knight in the most ridiculously huge cinema complex. I thought it was fantastic! The audience was entertaining too – cheering during certain parts of the movie and then clapping at the end. After the movie we headed out into the chaos that is Times Square at night so Nick could take some pictures. I was very glad when we got out of there and onto the train back to the hostel.