New York, New York!

Last night when we left the hostel it was raining! So by the time we got to the bus stop both Nick and I were rather wet - and wearing white t-shirts! The bus ride was ok -not the most comfortable trip ever but at least I had 2 seats to myself. We were both asleep when we arrived in NY this morning at 5am so the bus driver had to come and wake us up! The rest of the bus was deserted.

We went straight through to our hostel which is in Harlem on 5th Ave... it's an interesting neighbourhood! Initially they couldn't find our reservation which was annoying. We ended up waiting for ages for them to get sorted out which they eventually did (after about 45mins). We weren't in as bad a position as another poor guy who was there though - he came in when we did only to find there was someone sleeping in his bed! Then the next bed they gave him also had someone sleeping in it. Eventually we were checked in and there was no one sleeping in our room so we got to go up (even though we were technically only supposed to check in at 1pm). I was soooo happy! I promptly went to sleep for the next 2.5 hours and woke up feeling much better.

Today Nick wanted to 'get a feel for the city' so we went wondering around. Our first stop was Times Square (which was a bit tricky to find - I was having issues orientating myself!). We then wet off to find Ground Zero. There's just this huge space left in the middle of the city which is quite wierd. It's all a massive construction site now - the posters say the new tower will be finished by 2012. We then walked down to Wall St and the NYSE. I'm still amazed how tiny Wall Street actually is! I've always pictured it as much bigger and grander. We got half way down Wall St when I decided I wanted to find the bull. I've always thought it was on Wall St and that I'd missed it! But we got directions from a friendly dude in a shoe repair store and he pointed us in the right direction. Around the bull was tourist central - everyone was taking pictures with it!

On the way to catch the subway Nick had proper NY hotdogs for lunch which he said were excellent! We caught the subway to Brooklyn and walked back across the Brooklyn Bridge which was so pretty! I figured it makes far more sense to walk across the bridge looking at Manhattan than the other way around. After our stroll across the bridge we had come to the end of my 'plan' so we sat in a park and regrouped and worked out what to do next. Nick wanted to see the Flatiron building so we went to find that and then had a look at Grand Central Station which is awesome!

That completed our 'getting a feel for the city'. Now Nick and I need to sit down and work out what he wants to do that I don't (like waiting in the line for the Empire State building again), what I want to do that he doesn't (like museums...) and what we both want to do. Then I think we're going to go and have some proper NY pizza later tonight.