New York, New York

Start spreading the news,
Im leaving today
I want to be a part of it - New York, New York
These vagabond shoes, are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it - New York, New York
I wanna wake up in a city, that doesnt sleep
And find Im king of the hill - top of the heap, blah, blah, blah, blaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Ok, so its my own rendition of Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" but you get the jist. So New York was a pretty cool place, in fact it was great. Everything about is huge. I arrived there on a Saturday afternoon and immediately set off for Times Square. It truly is a spectacle, its kinda like Vegas lights and streets in a more confined area of space with a lot more people. We then went up into Marriot Place into the revolving restaurant for some pretty views of the city at night, great success!

The following day we headed down to Times Square again, but this time loitered around the Broadway area, our intent, to catch a Broadway show. We managed to get discount tickets to a show called "Avenue Q". It was an enjoyable show, not a typical Broadway musical with dancing but it had a theme to it and used some clever props, for instance the use of muppet like characters!

You cannot visit New York without meeting its famous damsel with her pretty golden torch, I of course mean seeing the Statue of Liberty. Having woken at 8am to swing towards Batery Park (downtown Manhattan), Arps, Tal and I bought some tickets to ride the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Island. Unfortunately, due to security (that in itself is a separate post) we could not venture into the statue but instead walked around the outskirts of Liberty Island for a semi decent look at the statue.

I found Ellis Island really interesting. Ellis Island is a 5 minute ferry ride from both Batery Park and Liberty Island and served as an inspection point for all immigrants who wished to reside in the USA. There is much more history behind it than that of course, so if you feel the need (and I suggest you do) google it :)

From there I visited Wall street, Ground Zero (that was a very creepy place) and took a stroll down the Brooklyn bridge. I also visited Little Italy (so little in fact I can't recall anything remotely Italian), SOHO (a nice funky part of town) and then back towards Queens.