The Big Apple

Alright. So after wanting to visiting this city for many, many years I was finally standing in a grim looking bus station, probably looking equally grim after spending the night on a bus, but feeling oddly awake and potentially grinning just a little bit from excitement. I whipped out the guidebook Hervé had so kindly lent me (it took me a while to realise that Le Rockerfella Centre and Le meatpacking district don't have the le in English. I'm smart I am). Having worked out where we were and where the hostel was, we decided to head for the corner of 5th avenue and 42nd St. just so I could take a photo of the streets 2 Mancunian clubs are named after and just so happen to be frequented by many of my friends. In doing so we found ourselves outside the NY public library. I had a photo with Patience, or Fortitude. One of the lions. I wonder if anyone does actually know which lion is which....
Having kickstarted the sightseeing so early, it was definitely time for breakfast. We ambled around looking for a) somewhere open and b) somewhere that didn't look like it might be home to a family of cockroaches. Mission accomplished and with full bellies we hopped on a subway and headed towards our hostel. We weren't able to check in yet but they did give us towels, point us in the direction of the showers and give us directions to the locker room. The hostel was fully decked out in Halloween decorations. It was a huge hostel. Goodness knows how many people can actually stay there at a time. Nice and clean though which is always a bonus.
It felt rather nice to be all clean and showered - I even put on some make-up. I was slightly inspired by the girl showing her friend how to apply foundation, and I think I may have been waiting for Nicole as well. However, feeling wonderfully refreshed and a whole host light for losing the baggage we decided to start our day in Central Park. It was beautifully sunny and warm, plus it was just 2 streets over. Perfect start!

Obelisk perhaps?

There was a massive sponsored walk going on for breast cancer so it was full of people in pink making lots of noise. Escaping the main routes, we discovered plenty of the park's monuments (most of which I couldn't tell you who it was of) and other such things to do. It was full of dog-walkers and runners. It was hard to keep Nicole from running over to every single dog whilst cooing "Puppy!!!" There was an aerobics class in front of one of those big Egyptian pointy things. Sorry I've forgotten the name of it. We also climbed a tree. Just for kicks.
We found ourselves by the Belvedere Castle and naturally went in. As we were climbing the very narrow stairs which were difficult to get up due to the volume of people trying to go down at the same time and being unable to see if anyone was coming, I was stopped by a little girl of around 9 years who boldly asked me straight out who I was. A little taken aback I told her my name. I don't think she really cared. She told me I look like Bella from Twilight then merrily skipped down the stairs. Oh well.
We moved on, jaunting merrily round some twisty paths were a man recognised my shoes. (very odd I know) before acquainting ourselves with Hans Christian Anderson who was so kind to have the little duckling open and ready for a bedtime story as well as Alice in Wonderland and all of her merry friends. How lovely :)
We left the park and hunted down some lunch. We had by this point been wandering around for a good 3 hours and it was nearing the afternoon.
Following lunch we headed towards the South of Manhattan Island. We plonked ourselves on the Staten Island ferry. This wasn't so much as to go to Staten Island as because it was free and afforded decent views of the harbour and the Statue of Liberty. It was a little windy and it was not nearly half as warm as it had been that morning so both Nicole and I found ourselves buying NY hoodies from a street vendor so as to keep warm.
We headed to Chinatown and Little Italy for dinner, stumbling across Wall Street and the mighty stock exchange on the way. Chinatown was so un-Chinese it was unbelievable, well apart from the haggling. I restricted myself as to what I bought but Nicole was on a souvenir mission. We found a nice little Italian for tea which, for $9, gave us all you can eat pasta. Not as in a salad bar, as in yummy, steaming plate of hot pasta. We could only just fit in 2 plates each and it was yummy. Oh and the cocktail menu was pretty damn impressive too. So, if ever you happen to be in NY, look up Focolare. Nom nom.
As if I have only just reached day 2. This will be an essay and a HALF! Sorry folks.
We didn't start the day quite as early as planned which is entirely the fault of me and my love of sleep. It was still a respectable start before anyone thinks I slept in until noon. Not at all. We had a leisurely breakfast (I have discovered that Americans cannot pronounce this word it's an 'eh' sound not an 'eeee'!!!) before heading back to South Manhattan, this time in time for the ferry to Liberty Island. The queue for tickets in itself was not long, but the queue for the ferry? OOF!! As a result, dinner was had in the queue., It consisted of a hot dog which was so disgusting I threw away the sausage and simply ate the bun on it's own. Nicole, having forgotten a jumper, found herself buying another hoodie.  I would say the wait was worth it. We didn't get off at Liberty Island since we didn't have monument tickets but we did explore Ellis Island and the museum about it's history as an immigration port. This took up most of our afternoon. We had enough time to go back to a shop we had seen the night before and let Nicole try on lots of dresses. She found one she liked and we headed for the hostel to make ourselves beautiful for Broadway.
I don't think I have the words to explain just how AMAZING the performance was. It was bloody awesome! It's easy to see how it's the longest running musical. At the interval, I made a mad dash for the toilets, determined not to be stuck in the unavoidable queue for the ladies, practically jumping over chairs on my way. It paid off, there was only one person in front of me and by the time I came out the queue was tailing off somewhere in the distance. It was hard to tell precisely where because of the people milling around. Our seats actually afforded us a much better view of the stage that I had been expecting so I was definitely very very pleased.
Following the show, we opted for a late time snack in a restaurant across the road. I ordered a small house wine thinking this meant a glass. It did not. We stayed there a while so I didn't have to rush my wine by downing it or something else wholly unsuitable for a young lady in a posh frock. We were on the edge of Times Square by this point so headed there. We discovered that some of the French boys were also there so we met them briefly on the red steps. It was getting late however so Nicole and I took a taxi back to the hostel.
Aha , we reach day 3 - our last in the Big Apple. It was no less busy than either of the previous 2. We were much more organised though and having marked on the map everywhere we wanted to go, we planned the most efficient route. First stop - Macy's. That shop is actually mahoosive! It had a glee section, which probably let it down a little. Who needs Glee clothing?? However, the girl from the MAC counter liked my eyeliner, which I still had on from the night before. My sister would probably call me a skank for that.

This was just around from the Empire State Building. Despite being prepared for lengthy queues, we wandered straight in, bought the tickets and up the lift to floor 86.The sky was pretty clear so we got some wonderful views of the city. Oh and a photo with King Kong. Don't know what he was doing there ;)
We moved on from there finding our way to the UN centre. You can go in and have a guided tour but we didn't. I might work there one day, who needs a tourist tour then!!! ha ha. We got some lovely photos of all the flags. I recognised barely any of them. There are far too many countries in the world.
From there we mooched to Barney's, F.A.O Schwartz and it's big piano (vue massive cheesy grin for getting a go all on my lonesome yeahy), Saks, Bloomingdale's and that might be it for the shops. We were out of place in most of them. Oh we also checked out the outside of the Rockerfella centre which just so happended to have a giant lego shop next to it. Hello lego statues. It's kinda impressive what can be made with lego!!
Having thus spent all day walking, we headed towards Times Square, this time with full camera batteries and a need for some food. It took a while to pick but we found somewhere where we muched away watching some dodgy Italian dating gameshow.
We raided M&M's world. There was a 'mood predictor'. Apparently I should be a yellow M&M because I bring sunshine into people's lives everyday. I'm a little ray of sunshinnnnneeeeee. We spent lots of time in that shop before crossing the road to the Hershey's shop. Yes, it's all about Chocolate. We met up with 2 of the Frenchies again. They wanted to go for a drink but since I was the only one over 21 and thus legal, this didn't happen. It was getting late so we bid them goodbye, and hopped in a taxi to pack away our stuf, which seemed to have doubled in size and to finish our time in New York. Sad times indeed.