a central perk!

central park - boating!
MET.
Empire State Building

American Legend.

With hot weather, it was off to the beach to top up our tans, or apply lots of sun cream and hope we don't get burnt to a crisp! That plan failed with Comedy sunburn patches- Sarah's arm swiggle, Kirsty's forhead. The others were more fortunate!

We swam in the sea, attempted bodybording without a board - Clare got carried away there!!! We ate icecream superfast!

Then after the beach we went to the fairground/ theme park, as you do!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKKl3u2o4c0

Forget I HEART NY T-Shirts, we need I SURVIVED THE CYCLONE!

tea-chickenwrap#Awesome-bringittotheUK

For greater things have yet to come, one fine day!

You're the God of this City
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation
You are

You're the Light in this darkness
You're the Hope to the hopeless
You're the Peace to the restless
You are

There is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
Greater thing have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City 

Love this song.

http://www.cccmanhattan.org/

We had a lovely relaxing Sunday.

* Got called Chluckie.

* Kirsty was renamed Kirsten.

* Played cards in Bryant Park.

* Photographed a wedding!

* Became Mary Poppins and went on a Merry Go Round!

We didn't reinact the film One Fine Day thank goodness, we made it onto the Circle Line Cruise.

I spent a very enjoyable 2 + hours being amazed at the New York skyline capturing almost every inch and angle on my poor digital camera.

Chilli dog @ Famous Dave's #tastyamericanfood:)

Empire State of Mind - Past&Future.

Broadway and bacon describe this morning! Despite best efforts to leave early we headed to Times Square where already queues had formed for tickets. This place never does empty, no matter what the time! After going in search of tickets at various theatres we settled for Wicked bacon sandwiches instead.

Construction on the Rockefeller Center began on the 17th May 1930 and was completed on November 1st 1933, thankfully the ride to the top was significantly quicker with the ceiling of the lift displaying images of the building's construction and use. 

The view was simply amazing, so why people were falling asleep on the seats at the top I have no idea!

I was a happy little history geek as we walked Wall Street, the home of the  the stock market crash of October 1929 which plunged the economy into a great depression, lots of cheerfulness here then!

I said hello to Washington. (not quite Preseident Barlett is he!)
We waved to the New York Stock Exchange and I could smell money as we passed Triffanys.

Then I said "What about breakfast at Triffany's?", She said "I think I remember the film!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ClCpfeIELw

We chilled out at Pier 17 and admired the Freedom Tower construction, when finished the (1WTC) One World Trade Center will become the tallest all-office building in the world. XOXO

Bright lights (or art) will inspire you!

New York isn’t all about fashion, we had a bit of an educational field trip.
American Museum of Natural History features a huge blue whale, a huge tree, many dinosaur bones and a handy restaurant to rest weary legs, ahem, I mean brains from all that learning!

The Moma, Momo, Mooma, Nooma was well worth a visit, it lives up to the webpage promotion: fuels creativity, ignites minds, and provides inspiration!
It distorted. German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse.
It was peaceful. (Monet)
It was A level memories. (Picasso.)
It disturbed. (Boris Mikhailov: Case History)
It was modern.
I thought a pile of actual sick was an artist’s work.
It’s not that modern!
It was sick.

We couldn’t quite manage the Joey Special, but $1 a slice pizza was a great tea!

So, the evening began, with a ANOTHER funny taxi ride, best summed up in quotes:
6 English girls.
1 American Taxi.
2 on the floor.
Queen Elizabeth III.
Nnumerous shouts of : “keep your heads down, I see 3 heads…. They will shoot me in da head!”


We queue jumped all the way into Piano’s (we love Americans after Rachel and I had been ignored during our attempts to get directions to Otto’s Shruken Head.)


Perfect timing: as “Party in the USA” played we danced the night away. XOXO

Day 2: And I was like baby, baby, baby, oh. Like baby, baby, baby no!

It was a little like confessions of a shopaholic, a trip to New York is not complete without a trip to the shops!

Even food shopping in NYC is a fun experience!
The good: the big apple really does have big apples (contender for fact of the day!)
The bad: Hershey chocolate is really horrid, who would of thought it was possible to ruin chocolate!!
The Ugly: America has really bad cheese, of the bright vibrant fake variety!

We then went to Macys, Macys, Macys oh, Like Bieber, Bieber, Bieber Yes!

So if you haven’t guessed already our first celebrity spot was the teen sensation Justin Bieber, who had just popped in to launch his perfume Someday! The shop was filled will screaming teens, crowds, mardy Macey’s staff and 6 twenty somethings running up and down the escalator to get a better view. “ I see him, he’s in red!” The New York AM paper later reports that a man launched at him from the crowd, and provided photos where he is wearing white! So perhaps we can’t quite call it meeting him, but we there as the dramatic events unfolded!

Rachel auditioned for the lead role in 27 dresses, she didn't quite try on 27 but it was near enough! :-) Now she can say that she has shopped in Macys having purchased a lovely dress. I on the other hand, can say that I got a ring stuck on my finger there!

Other highlights or should I say lowlights include the Roxy shop, Aerostaple and jacket potatoes cooked in the oven due to a powercut that left us without the microwave! XOXO

In the beginning was sleep, and sleep was disturbed and so began the epic journey over the pond!

The first leg of the journey began by car to Peterborough station, we we’re there before the staff started work, so that was early.

Nothing like a bit of Metro reading to start the day!

Adrenaline had clearly kicked in as we raced our suitcases up and over the bridge, and so we were on the train taking over all the regular commuter seats, reading, dozing, admiring the Pride and Prejudice morning sun rise!

We got in some weightlifting practice at London Kings Cross getting the suitcases on to the underground, Popeye would have been proud of us! Our challenge came later in the day when we had heave them all up millions of stairs! (Did anyone actually count them?)

As so, we made it to the airport!

We met Nay, who met Rachel’s very accurate description perfectly, complete with turquoise top and Roxy bag!

Slight hiccoup with the Weaver visa programme, a holiday isn’t a holiday if it was all plain sailing! So after tracking down a computer, shoving coins into the machine to make sure it didn’t run out Clare was allowed entry to the USA, for the SECOND time, so much for technology eh?!

We all weighed our bags… tense times, but we made it through, some people were clearly packing for 10 months not days! Clare was searched by security! It was clearly pick on Clare day!

The plane journey was good, I survived the airplane toilet after my childhood trauma of getting stuck in one.  Black Swan was probably not the best  movie to commence your holidays on, it lacked the feel good factor, but worth watching!

Gu pudding was Gu ey!

So of the several yellow taxi’s we could of picked, we ignore what the guide book says about sticking with yellow cabs and get ushered into a black huge car, with a driver named ANGEL. It was an interesting ride, less keen to talk about New York, more interested in getting us the best deal in town to get us back to the airport… talks of limo’s, 2 cabs, and his boss who owned the bus station! WE MADE IT AND PULLED UP OUTSIDE TO SEE SARAH LYNN – THE REAL LIFE NEW YORKER WAITING FOR US!

The apartment was our base, our home from home, a few minor issues, 2 of which provided lots of laughs.

 1) Clare making tea with a saucepan of boiling water.

 2) In true comedy style we arrived back to find all the electric was out, our inability to work the fuse box meant the handy man was called, just as he was about to take his last step up all those stairs…. There was light! Perfect timing!

I can’t quite put words down to describe Times Square and photos don’t quite capture the scale.

It was a bit of a Dorothy in Oz moment, we are not in Kansas anymore! Well we we’re definitely not  in Grantham anymore!

So with our first night underway we headed to our first American diner, burgers and fries all round, shakes and… gerkins – What’s that all about?!

America welcomed us with weather from home: RAIN and lots of it!

Bring on day 2! XOXO – Yay another sneaky American reference!