First priority upon arriving in New York was to buy some warm clothing - it is absolutely freezing here (at least minus 3 degrees daily). We headed to Bloomingdale's department store where we picked up some bargain coats - mine cost just 15 quid! Add on to that some woolly hats, gloves and scarves bought from a market stall, and we were good to go. We spent the first day exploring the city by foot - and the city certainly has a buzz. There are a few things we swiftly learnt about New Yorkers: they are all in a hurry, whatever they're doing. Everything seems to happen at twice the pace. And they like their tips! 20% gets added to cafe/restaurant bills, and they expect a tip for the smallest reason. In fact we learnt that as soon as we arrived - as the taxi driver dropped us off at the hotel we handed him his fare plus a couple of dollars, only to have him look at the money and us in pure disgust before saying 'that's it?!?'......
On the second day we looked at shops along 5th Avenue and Times Square - there are certainly loads of bargains to be had..if only we had some money left! In the evening we headed up the Empire State Building. At 40 quid (just to take an elevator up to the 86th floor) it was a bit of a rip-off, but the views from the top were amazing and we felt it had to be done - check out our photos on Flickr!
The following day we took the 'Big Red Bus' tour which enabled us to explore a little further beyond mid-town. Ground Zero was a bizarre sight - among the high rise buildings and general hussle & bussle there is a massive gap in the landscape. Marking the spot was a display of photos taken on 9/11 - it was a really emotional and humbling experience.
We went to Carnigie Deli for lunch, where James ordered the infamous 'pastrami on rye sandwich' - an unbelievably huge mountain of meat, with a couple of almost redundant pieces of bread. He managed to polish it off though, so I gathered it was good!
Today we walked to Central Park and had a wander around, however we didn't make it the whole way round the park as it's twice the size of Monaco (I think about 66 acres)! We did want to go open air ice-skating but unfortunately the rink was shut. We did consider the frozen-over duck pond instead but decided the ice may not be quite thick enough!
On the way home we went into Tiffany's - six floors of amazingly beautiful (and expensive) jewellery. As a surprise, James whipped out his credit card and bought me.......no, not a ring.....a Tiffany heart necklace! It is lovely and something I will treasure forever.
Tomorrow is our last full day. We both can't believe we only have one full day left of our trip. Our flight is at 8pm on Thursday - BA have been threatening to strike for several days, so we are praying it doesn't happen and our flight goes ahead ok. If it does, we will be back 8am Friday - looking forward to seeing you all very soon! F&J.x.
PS We've got some fantastic New York photos here http://www.flickr.com/photos/frickley/ Click on New York on right of screen.
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