The first day we got there and Roy and Honey went off to JFK to drop off the car, after getting some directions from the...lovely...receptionist (she shouted at them as we needed to drop it off at a different location to one that she deemed easier to get to!!)
2 hours and 2 near death experiences, they returned to the nasty hotel and we had to move room (there was mould and dirt everywhere...) After the fun of seeing different rooms, we went to the harbour to go on our sunset cruise. We saw some lovely sights.
2 hours later, we returned to dry land and wandered in the direction pointed out as good to go for food by the rather rotund security man. We ended up somewhere on 42nd street at a Dallas BBQ grill, which had southern style food and giant cocktails (they also had giant screens which entertained us with bulls kicking idiots in the face/groin etc. y'know - bullriding...)
'Texas sized' cocktails!!
After dinner, we realised that the 'somewhere on 42nd' was actually Times Square... So we wandered about for a bit!!
The next day was an early start to get to the heliport for our helicopter trip!!
The ride was awesome, taking in aerial views of New York.
Next we went to Ground Zero (a very sombre and sad place...) and then onto the Empire State Building. Awesome views from up there.
We then wandered down 5th Avenue. As we were looking for football jerseys and stuff, we endeded up at Times Square again, and in a nice cafe for our tea. During this time we saw a procession of 17 police cars scream past one after the other, but nothing was ever in the news so dunno why!! Then back to the hotel. In a taxi. But not ANY taxi!! Honey spied a old cabbie parked stuffing his face on the corner by the Hersheys store, so we asked if we could go to Riverside and 80th, where we were staying. He said sure. Honey, Charlie and Tiny got in the back and Roy went for the front seat, but was pointed to the back seats too. We expected fold out seats facing backwards, a la typical black cabs. No. This seat folded up into Honeys knees, then the back rest up so that the passenger - Roy - was facing perpindicular (sorry for spelling) to the rest of the car, facing out the side window!! It was very funny, and people were staring, pointing, laughing and taking photos of the freak staring out of the side window at them!! Upon nearing our destination, the cabbie asked whereabouts on 89th we wanted to be dropped... Upon correcting him (he had just gone past 80th) he said "Aw, Geez" in a typical American style and did a massive U-turn back to where we needed to be!! For payment, he had said to pay "whatever we felt he deserved" as there was no metre!! We settled for $15 (the previous nights cab fare from Times Square was $10) as the journey had been so entertaining!!
The following day we went over to Central Park Zoo, where we saw some cool animals.
After the zoo we quickly went back to the hotel to escape the heat and change, before heading over to the Mets-Twins game. We were supporting the Mets, and the previous night (which was the other day we considered going to) they had won 8-1 so we thought it'd be a great game. They lost 9-0 and we had some annoying kids behind us screaming the whole time for the Twins and kicking the back of our chairs!! Enjoyed the experience though.
Final (half) day and we got a $65 tank-xi to JFK (a huge 4x4 driven by a...feisty...Mexican guy) Seeing as a regular cab would have been about $50 and we mwould havehad trouble fitting our crap in the back, it seemed like a good deal to survive the scary New Yorker driving. We then spent 6 hours in JFK, were delayed an hour on the runway and had a really turbulent flight back... :-)
All in all, an amazing time was had by all over the period of the month, but now we all need to get back to the real world and back to work. Once we find jobs...
Thanks for following us, and apologies for the massive gap in updates!!
All the best,
Tiny, Charlie, Honey and Roy.
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