Jul 2007

Li and I departed Las Vegas with a lot of expectations of what New York city would bring. We had our fair share of California deserts, San Fran hippies, LA traffic, Vegas trash and were ready to see what the other side had to offer.

I guess I should make it clear from the start. We absolutely LOVE New York City. But, before I launch into a full blown love-rant, I'll give you a little run down of what we actually saw and did.

We arrived on a drizzly but sunny afternoon, sharing a shuttle bus with a local New York family and various other visitors. Our path into the city (i think) took us through the borders of the bronx then onto manhattan island, through harlem, uptown, along central park until we reached the east village where our hostel was. It seems silly to say this, but New York immediately looked like New York. Lots of tall brick apartment blocks, the afternoon sun casting long abstract shadows through the iron fire escapes and lighting up the tree lined streets, like green glowing lanterns.....pretty!

Now, our hostel. We had stayed in our fair share of hostels by this point and had some really great experiences. This particular hostel was not one of them. The rooms were tiny, there was no kitchen, it was stinky, old, dirty and the staff were absolutely useless and obviously didn't give a shit. Also, there were rats. It was my pleasure to discover this little fact. As i went to eat my daily banana i noticed the bottom had been bitten into and hollowed out from inside. We didnt keep food in the room again after that. I'm sure many of you have stayed in hostels much worse than this, but when you are staying in a place for 12 days and the humidity is like one billion percent, a bed that doesn't emit a roaring crinkling noise whenever you turnover would have been nice. (The mattresses were made of a similar material to tarpaulin - lovely).

Anyway enough bitching, more loving!

Li and i spent the first couple of days before the others arrived on one of those idiot tour buses. Yes, yes i know - it was the first time we did something so blatantly touristy but it was actually a really good way to see a lot of the city in a short amount of time and get our bearings. We drove around manhattan and did a quick trip through brooklyn (which is to the east of manhattan island). We then marked off places that caught our attention and proceeded to explore on foot and were soon joined by our fellow travellers from California and some new arrivals from Oz - Keegan and Willow.

Basically there was a lot of wide-eyed slack jawed staring, walking, eating, shopping, eating, looking, eating, drooling and coveting all the things we could not take home with us.

Despite our hostel being such a hole, it was very well located and we explored the east village, lower west side and surrounding areas quite a lot. New York is just jam packed with an amazing selection of restaurants, shops, bars, vintage boutiques, cheap cheap quirky eateries, just so much fun stuff i cant list them off. We would start every day off with a bagel from David's Bagels, just around the corner from our hostel. one buck and ten cents for a massive bagel with an array of fillings. I was never game enough to try chopped liver, so i stuck to my cream cheese and chives! We ate at a new place everyday for dinner, every place as fun and affordable as the last. We checked out all the sights and galleries. Usually the touristy things are just stuff you have to get out of the way before you get to the cool stuff, but in New York, ALL the stuff is cool - touristy or not! Its just such a beautiful, cultured and exciting city, parks everywhere, lots of fresh fruit sellers on street corners, the galleries were the best ive been to, places like the empire state building, chrysler building, times square, statue of liberty, brooklyn bridge....they are all such icons it makes you feel like you are walking around in a postcard\movie.

I could go on and on (i think i already have) but basically, New York is heaven for all the things we like. It has an awesome relaxed vibe, in contrast to what i was expecting. Now we just need to find a way to get back there!

I am writing this blog from Norway, and of all the places we have been to so far (besides Iceland) New York is at the top of the list.

Much love to you all my friends. Next installment is Liam's entry from his Transformer convention in Rhode Island (nerd!) and i will tell you all about the wonder that is Iceland.

xs

ps. there are heaps of new photos on the flickr page- we may not have kept up to date with the blog entries, but the photos are there! More to come as we slow down over the next 5 weeks, and expect a whole lot more when we've stopped travelling altogether