I♥NY

We had a really great trip to New York! Neither of us had been before and we both loved it. The first thing that we noticed in the taxi from the airport was how tall the buildings are, and because all the roads are straight and run across the whole city you can see a really long way down each street, unlike in London.  The people all seem to be so nice and helpful, and the city is almost entirely litter-free. We stayed at The Library Hotel on Madison Avenue and 41st which was great, and the mid-town location was perfect. All the way along the street outside are plaques with quotes about books, and all of the hotel rooms are named after a different section of the Dewey system. We were in room 600.005- computers.
On the first day, Saturday, we went up the Rockefeller Centre which had amazing views from the top, especially of the Empire State Building and Central Park. After that we went to Grand Central Station, and the Apple store inside it to buy a macbook for me before having a really really good coffee. On our way to the metro to go to the meat packing district we came across a Tartan Day parade- basically lots of American people wearing traditional Scottish dress and playing the bagpipes- really bizarre in the middle of New York. There was also a high school marching band complete with baton twirlers. We went through Times Square after this which was crazy- it's basically lots of massive adverts but they are really colourful and bright and some move, so there are too many things to look at. In the meat packing district we had lunch and went round some cool little shops, also passing a mass pillow fight which apparently also took place that day in London. We walked up the Highline (an old train line that has been turned into a park/walkway you can walk along) to get part of the way back which was nice, but would probably have been even better in the summer when the trees have leaves and more plants are out. In the evening we ate in a restaurant called John's Pizza. Both the restaurant and pizza were enormous but the pizza was very fresh and tasty.
On Sunday we went to the Apple store again because my new mac didn't work! They gave us a replacement. Then we took the metro to Central Park and walked around some of it. There were groups of children playing baseball which seemed so typically American, and by the boathouse was an amazing group of entertainers- the highlight was when one of them jumped over about 6 people lined up. In the afternoon we went to Broadway to see 'Kinky Boots.' The show is set in England and the actors' accents were awful! The dialogue also has lots of random English slang like 'mate' thrown in that just sounds wrong in an American accent. But other than that it was a great show. We ate at a restaurant called The Spice Market that evening which had delicious south-east Asian food.
On the final day I packed my bags and then we went to the Brooklyn Bridge. We were going to go on the Staten Island ferry that takes you past the Statue of Liberty and gives you a great view of the NY skyline, but we arrived just as one was leaving and they're only every half an hour. So instead we walked across Brooklyn Bridge which also gave very good views of the city. For lunch we had curry (probably my favourite food!). I didn't think they had Indian food in America but at Grand Central Station there's a huge range of places to eat, and the curry tasted really good. The last thing we did was visit The New York Public Library. I think we somehow missed the main room so it wasn't that good, but it did have a cool shop! Behind the library is a nice square that has a 'reading room'- an area outside with lots of chairs and bookshelves so anyone can read there.
I left for South Carolina on Monday evening (7th April) and spent a long time at NY La Guardia airport as my flight was delayed by 3 hours! New York was great though, I'd definitely like to go back.

Brooklyn Bridge

View from the Rockefeller Centre

Grand Central Station

Tartan Day parade

The Highline

Central Park