Notebook and Pen

Please find future blog entries at http://laurainleeds.spaces.live.com/ , where I will update regularly. 

This blog will remain open for travelling purposes in the future (near future, hopefully). Thanks for reading!

Today was our last day we had to use our New York pass and we'd saved one of the world's most famous attractions until now, the Empire State building.

As we'd already been to the Top of the Rock at night we wanted a daylight view of the city today and so naturally decided to go at the busiest time possible, at sunset.

Before this though we still had some smaller things on our list, such as taking a view of the city from the water too whilst riding the ...

This morning started off with a scene that could have been mistaken for thinking what we had in front of us was the last remains of food we'd see before we got home, and in a way it was. As we were regretfully leaving Cazzamia today a double effort was made to consume the majority of everything the luxury breakfast offered us before we limited our options to a cream cheese bagel or overpriced individual cereal bowls again tomorrow.

Since we arrived in New York and saw Ma...

After a much more relaxed morning spent in the beauty salon getting all 20 nails done (and seeing my feet the cleanest they've been in months) we helped Ali & Matt to the train station for their journey to the airport after a 6 month world trip. Jealous jealous jealous.

20 minutes later and we could use our train cards again and headed into Manhattan for the Museum of Modern Art, or the MOMA as it's known here. I've never seen such a crowded art gallery before, and beca...

Today began with a tour of Madison Square garden, led by someone who was obviously petrified he was going to lose somebody and have to tell his boss there was a lost tourist somewhere in the stadium.

The tour included getting to hold a shoe belonging to a basketball player (how exciting) and a presentation and photo opportunity with a 'real life' cheerleader. Even the teenage boys didn't look that impressed.

We did however get to see the stadium itself, ...

A so thought well planned day today started off by throwing the schedule overboard when our visit to the Statue of Liberty took four hours in total, making the rest of the day a bit of a challenge to get through. I

'd like to say it took four hours due to how interesting the island is to visit, in actual fact tickets to enter the statue's crown were sold out until November and so we could only admire the statue from the base of the island, and spent the majority of the t...

After a couple of recovery days including a much welcomed continental breakfast, 18 inch pizzas and a lot of sleep, we were ready to start making the most of the city again and today began our 7 day pass to New York's attractions.

The New York pass is a fast track way to see all of the main tourist points of the city, plus a useful queue jump to most places to avoid wasting the week in long lines. Our first stop was the Natural History Museum, located down the side o...

Another mild hangover led to another lazy day in the park, but what else is summer supposed to be for? Plus we had to save our energy for another party tonight, where our friend's hostel owner from Queens was taking us before we moved over there tomorrow.

A few hours sunbathing later and we made our now semi-regular trip over to Cazzamia, the Spanish, family run hostel Ali & Matt were staying at. Without having much info about tonight's party, other than it was going...

Another visit to the library today (mostly to use the internet this time) enabled us to find out about a weekly Couch Surfing get together at a bar near Union Square which was on tonight.

We also mastered the art of finding ways out of paying for access to the events guides on the internet and found a free writing class was taking place in Bryant Park, just behind the library later on this afternoon, which I attended out of interest and met some people, all who individua...

If this morning taught me one new thing about New York, it is that the Wall St bull has a stupid name. Three end to end walks up the street and no bull in sight, though an inflatable giant rat holding wads of cash offered some alternative.

It was surprising (and lucky) how short Wall St is, but some good photo spots of Brooklyn bridge at one end and the NY Stock Exchange at the other end made it interesting to walk down still, though probably unnecessary to do three times. ...