Thursday and Friday, July 23-24, 2009 – New York City

New York, New York! To feel like real New Yorkers, we bought subway passes to get around. Not to sound like complete idiots, but the metro system is a little confusing at first, we think we sort of have it figured out now but we definitely rode the wrong direction several times and were helped out by friendly locals. Whoever says New York people are rude is wrong. First stop: Times Square and the half price ticket booth. We bought tickets to see two Broadway musicals – The Little Mermaid and Mary Poppins. The Little Mermaid was by far the better show, it was so cool to see how they did all the sets with the underwater scenes. We definitely recommend it! If you plan to use the half price ticket booth, be prepared to spend an hour or more in line. A great deal of Times Square was seen while spent standing in a queue. Rockefeller Center was somewhat of a disappointment as apparently they don’t keep the Christmas trees and ice rink going in July. Perhaps we’ll have to come back in December. We saw Battery Park and glimpsed the Statue of Liberty across the water. It would have been cool to take the ferry over to Ellis Island but we are rather broke at this point. The World Trade Center Ground Zero area was a giant building site with cranes everywhere so there wasn’t much to see. We missed getting into the visitor centre by 10 minutes. On our way down to Battery Park, we walked through the financial district but somehow failed to see Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange stuff. Oh well. The Empire State Building was sighted on our way back to Times Square from somewhere. Our most visited spots were Starbucks, Times Square and Anthropologie. At least one place is native to New York.

Unfortunately on the first day in the city, it poured rain. We bought cheapo umbrellas and Martha’s leaked. She wasn’t as thrilled as we thought she should be. The second day was full of glorious sunshine but we still haven’t gotten that tan we are in search of.

After one night at the hostel, a decision was made to see if any other alternative lodgings could be found. A hotel in Queens was located and at a decent price so we returned to the hostel to pack up. This is when we discovered that our hostel was not as secure as we would have liked. Char had left a bag of clothing beside the door with a pair of sandals next to it and now it was suddenly missing. We checked with the front desk person to see if it could have been picked up as trash although it was very unlikely. She made a quick check but didn’t turn up anything so we concluded that Char’s clothes were gone forever. There was sadness in our hearts as we have never had any problems at any other hostels. The cure for our depression was to go back to the stores and rebuy Char’s clothes. Problem solved!

All things taken into account, we very much like New York City.